Topic
Soteriology
2,239 sermons · All topics
The promise of blessing or curse
Deuteronomy 11 sets before Israel a stark covenantal choice: blessing conditioned upon obedience to the Lord, or curse consequent upon idolatry and rebellion. Working through the chapter's three sections — the works of God rehearsed in history, the requirement of covenant fidelity, and the promise of blessing or curse — the sermon traces how Israel's failure to meet the covenant's demands is precisely the ground upon which Christ, as the true Israel and last Adam, fulfills all righteousness and absorbs the covenant curse on behalf of his people. The exhortation closes by connecting Deuteronomy 27:26 to Galatians 3, showing that the Mosaic covenant of works for Israel becomes the ground of Christ's redemptive obedience and that justification has always been by faith alone in the one who kept what Israel could not.
The Psalmist's Cry in an Age of Deceit
Psalm 12 presses the question Psalm 11 leaves open: not what becomes of the wicked in the end, but how the people of God survive and remain faithful in the present evil age. The sermon traces two movements in the psalm — the destruction of foundations (vv. 1–4), marked by idle speech, flattery, and the proud autonomy of godless men, and the preservation of the righteous (vv. 5–8), grounded in God's arising to deliver the oppressed and in the utter purity of his Word. David's prayer is read through a Christological lens: the psalm is supremely the prayer of Christ in his earthly ministry, opposed at every step, yet sustained by the Father's Word and promise. The congregation is urged to respond to cultural and ecclesiastical decay not by retreat or despair but by theology, prayer, and dependent trust in the pure and preserving Word of God.
The Apostle's Charge to Timothy
Paul's charge to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:3–7 commands the silencing of false teachers in Ephesus who taught other doctrine, devoted themselves to fables and endless genealogies, and generated disputes rather than godly edification. The charge is not motivated by power or animosity but by love flowing from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith — the fruit of regeneration. The false teachers compounded their error by combining ignorance of the law with arrogant confidence in their own assertions, a combination the apostle deems disqualifying. Churches today must hold the same line: qualifying teachers rigorously, refusing platforms to the heterodox, and measuring all teaching against the truth as it is in Jesus.
The Central Demand of the Covenant
Deuteronomy 10 presents the central demand of the Mosaic covenant — that Israel fear, love, and serve the Lord with all their heart and soul — set against the backdrop of the golden calf incident and the covenant's renewal. The sermon traces this demand from its roots in Deuteronomy 10:12–13 through its echoes in Genesis 18, Proverbs 21, Hosea 12, Zechariah 7, Micah 6, and Matthew 23, demonstrating that obedience rooted in heart religion has always been God's requirement of His people. The threefold division of the law is expounded, with the moral law established as perpetually binding while the ceremonial law finds its fulfillment in Christ and the judicial law expires with the Israelite theocracy. The sermon closes by pressing believers to hold fast to God, keeping His law not as a means of justification but as the pattern for sanctification purchased by Christ, the true Israel who alone fulfilled the covenant.
The Introduction to First Timothy
What does it mean for a letter written to one man in one city to carry the authority of God himself? This introductory sermon on 1 Timothy 1:1–2 traces the post-prison ministry of the Apostle Paul, establishes the historical occasion of the letter, and unpacks the significance of Paul's self-description as 'an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Savior.' The greeting's three blessings — grace, mercy, and peace — are shown to be not mere formalities but the divinely appointed means by which Timothy could wage war against the false teaching overtaking Ephesus. The sermon closes with an appeal to sinners: the entire infrastructure of apostolic authority, qualified elders, and sound doctrine exists so that God might effectually call the lost through the foolishness of preaching.
The Courage of the Righteous One
Psalm 11 presents the righteous man — supremely the Lord Jesus Christ — facing the temptation to abdicate his calling when wicked enemies ready their arrows and the foundations of moral order appear destroyed. The sermon expounds two movements: the temptation to flee (vv. 1–3) and the fortification found in contemplating God's sovereignty, omniscience, and justice (vv. 4–7). Because Christ steadfastly set his face toward Jerusalem and drank the cup of divine wrath to its dregs in the place of his people, believers have every reason to resist the same temptation to cowardice and unbelief, and to stand firm in the Lord.
Ask FGBC #63: What is Baxterianism?
Baxterianism, drawn from the teaching of 17th-century minister Richard Baxter, replaces the Reformed doctrine of justification by faith alone with a scheme in which God justifies the believer on the ground of evangelical obedience to a relaxed 'law of the gospel.' This Q&A exposition identifies Baxterianism as a conflation of justification and sanctification, a departure from the imputation of Christ's active and passive obedience, and an implicit relaxation of the moral law — errors addressed directly by 1689 LBCF chapters 11, 13, and 19. The discussion grounds its critique in Galatians 2:16 and the consistent witness of Paul that sinners are justified by faith alone, not by any human obedience, through the sole and finished work of Christ.
Review Of Israel's Rebellion
Deuteronomy 9 confronts Israel's temptation to attribute their inheritance of the promised land to their own righteousness, and Moses systematically dismantles that presumption. The chapter divides into the anticipation of the conquest (vv. 1–6) and a recapitulation of Israel's wilderness rebellions (vv. 7–29), each episode confirming that Israel stood not by merit but by the sovereign mercy of God and the faithfulness of his covenantal promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses's intercessory prayer at the chapter's close models covenant pleading that appeals not to Israel's worthiness but to God's glory, his sworn word, and the redemption he himself accomplished. The passage calls God's people in every era to forsake self-righteousness and rest entirely on divine grace.
Being Strengthened
Colossians 1:11 describes one of four characteristics of a life that pleases God: being strengthened — a passive reception of divine power, not a self-generated act of will. The sermon expounds the action, the gift, the measure of the gift, and the goal of the gift, arguing that God infuses his people with all needed power according to the inexhaustible measure of his own glorious might. This strengthening is the mechanism by which believers endure patience and longsuffering under any and all circumstances of life. Sinners who have not yet come to Christ are invited to the only Savior who both grants entrance into the Christian life and sustains his people all the way to glory.
The Danger of Neglecting the Means of Grace
Hebrews 2:1–4 issues the first formal exhortation of the letter: pay much closer attention to what you have heard, lest you drift away from so great a salvation. The sermon traces the logic from Hebrews 1 — the Son of God is the final and supreme Word of God, surpassing angels, prophets, and every prior mediator — to the terribleness of neglecting that Word. Three causes of drift are identified: over-familiarity with the gospel, allowing lesser things to displace the greater, and the hardening of the heart through closed ears. The remedy is the faithful use of the means of grace — the gathered assembly, preaching, baptism, and the Lord's Supper — through which Christ continues to speak to his people.
CTF 2026: Q&A Panel Discussion
A panel of Reformed Baptist and Reformed theologians fields audience questions on some of the most demanding loci in Reformed theology: federal headship and the fall, God's effective and permissive will in the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, the mystery of the first sin, free will as acting according to nature, hyper-Calvinism, the infralapsarian and supralapsarian debate, and the legitimacy of the free offer of the gospel under God's exhaustive decree. The discussion is frank about the limits of creaturely knowledge on questions the secret will of God has not resolved, while insisting that doctrinal humility and ordinary means of grace—not cage-stage polemics or churchless social media—are the proper context for growth in these truths.
CTF 2026 - Session 3: Is God the Author of Sin?
Two difficult theological questions frame this conference session: Is God the author of sin, and do a believer's sins work together for good? Drawing on 1689 LBCF 3.1, Acts 2:23, Acts 17:28, and Romans 8:28, the session argues that God's comprehensive, eternal decree encompasses all things — including sin — without making God personally culpable for evil, because sin is a privation of good rooted in the creature's deformed nature rather than in God's infinitely good being. The session closes by showing from Romans 8:28, with support from Robert Haldane and Genesis 50:20, that God's overruling providence turns even the believer's own sins toward their ultimate good and his glory — not as license to sin, but as ground for humility, dependence, and hope.
CTF 2026 - Session 4: Pastoral Sermon
Hebrews 2:10 declares that it was fitting for God — the source and goal of all things — to bring many sons to glory through the sufferings of Christ. This sermon traces the eternal decree of election to glory, showing that the predestined are appointed not only to grace but to the full unveiled sight of God in Christ. Drawing on Hebrews 1–2, 2 Corinthians 4, and Psalm 36, the preacher argues that regenerate eyes now see the glory of God refracted through creation, Scripture, and the means of grace, as a foretaste of the unmediated vision that awaits the saints. The exhortation is to resist stopping at the creature, tracing every creaturely beauty upward to God himself, and to hunger for the glory that outweighs all present suffering.
CTF 2026 - Session 1: God's Decree in the Puritan Confessions
The doctrine of God's eternal decree, as confessed in the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Savoy Declaration, and the Second London Baptist Confession of 1677/1689, is not a single isolated chapter but a thread woven through the entire fabric of Reformed confessional theology. Drawing on Isaiah 46:8–11, this study traces the decree from its grounding in the doctrine of divine simplicity through creation, providence, the fall, covenant, redemption, the ordo salutis, perseverance, the spread of the gospel, and final judgment. The three Puritan-era confessions are shown to form a deliberate family — Westminster as parent, Savoy as child, and the Second London as grandchild — sharing common language and structure while registering careful Baptist and Congregationalist revisions. The study calls hearers not to speculative curiosity but to humble worship before the sovereign God whose decree is simply God decreeing.
CTF 2026 - Session 2: Introducing “Of God’s Decree”
What does it mean that God has decreed whatsoever comes to pass, and how should that staggering claim be approached without either flattening its force or drawing false conclusions from it? This lecture introduces 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter three ('Of God's Decree'), establishing three guiding principles for the study: the decree is not our duty to obey, it remains largely veiled in mystery despite its scriptural attestation, and it demands a robust creator-creature distinction throughout. Working through 2LCF chapters two through five as a unified doctrinal unit, the lecture distinguishes God's imminent work of decreeing from his transitive works of creation and providence, and sets up the question — to be addressed in the following session — of whether God's comprehensive decree makes him the author of sin.
Ask FGBC Batch 7: Anabaptists, Calvinism, Sincere Offer & More | Reformed Baptist Theology
This panel discussion brings together three Reformed Baptist pastors to address questions submitted to Free Grace Baptist Church on confessional identity, soteriology, covenant theology, and Lord's Day worship. The conversation distinguishes Particular Baptists from Anabaptists on historical-documentary grounds, examines the relationship between Calvinism and confessional Reformed Baptist identity, and evaluates the free and sincere offer of the gospel against what the panelists regard as the theological liabilities of well-meant-offer language. The discussion also treats the threefold division of the law, prosopological exegesis, and the scriptural rationale for two Lord's Day services, consistently grounding each answer in the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession and the exegetical tradition of the Particular Baptists.
Ask FGBC 70: Is Progressive Covenantalism Compatible with the 1689?
Progressive Covenantalism and New Covenant theology are examined against the standard of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, with particular attention to whether either system can consistently affirm the covenant of works, the covenant of redemption, and the law/Sabbath chapters of the Confession. The discussion traces the hermeneutical root of these systems — a tendency toward biblicism that resists theological vocabulary not found verbatim in Scripture — and argues that their own best instincts, illustrated by Gary Long's late work on the Adamic covenant and the creation rest, point toward the fuller confessional expression of covenant theology. The conversation closes by considering the covenant of redemption and whether collapsing it into the eternal decree is adequate, finding devotional and doxological value in the anthropomorphic language of the pactum salutis even where precise metaphysics must be qualified.
Ask FGBC 69: Is the Threefold Division of the Law Biblical?
The threefold division of the law — moral, ceremonial, and judicial — is examined as a biblically grounded framework rooted not in Westminster Assembly invention but in the canonical structure of Scripture itself, traceable through the patristics and medieval scholastics. The discussion distinguishes natural or moral law (written on the heart by virtue of creation) from positive laws that are covenantally bounded and therefore terminable, using circumcision, dietary laws, and the Sabbath as test cases. The conversation addresses how the apostolic hermeneutic applies the moral principle behind positive laws (such as the ox-muzzling text) without collapsing into theonomy. Listeners are pressed to engage the exegetical evidence rather than dismissing the framework as "too tidy."
Ask FGBC 67: Are Piper and MacArthur Reformed Baptists?
What separates a confessional Reformed Baptist church from a Calvinistic Baptist church associated with figures like John Piper or John MacArthur? This conversation argues that Calvinism, properly understood, is not reducible to the five points of Dort but entails a whole confessional heritage — covenant theology (including the covenant of works), cessationism, the regulative principle of worship, and adherence to one of the great Protestant confessions. The Second London Baptist Confession of 1689 is presented as the most mature expression of that heritage, providing a theological anchor that protects congregations from pastoral personality-driven ministry and binds them to the cumulative wisdom Christ has given his church through the ages.
A Trinitarian Blessing
What does it mean for a church letter full of conflict, rebuke, and difficult confrontation to close with a sweeping word of blessing? Paul's benediction in 2 Corinthians 13:14 — the most elevated Trinitarian affirmation in the New Testament — does exactly that, pronouncing grace, love, and communion upon a fractious and sinning congregation without exception. The sermon distinguishes the benediction (a word of blessing descending from heaven to God's people) from the doxology (praise ascending from earth to God), tracing how each element of the Trinitarian blessing — the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit — flows downward from the triune God as spiritual reality, not mere concept. The application is pointed: whatever the believer's besetting sin, weakness of assurance, or relational difficulty, the remedy begins not with human effort but with receiving the grace, love, and fellowship that the triune God lavishes upon his people.
Baptism in the Old Testament
The washings of the Old Covenant — priestly consecration, the Day of Atonement, and ritual purification — constitute the Old Testament type to which New Testament baptism is the antitype, not circumcision as pedobaptist argument typically asserts. This session of a three-part seminar argues that Jesus' baptism marked his public entry into priestly ministry, and that believers are baptized because they, too, are priests to God who must be consecrated for access into his presence. The session draws on Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Hebrews, and 1 Peter to build a biblical theology of water and cleansing, urging a recovery of genuine appreciation for baptism as a meaningful ordinance rather than a mere formality.
The Theater of His Glory
Psalm 19 sets creation and Scripture side by side as God's two books of revelation: the heavens declare His glory in every language to every people, while the Word of God converts the soul and opens eyes to see what unbelief cannot perceive. The sermon works through the psalm to show that general revelation leaves all people without excuse before God, yet only the regenerate, illumined by the Spirit through Scripture, properly receive the theater of God's glory. The three closing applications call Christians to train their children in a Christ-centered view of both books of revelation, to cultivate daily awareness of God's hand in creation, and above all to prize the Word of God as the supreme gift that leads to life and holiness.
Ask FGBC #62: What is Federal Vision?
Federal Vision theology, originating largely within Presbyterian and broader Reformed circles, conflates the covenant of works with the covenant of grace into a mono-covenantalism that mingles works and grace. The result is a doctrine of justification dependent on grace-assisted covenantal faithfulness rather than the imputed righteousness of Christ alone. This Q&A response argues that Federal Vision constitutes not a subtle revision but an outright rejection of the historic doctrine of justification by faith alone, grounded in both Christ's active obedience imputed to the believer and his passive obedience bearing the wrath of God in the sinner's stead.
Chapter 22 - Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day
What is the acceptable way to worship the triune God, and who determines it? Working through paragraphs 1–6 of chapter 22 of the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689, this study establishes that while the light of nature discloses that God exists and is owed reverence, only special revelation determines how he is to be worshiped — the regulative principle. Religious worship belongs to the triune God alone, comes through the sole mediation of Christ since the fall, and consists of elements appointed by God himself, not devised by men. The Roman Catholic errors of saint-veneration, Marian intercession, and priestly mediation are examined and refuted at length, with particular application to the first element of worship: prayer offered in a known tongue, in the name of Christ, by the help of the Spirit.
The Opened Sanctuary
Mark 15:33–39 presents three interlocking realities at the crucifixion: the forsaken Son bearing divine wrath, the torn veil opening the sanctuary to God's presence, and a Roman centurion's confession inaugurating the gospel's reach to the nations. The noontide darkness fulfills Old Testament types — the Egyptian plague of darkness and Amos 8:9 — while Christ's cry of dereliction, drawn from Psalm 22, expresses not a severing of the Trinity but the full weight of divine justice borne substitutionarily by the Son as mediator. The tearing of the veil declares that the shadowy Old Covenant order is fulfilled, the true high priest has acted, and access to the holy presence of God is secured through the veil of Christ's flesh. Those who gather at the Lord's Supper are exhorted to glory in the Savior who bore the wrath His people deserved so that they need never cry out in God-forsakenness themselves.
The Challenge and Confidence of the Psalmist - Psalm 10:1-18
Psalm 10 presents a twofold movement: the challenge of the psalmist in verses 1–11, and the confidence of the psalmist in verses 12–18. The sermon argues that this psalm is not primarily about David's historical circumstances but about the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ — his humanity, his experience of apparent divine withdrawal, and his witness to the wickedness of those who conspired against him. The church, as joined to Christ, prays these words as her own, setting the promises of God against the troubled testimony of sense and experience, and resting in the certain reign of the Lord who will one day cause the man of the earth to oppress no more.
Ask FGBC #61: Conviction of Sin Before or After Regeneration?
The question of whether conviction of sin precedes or follows faith is examined through the lens of the ordo salutis. Conviction of sin necessarily precedes faith because without it the sinner would see no need for Christ, yet Scripture nowhere prescribes a fixed period of misery as a prerequisite for receiving the gift of faith. Conversion is the divine bestowal of the graces of faith and repentance together, not a staged sequence in which the sinner must accumulate sufficient guilt before God acts. The call of the gospel is not prolonged self-examination but immediate flight to Christ, and the doctrine of presumption that keeps sinners in unnecessary bondage is a Catholic, not Protestant, imposition on the gospel promise.
Life in the Wilderness and Canaan
Deuteronomy 8 sets the wilderness generation of Israel before the land of Canaan with a threefold movement: a reminder of God's providential humbling in the wilderness (vv. 1–5), a promise of abundant blessing in the land (vv. 6–10), and a solemn warning against the pride and forgetfulness that prosperity tends to generate (vv. 11–20). The wilderness was not divine cruelty but divine chastening — designed to produce dependence on God rather than self-sufficiency — a pattern the New Testament applies both to the believer's ongoing trials and to the person of Christ, who as the true Israel recapitulates the exodus, wilderness, and restoration that old covenant Israel failed to embody faithfully. The sermon closes by calling hearers to combat forgetfulness of God through regular remembrance of his word, his covenant, and his redemptive acts, recognising that the danger is never prosperity itself but the pride that severs gratitude from grace.
The Commendation of the Philippian Church
Philippians 4:14–23 closes Paul's letter with a commendation of the Philippian church for their constant and consistent financial partnership in his apostolic ministry. The sermon works through four observations: the apostle's commendation of the church's sacrificial generosity, his contentment that transcends material circumstances, his confidence that God will supply the church's needs according to his infinite riches, and the concluding greetings — including the remarkable note that believers within Caesar's own household send greetings to Philippi. The central application is that everything praiseworthy in the Philippians — their fellowship, their sacrifice, their fruitfulness — is itself the fruit of divine grace, so that God alone receives the glory.
The Justice and Mercy of the Lord, Part 2
Psalm 9:13–20 presents two petitions that mirror the psalm's earlier doctrinal foundation: a cry for mercy grounded in God's proven faithfulness, and a cry for judgment grounded in the certainty of divine justice. The preacher traces both petitions through their Christological fulfillment — the man of sorrows who prays from the gates of death and the appointed judge of the world in righteousness — demonstrating that David's psalm finds its true subject in Christ. God's justice toward the wicked and His mercy toward the oppressed are not in tension but are two sides of the same covenantal reality: the overthrow of God's enemies is itself the preservation of God's people. Hearers are called to pray these psalms with theological weight, to assemble corporately as those delivered from the gates of death into the gates of Zion, and to seek the Lord while He may be found.