Topic
Law and Gospel
6 sermons · All topics
8th Commandment: Part 2; Deuteronomy 5:19
The eighth commandment — 'You shall not steal' — carries not only a prohibition but a positive demand: diligent labor, charitable love toward others, and biblical contentment. Drawing from Deuteronomy, Proverbs, and the New Testament epistles, this exposition moves from the reasons grounding the command (God's sovereignty, man's image-bearing dignity, and the indirect assault on human life that theft represents) to its constructive obligations. The sermon closes with an application of the law's three uses — civil, pedagogical, and normative — including a pointed treatment of government taxation in light of 1 Samuel 8, where God warned that unchecked rulers will 'take, take, take.'
Love your neighbour
Leviticus 19:9–18 sets out the concrete shape of neighborly love within the covenant community of Israel — not as sentiment, but as law. Working through gleaning regulations, prohibitions against theft, lying, exploitation, and a corrupt judiciary, the passage demonstrates that to love one's neighbor is to refrain from every breach of the second table of the Decalogue. The sermon shows that Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and Paul in Romans 13 do not improve upon Moses but confirm what the moral law of God has always demanded: that love is the fulfilment of the law, and hatred of a brother is always a sixth-commandment violation.
The Woman Caught in Adultery
John 8:1–11 presents the Pharisees placing Christ on the horns of a dilemma: uphold the law of Moses and condemn the woman caught in adultery, or show compassion and be exposed as an antinomian. This sermon works through the passage in two movements — the woman brought to Christ (vv. 1–6) and the woman forgiven by Christ (vv. 7–11) — demonstrating that Jesus resolves the dilemma not by choosing one horn but by upholding both simultaneously. He appeals to the Mosaic witness laws of Deuteronomy 17 and 19 to silence the hypocritical accusers, then pronounces forgiveness, illustrating that the gospel pattern is 'get and do' rather than 'do and get.' The passage stands as a vivid display of Christ as both the holy lawgiver who writes with his finger and the friend of sinners who bids the thirsty come and drink.
Introduction to the Book of Exodus
The book of Exodus is not a standalone document but the second movement of the Pentateuch, continuing the story of the covenant people from Genesis through to their deliverance from Egypt, the giving of the law at Sinai, and the construction of the tabernacle. This introductory study surveys the book's structure through three themes — deliverance, demand, and dwelling — and traces how each anticipates Christ: Moses as covenant mediator prefiguring the greater Mediator, the Passover lamb pointing to the sacrifice of Christ, and the tabernacle foreshadowing the incarnation. The threefold division of God's law (moral, judicial, ceremonial) is explained with reference to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, with particular attention to why the moral law remains perpetually binding while the judicial and ceremonial laws have expired. The study closes by applying the Immanuel principle — that God redeems his people in order to commune with them — to the corporate worship of the New Covenant church.
The Eighth Commandment
The eighth commandment, 'You shall not steal,' addresses far more than petty theft — it encompasses burglary, robbery, kidnapping, fraud, extortion, property destruction, and even religious theft in the withholding of tithes. This exposition of Deuteronomy 5:19 works through three structural movements: the prohibition and its associated sins (including sins of the heart such as covetousness and idolatry), the theological reasons grounding the commandment in God's sovereign ownership of all things, and the positive duties it implies — diligent labor, charitable giving, and biblical contentment. The civil implications extend to currency manipulation, unjust taxation, and ideological systems such as socialism and communism, all of which violate the same moral principle. The sermon closes with Christ as the fulfillment of Psalm 15, the one who perfectly honored every obligation the commandment demands, and through whose righteousness covetous sinners are justified.
Justification, Faith, and the Law
Galatians 2:15–16 drives Paul's sharpest declaration that justification is a forensic act — a legal declaration by God — received through faith alone in Christ alone, entirely apart from works of the law. This sermon expounds that doctrine in four observations: justification is a legal declaration, not by works of law, by faith as instrument not merit, and impossible by law for any flesh. The sermon then addresses the three classic uses of the law — civil, pedagogical, and normative — demonstrating that rejecting the law as a ground of justification does not entail antinomianism. The believer who has been justified by faith is directed back to God's law as a pattern and rule of life, the ground of genuine assurance being the doing, dying, and rising of Christ alone rather than personal obedience or inner experience.