Topic
Covenant Theology
1,714 sermons · All topics
Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.1-3)
The doctrine of the Trinity — one divine and infinite being in whom there are three subsistences, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — is not a speculative ivory-tower abstraction but the foundation of all Christian communion with God and comfortable dependence upon him. This session in the study of 2LCF Chapter 2 continues the examination of paragraph three, working through the personal distinctions of generation, filiation, and spiration; the confession's summary statement on unity and personal distinction; and the practical import of Trinitarian theology for prayer, worship, redemption, and assurance. Biblical proofs are drawn from Genesis, the Psalms, Isaiah, and the New Testament, demonstrating the revelatory development of the doctrine from its seed form in the Old Testament to its full flower in the New.
Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.3)
What does it mean to confess that God is one being subsisting in three persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? This study of 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 2, paragraph 3 works through the classical Trinitarian formulation upheld by the particular Baptists, tracing its foundations in Scripture, its continuity with the ecumenical creeds, and the Baptist Confession's terminological improvement of 'subsistences' over 'persons.' The exposition addresses the unity and equality of the three subsistences, the personal distinctions expressed by eternal generation and procession, and the practical necessity of robust Trinitarian confession in an age of continuing anti-Trinitarian error.
Samson's Marriage in Timnah
Judges 14 presents Samson's marriage to a Philistine woman not merely as a personal failing but as the sovereign orchestration of Yahweh to open conflict between Israel and the Philistines. The distinction between God's decretive will and His preceptive will is central: God overrules sinful choices to accomplish His purposes, yet this never licenses disobedience to His revealed commands. Samson's Spirit-empowered exploits anticipate a greater Deliverer, and the chapter closes with a direct call to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom alone everlasting life is found.
The Lord's Prayer, Part 3
What does it mean to pray 'Your kingdom come'? This Bible study on Matthew 6:10 works through the second petition of the Lord's Prayer, distinguishing the universal providential kingdom, the present kingdom of grace, and the coming kingdom of glory, drawing on the Westminster Larger Catechism's answer to question 191. The session applies this petition at three levels — the individual believer, the local church, and the civil order — pressing the congregation toward a kingdom mindset that is expressed in doctrine, churchmanship, evangelistic prayer, and loyalty to the reign of Christ.
The Birth of Samson
Judges 13 presents the only birth narrative in the book of Judges, and this exposition works through two broad categories: the sin of Israel and the provision of a deliverer. A striking feature of this cycle is the absence of Israel's cry of distress — the people have made peace with Philistine oppression, a condition the sermon applies directly to the church's accommodation of cultural wickedness. The passage is read as a type of Christ's coming: a barren woman, a sovereign divine promise, a Spirit-empowered deliverer who only begins what the greater than Samson will complete. The sermon closes with calls to uncompromising allegiance to Christ, reverent worship, and confidence in a God who initiates salvation toward those who are not seeking Him.
Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.1-2)
What does it mean that God is omnipresent, and how does his omniscience differ from all creaturely knowledge? Working through the second chapter of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, this study examines the divine attributes of omnipresence and omniscience with theological precision, drawing on Scripture, the church fathers, the Reformers, and the Reformed orthodox tradition. God's omnipresence is grounded not in his omnipotence or omniscience but in his infinity and immensity — he fills all of heaven and earth repletively, with his whole being, while remaining utterly transcendent and uncircumscribed by creation. God's omniscience is equally distinguished from creaturely knowing: he knows all things not discursively, derivatively, or by foreknowledge acquired through observation, but intuitively, independently, and eternally, in one simple act of self-knowledge.
Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.1-3)
What does it mean to confess that the Lord our God is but one only living and true God, infinite in being and perfection? This session opens a multi-week study of 2nd London Baptist Confession chapter 2, introducing the doctrine of God (theology proper) with attention to divine singularity (Christian monotheism against polytheism, monolatry, and tritheism) and the three divine omniperfections, treating omnipotence in particular depth. Five interpretive cautions frame the study: the ontological chasm between Creator and creature, the legitimacy of biblical speculation, the revelatory condescension of God in anthropomorphic language, the necessity of reading any text in light of the whole canon, and the call to sustained mental exertion in theological study.
The Divine Refuge
Psalm 46 proclaims God as the divine refuge of His covenant people in the midst of cosmic upheaval, national crisis, and personal trial. The sermon works through the psalm's four movements: the declaration of God's presence, the contrast between earthly chaos and divine stability, the invitation to behold God's redemptive works in Scripture, and the command to be still in God's sovereignty. The central comfort is covenantal: because Yahweh, the Lord of hosts, has bound Himself to His people in the covenant of grace, no trial, calamity, or fear can unseat Him from His throne or separate His people from His care. Believers are called to meet their sorrows not with fretting but with a deepening knowledge of God, which is itself the appointed means of comfort and strength.
The Final Days of Gideon
Judges 8 traces the final days of Gideon — his diplomatic handling of Ephraim, his military justice against the treacherous Israelite towns of Sukkoth and Penuel, his defeat of the Midianite kings, and his dismal decline into quasi-monarchical idolatry. The sermon exposes the danger of elevating any human deliverer to a role that belongs to Christ alone, and warns that success and the praise of men are among the most potent instruments of a servant's ruin. Israel's immediate return to Baal-worship upon Gideon's death illustrates both the necessity of personal accountability before God and the inadequacy of every judge to do what only Jesus Christ can: break the reigning power of sin and secure an everlasting peace for his people. The call is to pursue the way of escape from idolatry, to prize the means of grace, and to resolve to end well — as Paul did, not as Gideon did.
The Identity of the New Testament (1.2-3)
What gives the church the right to declare these 27 books—and no others—the Word of God? This session works through 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 1, paragraphs 2 and 3, to answer that question by examining the origins of the New Testament canon and the three attributes by which canonical books are recognized: divine qualities, corporate reception, and apostolic origin. Drawing extensively on Michael Kruger's scholarship, the lesson demonstrates that the canon was neither a fourth-century political invention nor a community preference, but a self-authenticating body of Scripture whose recognition by the church was providentially prepared for from within the structure of redemptive history itself. The closing application presses the hearer to see that no argument for canonicity finally persuades apart from the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit.
Judges 20
Judges 20 records the civil war in which eleven tribes of Israel assembled against Benjamin to avenge the rape and murder of the Levite's concubine at Gibeah. The chapter raises a theologically pressing question: why did God command Israel to battle yet permit two devastating defeats before granting victory in the third engagement? This study expounds three movements in the chapter — the Levite's report, Israel's decision, and the three-stage military action — and draws out lessons concerning the unity of God's people, the wickedness of false solidarity, the proper use of the means of grace, and the mystery of divine providence, which does not guarantee that the path of obedience will be free of suffering.
The Call and Preparation of Gideon
Judges 6:1–32 opens the Gideon narrative by tracing the familiar cycle of the book: Israel's covenant-breaking sin, the oppression it earns under Midian, a desperate cry for relief, and the sovereign grace by which God initiates deliverance despite the people's unrepentance. The sermon argues that Israel's real problem is not Midianite raids but idolatry — the altar to Baal standing in Gideon's own family — and that God's commission of a weak, fearful, doubting man from the smallest clan of Manasseh showcases the power and mercy of the divine Deliverer, not the virtue of the instrument. Gideon functions typologically: his insufficiency, his trembling before the living God, and his task of destroying the Baals before any military deliverance can proceed all point forward to the true Deliverer, Christ, who breaks the back of sin and sets his people free.
Of the Holy Scriptures (1.1-10)
The doctrine of Scripture (1689 LBCF Chapter 1) is examined through twenty aspects drawn from paragraphs 1–10, arguing that the Holy Scriptures alone are the sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. Beginning with the principium cognoscendi — Scripture as the epistemological foundation of all theology — the study moves through the limits of general revelation, the cessation of special revelation, the canon, the self-attesting authority of Scripture, and the role of the Spirit in producing genuine belief. The session closes with the Reformation axiom that Scripture is its own infallible interpreter and the supreme judge of all religious controversy, against Rome's claim that the magisterium validates the canon.
Judges 19
Judges 19 confronts the reader with the full horror of moral degeneracy in Israel during the period before the judges, deliberately mirroring the account of Sodom in Genesis 19 to indict an entire covenant people. The chapter traces a personal marital rupture between a Levite and his concubine through social disintegration in Gibeah — where hospitality has collapsed and women are treated as expendable — to the gang rape and murder of the concubine by the sons of Belial. The sermon presses two lessons: the root of lawlessness is always the absence of a governing king and the rejection of God's covenant law, and covenant membership offers no immunity from the depths of human depravity — the Levite himself is as culpable as the perverts of Gibeah.
The Ministry in Gentile Territory
Matthew 15:29–39 records Jesus healing and feeding great multitudes in Gentile territory, and this expository sermon argues that these twin miracles are not accidental repetitions of Matthew 14 but a deliberate theological demonstration: the covenant promises given to Abraham—that all nations would be blessed in him—are being fulfilled in Christ's ministry beyond Israel's borders. The Gentiles who cast their sick at Jesus' feet and glorified the God of Israel embody the faith the religious leaders of Israel refused. The sermon applies this to the unconverted by pressing the urgency of spiritual need over physical need, and to believers by calling them to renewed wonder at Christ's sovereignty, compassion, and sufficient provision.
The Ministry of the King-Priest
Hebrews 5:5–10 presents Jesus Christ as the divinely appointed King-Priest whose ministry, obedience, and accomplished redemption surpass every dimension of the Levitical priesthood. The sermon traces four elements of Christ's priestly office: his appointment by the Father (Psalms 2 and 110), his ministry of intercession and suffering in Gethsemane, his learned obedience through suffering, and his authorship of an eternal — therefore unlosable — salvation. Because this great High Priest now intercedes at the right hand of the Father, believers are called to hold fast their confession and come boldly to the throne of grace.
Judges 18
Judges 18 records the Danite tribe's theft of Micah's idols and Levitical priest, their conquest of Laish, and the establishment of a counterfeit cultic center at Dan — a cultic center that stood in direct defiance of the legitimate house of God at Shiloh. The chapter is the second half of a two-chapter unit (Judges 17–18) exposing the religious apostasy that had spread from a single household through the Levitical priesthood to an entire tribe of Israel, all within a generation of Joshua's death. The recurring refrain — 'there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes' — frames the narrative as an indictment of autonomous, self-directed worship. The sermon presses the application that God's people are bound to worship according to divine prescription rather than personal preference, and that departing from God's commanded means of worship is never a neutral act.
The Faith of the Caananite Woman
A Canaanite woman — an ancestral enemy of Israel — confronts Israel's Messiah in Gentile territory and refuses to accept silence, rebuff, or unfavorable parable as the final word. This exposition of Matthew 15:21–28 traces her persistent petitioning through two encounters with Christ, showing that great need demands great earnestness and that true faith worships even when heaven appears silent. The sermon draws out three lessons: the triumph of faith expressed through dependence, humility, and persistence in prayer; the Christological display of Christ's mercy and sovereign power over demons; and the benefit of affliction, which drove a pagan mother to the Son of David and teaches parents to pray without ceasing for children under the power of sin and Satan.
Judges 17
Judges 17 exposes a pattern of religious apostasy that pervades Israel in the period of the judges: a facade of devotion to Yahweh maintained through idolatry, syncretism, and unauthorized worship. The chapter traces corruption from Micah's household through the Levitical priesthood, demonstrating that doing what is right in one's own eyes is identical to doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord. Three dangers pressing on the contemporary church emerge from the text — the folly of idolatry, the persistence of syncretism, and the subjectivism that treats worship as a matter of personal preference — and the sermon calls hearers to submit to divine regulation of worship rather than construct religion on their own terms.
The Baptisms of Jesus
Christian baptism is grounded not merely in ecclesiastical command or apostolic precedent, but in the two baptisms of Christ himself: his water baptism in Matthew 3, where he publicly undertook to 'fulfill all righteousness' through perfect active obedience to the law, and the baptism of divine wrath he endured at Calvary — the cup of God's fury poured out upon him as the substitute for his people. Justification rests on both the doing and the dying of the Redeemer: his active obedience provides the righteousness sinners lack, and his passive obedience absorbs the condemnation they deserve. Those who go into the baptismal waters go not on the basis of their own achievement but because Christ was overwhelmed in their place, and they are called from that point forward to follow the Lamb wherever he goes — into service, suffering, and fidelity to his Word.
The Duties Toward Elders: Discipline
First Timothy 5:19–21 establishes a precise, legally grounded process for receiving accusations against elders, publicly rebuking those found guilty, and doing so without partiality or personal prejudice. The passage roots its discipline procedure in the Old Testament two-or-three-witnesses requirement (Deuteronomy 17; 19), which Paul applies through the same logic as Matthew 18, protecting both the accused elder from frivolous charges and the congregation from the corruption of unchecked sin in its leadership. The sermon argues that church discipline is not a pastoral option but a solemn obligation, witnessed by God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels — as binding on Timothy as the charge to preach the word. The controlling application is that congregations must follow biblical due process faithfully, neither shielding sinning elders behind their gifts nor condemning them on the basis of unverified accusation.
The Confrontation Concerning Authority
Matthew 15:1–9 records a formal confrontation between the Jerusalem scribes and Pharisees and the Lord Jesus Christ over the authority by which men govern their religious lives. The real dispute is not hand-washing but the foundational question of whether the tradition of the elders or the commandment of God holds supreme authority. Christ exposes Pharisaic religion as simultaneously legalistic and antinomian — binding consciences with human inventions while providing loopholes to evade the fifth commandment — and confirms this indictment by citing Isaiah's prophecy against lip-service worship. The sermon calls hearers to examine their own Pharisaic tendencies, to subject every tradition to the Word of God, and to rest in Christ who alone delivers sinners from both legalism and lawlessness.
The Majestic Maker
Genesis 1:1 declares that in the beginning, the triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — created the heavens and the earth ex nihilo, by the word of his omnipotent power, in six literal twenty-four-hour days. The Hebrew term Elohim, a plural of majesty used with a singular verb, identifies the Creator as the sole rightful object of worship, the sovereign lawgiver, and the one to whom all creatures owe praise. The sermon draws out five lessons from the opening verse: the world had a beginning; the triune God is the active agent; creation was ex nihilo by divine speech; the Creator is the rightful lawgiver and proper object of worship; and mankind possesses unique dignity as image-bearers. Unbelievers are warned that creation renders them without excuse before the judgment seat of God, and are called to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who fulfilled the law and died as the perfect sacrifice.
The Nature of the Gospel
Galatians 1:1–5 is not merely a greeting but a compressed summary of gospel truth that Paul will defend throughout the entire epistle against the Judaizing error of faith plus works. Working through five observations drawn from verse 4, this exposition establishes that Christ's death was voluntary, substitutionary, liberating, decreed by the Father, and designed to terminate in the glory of God alone. The sermon argues that sovereign grace — not human decision, will, or merit — is the only ground of salvation, and that right understanding of this gospel inevitably produces doxology rather than self-congratulation.
Acts 4:24-31
Acts 4:24–31 records the corporate prayer of the Jerusalem church after Peter and John were threatened by the Sanhedrin for preaching Christ. The passage is examined in four movements: the congregation's unity in one accord, their confidence in God as sovereign creator, sovereign revelator, and sovereign governor, their specific requests for divine justice and boldness in proclamation, and God's immediate answer in the shaking of the place, the filling of the Spirit, and the resultant boldness. The sermon draws out that a high and uncompromised doctrine of divine sovereignty — God's decree extending even to the crucifixion and to all opposition against his church — is the very ground of Christian courage in the face of persecution, not a source of passivity.
The Comprehensiveness of Salvation
Jude 1–2 presents a compressed theology of salvation — the called, sanctified, and preserved — that serves as the launching pad for a full-orbed defense of the perseverance of the saints. Drawing on the golden chain of Romans 8:29–30, the new covenant promises of Jeremiah 31 and 32, the priestly intercession of Hebrews 7, and the doxology of 1 Peter 1:3–5, the sermon argues that perseverance is grounded not in the believer's own holiness but in the inviolable, triune work of God from election to glorification. The doctrine is presented under four heads — the perfect plan, promise, performance, and power of God — and applied as the only sure ground of soul comfort, soul-stirring doxology, and gospel-worthy conduct.
The Lord's Concern for Widows, Part 1
The fifth commandment's requirement to honor parents grounds the Apostle Paul's instruction in 1 Timothy 5:3–8 that widows who are 'really widows' — left alone, without family, trusting in God — be financially supported first by their believing children and grandchildren, and only then by the church. The word 'honor' in verse 3 carries the same material force it bears in verse 17, meaning tangible provision of food, clothing, and shelter, not mere esteem. God's covenantal concern for the defenseless widow runs from Deuteronomy through the Gospels, establishing that care for widows is an expression of genuine piety, not an optional act of charity. The sermon presses the sobering warning of verse 8: to neglect one's widowed mother or grandmother is not merely a lapse in duty but a denial of the Christian faith itself, placing the professing believer below the standard even pagans maintain.
The One Who Justifies the Ungodly
Romans 4:5 announces that God justifies the ungodly — a declaration that seems to violate the standard of Proverbs 17:15, which condemns justifying the wicked. The doctrine of imputation resolves the apparent tension: God reckons, credits, and accounts righteousness to sinners not on the basis of moral transformation but on the basis of Christ's active and passive obedience received through faith alone. Three acts of imputation structure the biblical argument — Adam's sin imputed to his posterity, the elect's sin imputed to Christ, and Christ's righteousness imputed to the elect — establishing that the gospel upholds rather than undermines divine justice. This sermon was preached in the context of a Lord's Supper service, directing communicants away from any sense of personal worthiness and toward the finished work of Christ as the sole ground of acceptance before God.
Judges 11:29-40
Judges 11:29–40 presents one of the most disputed passages in the Old Testament: Jephthah's vow and its fulfillment. This study argues, against the view that Jephthah's daughter was merely consecrated to perpetual virginity, that the plain meaning of the text — confirmed by the language of burnt offering, the grief of the father, the lamentation of the daughters of Israel, and the brevity of the narrative's account of her death — demands the literal interpretation that Jephthah carried out a human sacrifice. The vow is shown to be unnecessary, manipulative, presumptuous, and wicked, yet God's sovereign deliverance of Israel is not thereby frustrated, and Jephthah's presence in Hebrews 11 demonstrates that the sins of the godly do not utterly extinguish their faith. The episode ultimately points beyond Jephthah to the perfect Deliverer who, in Gethsemane, made no rash bargain with his Father but submitted in full obedience.
The Feeding of the Five Thousand
The feeding of the five thousand in Matthew 14:13–21 is not merely a record of physical provision but a visible parable designed to compel a verdict about the identity of Jesus Christ. His compassion toward an interrupting crowd, his sovereign command over the multitudes, and his multiplication of five barley loaves and two fish to satisfy more than five thousand people together demonstrate that he is the greater Moses and the greater Elisha — the Son of God in whom all sufficiency resides. The bread-of-life discourse of John 6 shows that those who received loaves and fish without receiving the Savior had missed the point entirely, and the sermon closes with Peter's confession as the model response: 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.'