Topic
Eschatology
512 sermons · All topics
Introduction to 1 & 2 Kings
The books of 1 and 2 Kings constitute the final volume of the Former Prophets and span roughly four centuries of Israel's monarchy, from the death of David to the release of Jehoiachin in Babylon. This introductory study surveys the authorship, date, structure, and major theological themes of these books, demonstrating that their history is fundamentally covenantal history: the kings are measured by the law of Moses, particularly Deuteronomy, and the fall of both kingdoms is God's judicial execution of covenant curses, not merely geopolitical misfortune. The Davidic covenant provides the thread of hope that runs through the narrative's darkest moments and points forward to the Lord Jesus Christ as the true and final king who builds the temple of God and extends the glory of God throughout the cosmos.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 2, 2016 AM
Matthew 24:15–20 is examined through a preterist lens, arguing that Christ's warning about the 'abomination of desolation' and the command to flee Judea were fulfilled in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, not in a yet-future dispensational timeline. The sermon draws on Daniel 9, 11, and 12, Luke 21, Deuteronomy 28, and Lamentations to establish that Jesus was answering his disciples' first-century questions about the temple's destruction — a covenantal judgment on Israel for breaking the Mosaic covenant and rejecting the Messiah. The pre-tribulation Rapture and futurist readings of the Olivet Discourse are assessed as systems imposed on the text rather than drawn from it, while the preterist interpretation is defended as the most exegetically responsible reading of the parallel Gospel accounts. The sermon closes by applying the typological weight of AD 70 to the final judgment, urging hearers to flee now to Christ, the only safe refuge when he comes in glory to judge the living and the dead.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 5
Matthew 24:15–20 presents Christ's command to flee Jerusalem when the abomination of desolation appears — a command the preterist interpretation locates in the first-century siege and destruction of the city by Rome in AD 70, not in a distant eschatological future. Working through the prophetic background in Daniel 9 and 12, the parallel account in Luke 21, and the covenant-curse framework of Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26, this exposition argues that every detail in the passage — the reference to Judea, the architectural urgency, the concern for pregnant women, the prayer about winter and the Sabbath — is intelligible only as instruction addressed to first-century disciples facing a localized, historical judgment. The AD 70 destruction functions typologically, however, pressing every hearer to flee now to Christ, the only refuge when he comes in glory to judge the living and the dead.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 4
Matthew 24:14 declares that 'this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.' Preaching from a preterist perspective, this exposition argues that the gospel proclamation described in verse 14 was fulfilled in the first century prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and that 'the end' in view is not the final judgment but the termination of the old covenant dispensation and the Jewish temple. The sermon develops a biblical-theological account of the temple — from Eden through the Mosaic tabernacle, Solomon's temple, and into Christ as the antitype who fulfills and renders obsolete the entire sacrificial system — drawing especially on Hebrews 8. The practical conclusion is an unqualified call for the church to maintain its unchanged mission of gospel proclamation regardless of external persecution, internal apostasy, or cultural pressure.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 3
Matthew 24:9–14 presents the church with two realities that precede the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70: the persecution of the church (vv. 9–12) and the proclamation of the gospel (v. 14, deferred to the following week). Working from a preterist interpretation, the sermon argues that external threats from unbelieving Israel and the Roman Empire, internal threats of apostasy, betrayal, false prophecy, and antinomianism, all demonstrably occurred in the first century and are documented throughout the New Testament. The practical weight falls on every generation equally: because Christ reigns at the right hand of the Father, his people are called to endure, to hold the law of God as the concrete expression of love, and to resist the cold that lawlessness produces in the heart.
Of the Last Judgement (2LCF 32)
The Last Judgment, as confessed in chapter 32 of the Second London Confession of Faith (1689 LBCF), is certain, comprehensive, and purposeful: God the Father has appointed a day on which God the Son will execute righteous judgment over fallen angels and every human being, accounting for thoughts, words, and deeds. The goal of that day is the manifestation of divine mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect and divine justice in the eternal damnation of the reprobate — a theocentric purpose rooted in Romans 9. The secrecy of that day is itself a means of grace, designed to deter sin, sustain the godly through adversity, and cultivate watchful readiness to say, 'Come, Lord Jesus.'
The Olivet Discourse, Part 2
Jesus' Olivet Discourse opens not with a timetable for the end of all things but with two commanding exhortations: 'Take heed that no one deceives you' and 'See that you are not troubled.' Expounding Matthew 24:4–8 within a preterist framework, this sermon argues that Christ's description of false messiahs, wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes depicts the conditions preceding the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 — the covenant curses of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 falling at last upon an apostate people who rejected their Messiah. The practical burden is twofold: guard theological sanity by submitting to the Word rather than to prophecy speculators, and guard emotional stability by resting in God's sovereign governance of history rather than panicking at world events.
2 Samuel 23:1-7
David's final official words in 2 Samuel 23:1–7 are not a backward glance at his own reign but a forward-looking messianic prophecy concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, identified as 'the anointed of the God of Jacob' and 'the favorite of the songs of Israel.' The passage discloses the Trinitarian agency behind the words, the comprehensive and just nature of Messiah's reign, the everlasting Davidic covenant that grounds the hope of a perfect king despite David's own failures, and the exclusion of the unrepentant from that kingdom. Believers are called to take comfort in Christ's just and universal rule, to proclaim the terror of divine judgment honestly, and to worship the one to whom all the Psalms point.
Free Grace Baptist Church - September 4, 2016 AM
Matthew 24:1-3 opens the Olivet Discourse — the fifth of five Matthean discourses — with Jesus departing the temple, pronouncing its coming destruction, and receiving the disciples' questions about its timing and the sign of his coming. This sermon argues for a preterist interpretation: the discourse's primary referent is the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, understood as the covenantal judgment of God upon apostate Israel, the fulfilment of the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28, and the conclusive transition from the Old Covenant to the New. Practically, this reading simultaneously refutes anti-Semitism and Christian Zionism, and calls every hearer to reckon with the Prophet-Christ who speaks with divine authority and the Priest-Christ who bore the wrath due to sinners.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 1
The Olivet Discourse opens with a decisive act: Jesus departs the temple he has just pronounced desolate, and his disciples — grasping the covenantal weight of that moment — point to its magnificence even as he foretells its total destruction. This sermon establishes the interpretive framework for Matthew 24–25, arguing from the immediate context of chapters 21–23, the parallel witness of the Old Testament prophets (Ezekiel, Micah, Jeremiah), and the time-texts of the discourse itself that Jesus addresses first-century Israel, not a distant eschatological future. The Preterist reading on offer holds that AD 70 was the exhaustion of the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28 upon apostate Old Covenant Israel, that the church — not ethnic Israel — is now the covenant people of God, and that this understanding guards against both anti-Semitism and Christian Zionism.
Of the State of Man After Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead (2LCF 31)
2 London Baptist Confession chapter 31 surveys the state of the soul between death and the final resurrection, and the resurrection of both the just and the unjust. The chapter distinguishes the intermediate state — in which the souls of the righteous are immediately with Christ in paradise while the souls of the wicked are cast into hell — from the final resurrection, when body and soul will be reunited and raised to honor or dishonor. The sermon refutes soul sleep, limbus patrum, limbus infantum, and purgatory as departures from Scripture, arguing that purgatory is an affront to the finished atonement of Christ. Hearers are called to find comfort in the bodily resurrection, to resist Gnostic tendencies that denigrate the body, and to embrace the simplicity of biblical eschatology rather than elevating millennial schemes to tests of orthodoxy.
The Confidence of the Believer
Micah 7 presents one of the most concentrated confessions of faith under duress in all of Scripture: a prophet who surveys moral collapse, political corruption, and the breakdown of domestic trust, yet steadfastly declares, 'I will look to the Lord.' This sermon works consecutively through Micah 7 in three movements — the prophet's lamentation over the state of the covenant community, his counsel to the godly remnant, and his closing doxology — to show what it means in practice for the just to live by faith. The doxology of verses 18–20 grounds that faith not in optimism or circumstance but in the revealed character of God: his pardoning of iniquity, his delight in mercy, his subduing of remaining sin, and his unbreakable covenant faithfulness. The sermon closes with a direct exhortation to feed faith on Scripture and sound theology, because faith cannot lay hold of what it does not know.
The Past as a Present Reminder
Hebrews 10:32–39 calls the people of God to recall their early days of faith — the illumination received, the sufferings endured, the goods joyfully surrendered — not as a memorial to past zeal but as a present summons to perseverance. The passage moves from a reminder of former faithfulness (vv. 32–34) to a direct exhortation not to cast away confidence (vv. 35–39), grounding both in the confession that the just shall live by faith. Trials are not accidental but divinely ordered, and endurance is not a matter of moral bootstrapping but of faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us. The sermon calls hearers to shake off spiritual lethargy by drawing near to God, holding fast the confession of their hope, and actively considering one another in the assembly.
The Lament Over Jerusalem
Matthew 23:37–39 records Christ's lament over Jerusalem — a cry of sorrow that follows directly upon the severest condemnations he has pronounced against the scribes and Pharisees. The sermon traces Jesus' prophetic lament through its Old Testament antecedents in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Psalms, arguing that Christ speaks here according to his human nature, expressing genuine grief over a city that has killed the prophets and now rejects the Messiah himself. The declaration 'your house is left to you desolate' marks a decisive redemptive-historical shift: as in Ezekiel 8–11, the withdrawal of God's glory precedes the destruction of the temple, and that withdrawal is enacted when Christ departs to the Mount of Olives. The sermon closes by refuting the Arminian use of 'you were not willing' as a proof text for free will, showing instead that the text confirms total depravity and that the free and genuine offer of Christ to sinners is fully consistent with the Reformed doctrine of sovereign grace.
2 Samuel 18-19:8
David's army defeats Absalom in the woods of Ephraim, but Absalom's death — hanging from a terebinth tree, killed by Joab in defiance of David's orders — reduces a day of military triumph to one of royal mourning. This exposition of 2 Samuel 18–19:8 argues that David's inconsolable grief over Absalom is not mere paternal sentiment but is inflamed by the guilt of his own sin in 2 Samuel 12, where Nathan pronounced that the sword would never depart from his house. The study applies two lessons to the congregation: a biblical realism about the inconsistency of every human being, and a call to faithful parenting in the fear of God.
Free Grace Baptist Church - June 26, 2016 PM
Matthew 28:18-20, the Great Commission, grounds the church's mission in the sovereign authority, command, and presence of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. The sermon works through three points: the post-resurrection exaltation of Christ as mediator — established by Philippians 2:5-11, Daniel 7:13-14, and Hebrews 1 — demonstrates that all authority given to the ascended Son pertains specifically to his mediatorial office rather than to any deficiency in his eternal deity. The sovereign command to make disciples of all nations, to baptize in the triune name, and to teach obedience to all Christ has commanded establishes the church's mission and the regulative principle of worship against human traditions. Christians are called to confidence and courage in a hostile world on the basis of Christ's abiding promise — 'lo I am with you always, even to the end of the age' — while unbelievers are confronted with the same authority as the ground of coming judgment and the only sufficient ground of saving grace.
The Impending Judgment of Israel
Matthew 23:34–36 records Christ's announcement of impending divine judgment upon the generation of Israel that would reject him and murder his sent messengers. The sermon traces three interlocking movements: the rejection of the prophets Christ sends in the new covenant era, the accumulation of blood-guilt from Abel to Zechariah spanning the entire Hebrew canon, and the prophetic assurance — sealed with Christ's own 'amen' — that all these things would fall upon that first-century generation in the destruction of AD 70. The exposition situates Matthew 23 within a consistent covenantal pattern running from the Mosaic curses through the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities to AD 70, and closes with a direct call to flee to the Righteous One whose shed blood is the only escape from the condemnation of hell.
The Condemnation of the Religious Leaders, Part 5
Matthew 23:29–33 records the eighth and final woe Jesus pronounces against the scribes and Pharisees, and this sermon works through the passage under three headings: their professed allegiance to the prophets, their protested dissociation from their fathers' murders, and Christ's prophetic assertion of their guilt. The hypocrisy at the centre of the woe is that these men honoured dead prophets with tombs and monuments while plotting the murder of the greatest prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. The sermon draws sustained parallels from Ezra 9, Daniel 9, 2 Kings 17, and 2 Chronicles 36 to show that Israel's rejection of the prophets had always preceded covenantal judgment, and that Matthew 23 sets the ground for the destruction of Jerusalem prophesied in Matthew 24. Hearers are pressed by Christ's own question — 'How can you escape the condemnation of hell?' — and directed to faith in Christ alone as the only answer.
The Believer's Response to Trials
James 1:2–4 commands believers to count trials 'all joy' — a response so counterintuitive that James must ground it in theology before it can be practiced. This sermon works through four elements of the believer's response: the nature of the trials in view (external afflictions and hardships, not solicitations to sin), the settled expectation that trials are a normal feature of Christian life, the disposition of joy that must govern the believer under trial, and the recognition that God's purpose in trial is the production of endurance leading to spiritual maturity and completeness. The governing application is that Christians must be formed by passages like this one before trials arrive, so that when they do, the believer counts God as sovereign and purposeful rather than panicking, raging, or despairing.
An Encouragement to Consider the Father's Purpose
Hebrews 12:3–11 calls suffering believers to consider the Father's purpose in divine discipline, not as evidence of abandonment but as proof of His fatherly love. The sermon works through three movements: a preliminary call to consider Christ who endured hostility, the presence of divine discipline as the demonstration of God's fatherhood, and the purpose of that discipline — that believers may be partakers of His holiness. The central pastoral concern is that God's people too easily forget the word of exhortation (Proverbs 3:11–12) when trials come, interpreting chastening as divine absence rather than divine presence. Believers are urged to resist despising discipline, to guard against weariness and discouragement, and to rest in the certainty that God works all things — including painful pruning — for their conformity to Christ.
An Encouragement to Look unto Jesus
Hebrews 12:2 calls the struggling Christian to run with endurance by looking unto Jesus — not merely as a moral example, but as the author and finisher of faith, the one who both originates and secures the believer's perseverance to the end. The sermon works through five aspects of Christ presented in the verse: his person, his work as author and finisher of faith, his resolve in enduring the cross for the joy set before him, his shame and suffering in the crucifixion, and his present exaltation at the right hand of God. The cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 11 testifies unanimously that God is faithful, but the believer's gaze must ultimately rest on Christ himself, in whom all hope, trust, and confidence are grounded. The practical summons is to use the means of grace — Scripture, prayer, the Lord's Supper, and the gathered assembly — to keep the eyes of faith fixed on Jesus and to press on without coasting.
Free Grace Baptist Church - May 29, 2016 PM
Hebrews 12:1-2 issues a command to run with endurance the race set before believers, and the preacher works through the incentives the apostle supplies for doing so. The sermon focuses on the cloud of witnesses from Hebrews 11, arguing that their function is not to cheer runners on as spectators but to testify — as witnesses — to the faithfulness of God Most High. By surveying Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Rahab, the judges, David, and others, the sermon presses the congregation to internalize the consistent testimony of God's people through redemptive history and to lay aside every weight and besetting sin in order to persevere to the end.
The Ascension of Christ
The bodily, visible, local ascension of Christ into heaven forty days after his resurrection is not a peripheral doctrine but the hinge on which the entire exaltation of the Mediator turns. This sermon expounds Acts 1:9–11 in three movements: the historical reality of the ascension (real, visible, bodily, local, and glorious), its theological significance (fulfillment of Scripture, completion of Christ's priestly work, his enthronement at the Father's right hand, and the glory given to him as Mediator), and its practical benefits for the church (the gift of the Holy Spirit, the perpetual intercession of Christ, and the guaranteed second coming). Believers are called to draw courage from Christ's present reign, flee to the cross before the judgment that the ascension makes inevitable, and rest in the advocacy of the enthroned Savior who always lives to make intercession.
The Whole Armor of God
Ephesians 6:10–18 calls believers to put on the whole armor of God — not for ceremonial display but for genuine hand-to-hand combat against principalities, powers, and the spiritual hosts of wickedness. The armor is not native to the believer but is provided entirely through union with Christ: truth, imputed righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, and salvation constitute the defensive elements, while the Word of God is the offensive sword. The sermon argues that the Christian life is a lifelong fight requiring daily, persevering diligence — not passive rest — and closes by urging both believers and unbelievers to recognize that lasting victory over sin is possible only through the blood of atonement and the grace of the triune God.
The Warning and Report
Paul closes his final letter by warning Timothy against Alexander the coppersmith, whose opposition was directed not against Paul personally but against the Word of God, and by giving a theologically ordered account of his own imprisonment. The sermon traces how Paul's confidence in God's retributive justice, his experience of the Lord's present strengthening, and his certainty of future heavenly preservation together produce doxology rather than complaint. Seven marks of Paul's apostolic character — vigilance for God's Word, concern for the church, dependence on the Lord, worship, care for friends, hope for glory, and faithful ministry to the end — are set before the congregation as a pattern for gospel ministers and the church alike. The primary application is that faithful proclamation of God's truth, not celebrity or popularity, is what God requires of his ministers.
2 Samuel 8:1-18
2 Samuel 8 records David's military conquests as the God-ordained stabilization of Israel's land in preparation for Solomon's temple-building, rooted in the promises of the Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel 7. The chapter is expounded under three headings: the advancement of the kingdom through David's campaigns from north to south, the stability of the kingdom seen in the dedication of spoils to Yahweh and the administration of judgment and justice, and the power behind the kingdom — not David's military skill, but Yahweh's faithful preservation of His servant wherever he went. David's reign is treated as typologically anticipatory of Christ's kingdom: conflict precedes conquest, the wealth of the nations is consecrated to Israel's God, and the Son of David exercises universal dominion in judgment and justice as promised in Psalm 2 and Isaiah 9 and 11. The study closes with a call to recover the church-militant posture, trusting the same God who gave David victory to bring victory to the new covenant church through the weapons of prayer, preaching, and faithful witness.
Free Grace Baptist Church - March 27, 2016 PM
The Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7 is not merely an episode in Israel's history but the foundation upon which the kingship of the Lord Jesus Christ rests. God's refusal to let David build a temple is not a rejection but a reversal: before Israel can build a house for God, God himself will build a house — a dynasty — out of David, culminating in the Son who would construct the true temple of God's dwelling. The sermon traces that promise from its initial revelation to Nathan, through its perpetuity secured against death, sin, and time, to its New Testament fulfillment in Christ's resurrection-enthronement at the Father's right hand and his building of the church. Believers are called to recognize their saving interest in this covenant and to read the Old Testament as the unfolding of the glory, majesty, and beauty of Jesus Christ.
The Hope of the Resurrection
Paul's closing words in 2 Timothy 4:6–8 set before the church three interlocking realities: his present situation as a condemned man being poured out as a drink offering, his past perseverance across the full course of Christian warfare, and his future hope — the crown of righteousness awarded by the righteous Judge on the day of resurrection. The sermon argues that the resurrection hope is not a passive consolation but the very engine of faithful Christian living: Paul fought, ran, and kept not as an ascetic but because of the surpassing worth of Christ and the certainty of what awaits. Believers are exhorted to examine whether they are presently fighting, running, and keeping — for what is said in the eleventh hour can only be said because of what was done faithfully in hours one through ten.
The Sadducees and the Resurrection
Matthew 22:23–33 records the Sadducees' attempt to discredit the doctrine of the resurrection by posing an elaborate riddle drawn from the Mosaic Levirate law, only to be silenced by Christ's twofold demonstration that they were ignorant both of the Scriptures and of the power of God. Jesus first exposes the false premise of the riddle by revealing a genuine discontinuity between this age and the age to come — in the resurrection there is no marriage, no procreation, and believers will be like the angels in their service to God. He then validates the resurrection from the Sadducees' own canon, the Torah, showing from Exodus 3:6 that God's present-tense covenant relation with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob proves they were still living. Hearers are called not merely to marvel at Christ's wisdom but to forsake every rationalised objection to Christianity and believe on the Lord Jesus, in whom the covenant of life stands too strong to be terminated by death.
The Parable of the Wedding Feast
Matthew 22:1–14 presents the parable of the wedding feast as a sobering account of divine invitation, human rebellion, and eschatological judgment. The parable unfolds three responses to God's sovereign call — unwillingness, indifference, and violent opposition — each met by the king's patient re-invitation and, ultimately, his righteous wrath. The destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 is identified as a visible, covenantal judgment prefiguring the final day when every mouth will be stopped before God. The sermon closes by pressing the imputed righteousness of Christ as the only wedding garment that makes a sinner fit for the feast, and by urging the church to pursue gospel mission with urgency.