Topic
Biblical Theology
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The Requirements for Priesthood and Sacrifice
Leviticus 21–22 sets out strict requirements for both the priests who offer sacrifice and the animals brought to the altar: wholeness, purity, and freedom from defect. These ceremonial regulations are not arbitrary exclusions but typological anticipations of the one perfect High Priest and the one perfect sacrifice that God himself would provide in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The sermon works through the four sections of the passage — practical restrictions on priests, physical requirements for priests, regulations concerning priestly food, and physical requirements for sacrificial animals — before turning to Hebrews 7–10 to show how Christ fulfills and surpasses everything the Levitical system could only shadow. The conclusion calls the congregation to the Lord's Supper with eyes fixed not on themselves but on the one who offered himself once for all and sat down.
The Intercession of Moses for the People, Judgement by God, and Folly of Israel
Numbers 14 records the aftermath of Israel's refusal to enter Canaan, and this exposition works through three movements in verses 11–45: Moses' intercession before a holy God, God's measured judgment upon the faithless generation, and Israel's final act of presumptuous folly. Moses' prayer is examined as a model of bold, Scripture-grounded intercession — appealing to God's reputation among the nations, His covenant character revealed in Exodus 34, and the precedent of His patient mercy. The chapter ultimately teaches that faithless cowardice is the fruit of rejecting the living God, that covenant-breaking brings assured judgment, and that faith in God's promises is the only ground of genuine courage.
The Martyrdom of Stephen
Acts 7:54–8:1 records the martyrdom of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, whose death exposes the murderous hatred that unbelieving Israel bore toward the Messiah and those who bore witness to Him. Standing alone before the Sanhedrin, Stephen receives a vision of the glory of God and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of the Father — confirming his theology of temple, rebuking his executioners, and manifesting the presence of the triune God with His servant in extremity. His dying words, mirroring Christ's own prayers from the cross, demonstrate that true temple worship — the meeting of God and sinners in prayer and forgiveness — is found not in any physical structure but in the Lord Jesus Christ. The passage calls believers to theological preparedness, courageous witness, and dependence on the triune God in the face of opposition, however severe.
The rebellion in the wilderness
Numbers 14:1–12 records the congregation of Israel responding to the faithless report of the ten spies with weeping, complaint against Moses and Aaron, blasphemy against God, and a proposal to appoint a new leader and return to Egypt. The passage exposes the idolatry underlying Israel's rebellion — not merely a preference for Egyptian food, but a wholesale rejection of Yahweh in favor of the gods they had left behind. God's response in verses 11–12, spoken in what theologians call the 'manner of men,' underscores the gravity of Israel's sin, the holiness of God's judgment, and sets the stage for Moses' remarkable intercession on behalf of a people who had just sought to stone him.
Ask FGBC #14: How do we connect modern day Israel to Old & New Covenant Promises?
How should Christians understand the modern state of Israel, the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants, and the land promises in light of the New Testament? This Q&A exchange argues that the church is not a replacement for Israel but is the eschatological Israel of Old Testament prophecy — one people of God, Jew and Gentile together, united in Christ. Dispensationalism's two-peoples-of-God framework is evaluated and rejected on hermeneutical grounds, with Romans 11, the Davidic covenant, and the land promise examined in turn. The conversation broadens into the necessity of reading Scripture canonically and horizontally, the value of confessionalism, and the danger of allowing political rhetoric to distort biblical interpretation.
Ask FGBC #13: Is there a difference between our temptations and what Jesus faced?
The question at hand is whether the temptations Jesus faced were different in kind from those faced by fallen human beings. The discussion distinguishes between the sinless nature Christ assumed — not fallen, yet genuinely human — and the far harsher conditions under which he was tempted compared to Adam in paradise. Drawing on the Adam-Christ typology found in Luke 3–4 and Matthew, the speakers explore why the Son of God's obedience in a fallen, hostile world makes his conquest of temptation more weighty than Adam's failure in paradise.
Ask FGBC #12: Can I apply Old Testament promises to my life?
The question of whether Old Testament promises — such as Jeremiah 29:11 — can be applied by Christians today requires careful attention to covenantal epochs, the progress of revelation, and the organic unity of Scripture. The discussion distinguishes between positive laws tied to Israel's tenure in the land, moral principles embedded within those laws that endure, and the climactic focus of all Scripture on the incarnation, sufferings, and glory of Christ (Galatians 4:4). The Old Testament is affirmed as the Christian's book, but application must reckon with the difference between Old Covenant and New Covenant rather than collapsing that distinction into a flat one-for-one transference. Faithful reading looks first for something larger than the reader — the mediator of salvation — and from that vantage point finds genuine ground for hope and doxology.
The Reconnaissance of the Land
Numbers 13 records the reconnaissance of Canaan, in which twelve tribal leaders are sent to survey the land God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Ten of the spies return with a report grounded not in the word of the living God but in an appeal to fear, functioning as anti-prophets who slander the land and paralyze the congregation — while Caleb calls the people to immediate, faith-driven obedience. The chapter exposes the difference between faithless fear and faithful courage as the decisive interpretive divide among those who witnessed the same evidence and held the same promise. The narrative calls believers to ground their courage not in the absence of obstacles but in the sovereign faithfulness of God, who has promised, guided, and proven himself in redemptive history.
The Gospel of Christ in the Valley of Elah
David's victory over Goliath in 1 Samuel 17 is not merely an episode in Israelite history but a Christological shadow pointing forward to the greater conquest of Christ over Satan at Golgotha. This sermon works through twelve points of typological correspondence between David and Christ — from Bethlehem's birthplace, to the shepherd-king, to vicarious representation, to the skull motif of Genesis 3:15 — demonstrating that the whole of Scripture is organically unified around the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The exposition serves as a Lord's Supper meditation, calling believers to rejoice in their conquering substitute and urging the unconverted to flee to the champion who uses death itself to destroy death.
The Glory of God in the Valley of Elah
Standing in the Valley of Elah, the armies of Israel cower before Goliath for forty days — not merely from want of courage, but from failure to rest upon the covenant promises of God. Against this backdrop of faithless fear, David's response exposes what true faith looks like: a jealous zeal for the honor of Yahweh, grounded in historical retrospect upon God's past deliverances, expressed in bold confidence that the Lord of hosts will act. The narrative drives toward a climax in which Goliath falls on his face to the earth — mirroring the fall of his god Dagon before the ark — as a forced worship of the very God he defied, and the whole account points forward to Christ, the greater Shepherd-King who crushes the head of that ultimate enemy at the cross.
Bible Study - Numbers 12: 1-16
Numbers 12 records the rebellion of Miriam and Aaron against Moses, ostensibly over his Cushite wife but in reality a challenge to his God-given authority as Israel's unique covenant mediator. The passage establishes a hierarchy of prophetic revelation — vision and dream to the prophets, but face-to-face speech to Moses — which God himself defends by immediately judging Miriam with leprosy. Moses' humility and intercessory prayer on behalf of his accusers point forward typologically to the greater Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone bears the full weight of God's people and speaks face-to-face with the Father.
Gospel Treasure in Human Weakness
Gospel ministry is defined by the preaching of Christ alone, not the self-promotion of the minister. Expounding 2 Corinthians 4:5–7, this sermon traces four marks of faithful gospel ministry: the obscurity of the minister who refuses to preach himself, his bondservice to the congregation for Christ's sake, the divine illumination that enables true proclamation, and the humility of an earthen vessel that magnifies the treasure it carries rather than the vessel itself. The call throughout is for preachers to disappear so that only Christ is seen, and for congregations to demand nothing less.
The complaint of the people
Numbers 11 records the complaint of Israel in the wilderness — a sin that provokes divine judgment, exposes the limits of Moses as covenant mediator, and points forward to the burden-bearing Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. The chapter is not a collection of independent narratives but a unified account of complaint (vv. 1–15), the appointment of seventy elders (vv. 16–30), and the execution of God's judgment (vv. 31–35). Israel's craving for meat is not mere hunger but a rejection of Yahweh as their God — an idolatrous longing for Egypt that God answers with poetic justice. The passage calls the new-covenant people of God to replace grumbling with gratitude, recognizing that God is to be valued for his own sake, not merely for what he provides.
Departure from Sinai
Numbers 10:11–36 records Israel's long-awaited departure from Sinai, the first movement of a covenant community organized around the visible presence of God. The passage is examined under three headings: the ordered departure of the tribes, Moses' invitation to Hobab as an exercise of providential wisdom, and the petitionary prayers at departure and rest that frame the entire march. The sermon draws out a sustained tension between the ideal covenant life depicted in the legislation of Exodus and Leviticus and the realistic failure narrated immediately in Numbers 11–12, pressing the parallel to New Covenant believers who are fickle yet sustained by a faithful God and the advocacy of Jesus Christ.
Bible Study - Intro to the book of Numbers
The Book of Numbers records the wilderness sojourn of the covenant community of Israel as they journey from Mount Sinai to the plains of Moab — a journey spanning forty years and two generations. The book is set within the broader flow of the Pentateuch, where the promise to the patriarchs in Genesis drives every subsequent movement: God's deliverance in Exodus, his dwelling and the legislation of sacrifice and priesthood in Leviticus, and now his guidance and preservation of his people in Numbers. The overarching theme is the faithfulness of God — not the merit of Israel — as the sole ground of the covenant relationship, a faithfulness that ultimately points forward to the true Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom all the promises of God are yes and amen.
The Introduction to Philippians
Philippians 1:1–2 provides the occasion for a thorough introduction to the letter: its authorship, historical setting, the founding of the church at Philippi, and the theological freight carried by Paul's opening greeting. The sermon traces Paul's second missionary journey through Acts 16, showing how the Spirit's sovereign direction, the conversion of Lydia, and the imprisonment and conversion of the Philippian jailer together laid the foundation of the church. Church officers (bishops and deacons as distinct but biblically defined offices), the nature of sainthood, and the doctrine of justification by faith alone — with particular attention to the imputed righteousness of Christ — are expounded as the letter's governing themes. Hearers are called to rest their standing before God not in any righteousness of their own but in the righteousness of Christ received through faith alone.
Ask FGBC #10: Why should only believers be baptized?
This Q&A episode addresses the Reformed Baptist argument that only professing believers are proper subjects of baptism. Drawing on the distinction between moral law and positive law, and grounding baptism firmly in the New Covenant rather than the Abrahamic covenant, the speaker argues that circumcision was an ordinance tied to a specific historical covenant now abrogated, and that its recipient-list cannot be transferred to baptism. The episode also traces the historical development of paedobaptism from pre-Reformation sacerdotalism to the covenantal argument codified in the Westminster Confession.
Introduction to the book of Numbers
The book of Numbers records Israel's wilderness sojourn from Sinai to the plains of Moab, functioning as the narrative of a covenant community learning to live under Yahweh's sovereign guidance. This introductory study surveys the title, authorship, structure, and major themes of Numbers within the framework of the whole Pentateuch, tracing how the glory cloud of Exodus 40 provides the predicate for both Leviticus and Numbers. The overarching argument is that every element of the book — census, legislation, failure, and restoration — testifies not to Israel's faithfulness but to God's faithfulness to his covenant promise to the patriarchs, a promise that finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Bible Study - Saul and the witch at Endor
King Saul's consultation with the witch at Endor (1 Samuel 28) illustrates the catastrophic spiritual consequences of persistent disobedience to God's revealed word. Having been cut off from God through compounding acts of rebellion — beginning in 1 Samuel 13 and 15 — Saul finds himself without prophetic word, priestly access, or divine dream, and turns in desperation to a source God had expressly condemned. The narrative is set in deliberate contrast with David, who, though not sinless, maintained communion with God through repentance and reliance on the means of grace. The lesson closes with a call to seek God earnestly through Scripture and prayer rather than turning to any substitute, however desperate the circumstances.
CLIP: For many are called, but few are chosen
Matthew 22:14 — 'For many are called, but few are chosen' — is one of the most misread verses in the Gospels. This clip works through five reasons the statement cannot mean that only a small number will ultimately be saved: its immediate covenantal context (old covenant Israel's rejection of the Messiah), the great multitude of Revelation 7, the many who come from east and west in Matthew 8, the wedding hall filled with guests in Matthew 22:10, and Warfield's observation that the statement is an ethical confrontation rather than a prophetic census. The 'many called, few chosen' formula applies first to first-century Israel and then functions as a present warning: hearing the gospel is not the same as being effectually called, and the proper response is to receive and rest in Christ alone.
The Parable of the Wedding Feast
The Parable of the Wedding Feast in Matthew 22:1–14 sets the rejection of Messiah by old covenant Israel within the full sweep of redemptive history, showing that their unwillingness, indifference, and violent opposition to Christ fulfilled the covenant-curse terms announced in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. The second invitation extends the gospel indiscriminately to Jew and Gentile alike, yet the man without a wedding garment — representing those who lack the imputed righteousness of Christ — is cast into outer darkness, demonstrating that entrance to the marriage supper of the Lamb requires being washed in Christ's blood and clothed in his alien righteousness. The closing verse, 'many are called but few are chosen,' is read as a specific condemnation of first-century Israel rather than a general statement about the smallness of the elect. The sermon closes with a call to receive the general and effectual calls of the gospel in gratitude, and transitions into the Lord's Supper as a foretaste of that feast.
August 25, 2024 AM
The doctrinal legacy of the Apostle Paul is surveyed across seven theological themes: the comprehensive nature of sin and depravity, the incarnation of the divine Son of God, the sovereignty of the triune God in salvation, amazing grace, justification by faith alone, sanctification in union with Christ, and a simple and glorious eschatology. Paul's writings are shown to move consistently from the gravity of man's ruin to the glory of God's redeeming grace in Christ. The sermon closes with a direct call to believers to be built up in the knowledge of the gospel, and to those outside of Christ to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
Ask FGBC #9 - How is Jesus the greater fulfillment of the Old Testament Israel?
How does the New Testament present Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament Israel? This question-and-answer exchange traces the biblical-theological thread from Adam as 'son of God' in Luke 3:38, through Israel as God's firstborn son in Exodus 4, through the Exodus typology developed by the prophets, to Jesus as the obedient new Israel and last Adam who accomplishes what both God's first son and corporate Israel failed to do. The discussion concludes with the observation that the apostles read the Old Testament through Christ because he is their Lord — what one participant calls 'lordship hermeneutics.'
The Believer's Race
Hebrews 12:1 commands the people of God to run with endurance the race set before them — a race marked by real obstacles, both the weights that encumber and the sins that ensnare. The sermon works through the broader perseverance theme of Hebrews, identifies the duty, obstacles, and manner of the Christian race, and then turns to the cloud of witnesses of Hebrews 11 as the primary incentive: not spectators watching the runner, but testimony from Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, the judges, David, and the prophets that God is faithful in every conceivable circumstance. The appeal is not to muster willpower but to look by faith at those who have gone before, hear their unified witness that God upholds his people, and so press forward in the joy and gratitude that belongs to those justified by grace through faith in Christ.
2LCF 19 - Of the Law of God
Jonah 4 exposes the prophet's petty anger at the mercy of God shown to Nineveh, and uses that anger as a foil to magnify the character of Yahweh as the one whose very essence is goodness, grace, and lovingkindness. The sermon traces two movements: the prophet's unrighteous anger in verses 1–4, and the Lord's patient, sovereign mercy in verses 5–11, culminating in God's unanswered question — 'Should I not pity Nineveh?' — which the book leaves open as a rebuke to every reader who would rather see enemies judged than saved. The application pressed upon hearers is that unrighteous anger at God's sovereignty, whether over personal circumstances or the salvation of enemies, is nothing less than setting oneself in the judgment seat of God; the remedy is submission to the sovereign God who is pleased to save the undeserving through the proclamation of the gospel, supremely in Jesus Christ.
Jun 14, 2024
Jonah 4 exposes the problem of unrighteous anger with God's sovereignty, as the prophet sulks over the mercy God shows to Nineveh — the very enemies he wished to see destroyed. The passage sets God's character as the gracious covenant Lord, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness (Exodus 34), against Jonah's petty double standard: grieving more over a withered plant than over the souls of 120,000 people. God's gentle rebuke of Jonah magnifies rather than diminishes his sovereign mercy, which extends not merely to Israel but to the nations — a Gentile foretaste ultimately fulfilled in the proclamation of the gospel through Jesus Christ. The sermon calls hearers to repent of covetous anger at God's goodness toward others, and to trust that the same sovereign God who pitied Nineveh has pitied sinners in Christ Jesus.
Live Stream - July 07, 2024
John 15:1-4 presents Christ as the True Vine, his Father as the vine dresser, and believers as the branches — a metaphor that directly challenges both dispensationalism and the paedobaptist reading of this passage. The sermon argues that the unfruitful branches of verse 2 refer primarily to apostate old-covenant Israel being cut off from the True Vine, not to externally-connected members within the New Covenant, and that Jeremiah 31's description of the New Covenant as inviolable and universally regenerate among its members forecloses any category of covenant members who lack saving faith. For the believer, the pruning work of God the Father as vine dresser is a mark of covenant love — painful at times, but purposeful in conforming the branches to the image of the Son.
The Atonement at Gibeah
The atonement made at Gibeah — where seven descendants of Saul were executed to satisfy the blood-guilt incurred by Saul's slaughter of the Gibeonites — is expounded as a typological anticipation of penal substitutionary atonement. David's inquiry of God, the Gibeonites' insistence that no silver or gold could ransom a murderer (Numbers 35:33), and the hanging of the seven men before the Lord all illustrate that atonement is the satisfaction of divine justice through blood. The sermon argues that Rizpah's grief beside the bodies of her sons is a solemn, sin-cursed scene designed to strip away abstraction and force the reader to feel the horror of what atonement costs. Only when the gore of Gibeah is taken seriously does Golgotha regain its proper weight: Christ, the greater Son of David, stood in the place of his people to quench the wrath of God and secure the covenant safety of all whom the Father gave him.
The Vine, the Vinedresser, and the Branches
John 15:1–8 presents Christ as the true vine, his Father as the vinedresser, and his people as the branches — a passage that answers the question of who constitutes the true Israel of God. The sermon argues from Jeremiah 31 and the New Covenant's own terms that the New Covenant knows no externally connected members, and that the unfruitful branches of verse 2 refer to apostate Old Covenant Israel and to those who counterfeit saving faith, not to baptized infants as some paedo-baptist readings propose. The pruning of living branches is shown to be the Father's gracious work of conforming his people to the image of his Son through affliction and discipline. The sermon closes with a double application: unbelievers are called to look to Christ in faith, and believers are urged to receive God's chastening as the evidence of his love and the means of their growth in grace.
Live Stream - June 30, 2024
Jesus' declaration 'I am the True Vine' (John 15:1a) is not merely a pastoral metaphor but a covenantal claim rooted in the entire sweep of redemptive history. Drawing on biblical and covenant theology, the sermon traces how old covenant Israel was repeatedly identified as God's vine in the Psalms and prophets — a vine that bore wild grapes, rejected the servants, and ultimately crucified the Son — and argues that Christ as the last Adam and true Israel fulfills every obligation that Adam and Israel forfeited. The sermon then turns to the apostolic application: the Israel of God in the new covenant is the body of those united to Christ by faith, Jew and Gentile alike, with direct implications for how believers should understand modern geopolitics, dispensationalism, and the church's evangelistic obligation to ethnic Jews.