Topic
Worship
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Live Stream - December 29, 2024
Psalm 110 presents the Lord Jesus Christ in his kingly and priestly offices as the ground of confidence for the people of God in a present evil age. The psalm's declaration — 'The LORD said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool' — is expounded through Christ's enthronement at the Father's right hand (vv. 1–3), his eternal Melchizedekan priesthood sworn by divine oath (v. 4), and the certain triumph of the warrior-king over every enemy, including death itself (vv. 5–7). The sermon calls believers entering a new year to fix their hope not on the shifting fortunes of history but on the reigning and interceding Christ, and calls the unconverted to look to him in faith today.
The Enthronement of the King-Priest
Psalm 110 is the most frequently quoted Old Testament text in the New Testament, and for good reason: it presents the Lord Jesus Christ in his twofold office as enthroned King and eternal Priest. This exposition works through all seven verses under three headings — the enthronement of Christ at the Father's right hand (vv. 1–3), the Melchizedekan priesthood sworn by God's oath (v. 4), and the triumph of Christ over all his enemies (vv. 5–7). The sermon calls believers entering a new year to fix their minds on the reigning King-Priest rather than on the hostility of the present evil age, and urges the unconverted to come to Christ in faith on the grounds that God's saving purpose is irreversible.
Ask FGBC #33: What about head coverings in church for women?
This brief question-and-answer exchange addresses whether women are required to wear head coverings in corporate worship, with particular reference to 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Timothy 2. The speaker argues that Paul's concern in the passage is male headship in the gathered church — a man preaching, prophesying, and leading in the public assembly — and that the head covering or hair functions as an illustration of that principle rather than a binding liturgical mandate. Head coverings are neither forbidden nor elevated to marks of a holier walk with God; the analogy drawn is to voluntary circumcision, which carries no religious commendation before God.
The Incarnation and the Salvation of God
Simeon's encounter with the infant Jesus in Luke 2:25–35 reveals the incarnation as the decisive fulfillment of every Old Testament promise — from Genesis 3:15 through the servant songs of Isaiah — and forces every hearer to declare whose side they stand on. The sermon expounds two movements in the passage: Simeon's confession that the child he holds is the salvation God prepared for all peoples, and Simeon's prophecy that this same child will cause the fall and rising of many, pierce Mary's soul, and expose the hidden allegiance of every heart. The call is direct: look to Christ by faith as Simeon did, die in peace as Simeon could, and do not be numbered among those who fell because they rejected the consolation of Israel.
2LCF Chapter 29 - Of Baptism, Part 2
Credobaptism rests on five mutually reinforcing theological arguments: covenant theology, federal headship, the doctrine of salvation, the clarity of New Testament revelation, and the regulative principle of worship. This session (Part 2 of a study on 2LCF Chapter 29) works through the final three arguments, demonstrating from Romans 6, Acts 2, Acts 8–9, Galatians 3, and 1 Corinthians 10 that baptism signifies union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection, and therefore belongs only to those who actually possess that union. The session closes by showing that infant sprinkling not only lacks any express divine command but positively contradicts the explicit command to baptize believers only — an inconsistency that even notable paedo-baptist writers (Owen, Calvin, Matthew Henry) expose in their own defenses of the regulative principle of worship.
CTF 2025 - Who are the 2025 Speakers? Dolezal, Renihan
This preview conversation introduces two speakers for a confessional Reformed Baptist theology conference: James Dolezal, whose scholarly work on divine simplicity and classical theism has centered on the 1689 LBCF's confession that God is 'without body, parts, and passions,' and Samuel Renihan, whose accessible treatments of divine impassibility grew out of a significant doctrinal controversy within ARBCA beginning around 2014. The discussion traces how that controversy, though disruptive, proved a providential catalyst for deeper engagement with theology proper — the doctrine of God in His nature, perfections, and triunity — and how both speakers represent a recovery of classical theism within the broader Reformed Baptist world.
CTF 2025 - Who Is The Conference For?
A brief panel discussion previewing a theology conference for pastors, elders, deacons, and laypeople in Reformed churches. The conversation addresses why doctrinal instruction — rooted in historical theology, systematic theology, and exegesis — is more foundational than purely practical programming. The core concern is that Christians in the modern church bypass the knowledge of God for immediate application, and the conference intends to remedy that by grounding practical Christian living in a right understanding of who God is.
CTF 2025 - Why another conference?
This preview conversation introduces a confessional Reformed Baptist conference designed to walk through the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith one chapter per year, gathering pastors, elders, and laypeople around the doctrines most surely believed among Reformed Christians. The 2025 conference focuses on Chapter 2 of the confession, a chapter with significant overlap with the Westminster Confession, the Savoy Declaration, and the Belgic Confession. The stated purpose is the edification of the saints through theological instruction, fellowship, and fidelity to the received biblical and confessional heritage.
CTF 2025 - Why Attend the Conference?
Two pastors offer reasons to attend a confessional Reformed Baptist conference centred on the knowledge of God. Drawing on John 17:3 and Jeremiah 9, they argue that knowing the triune God — his being, his perfections, and his works in redemption — is the supreme good, surpassing riches, strength, and worldly wisdom. The conference is commended not as an academic exercise but as a gathering for instruction, corporate worship, and the mutual encouragement of the saints.
CTF 2025 - How Did the 2024 Conference Go?
A brief post-conference reflection on the April 2024 Reformed Baptist conference on Chapter 1 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. Attendees and a Free Reformed pastor both expressed that the exposition of the confession aligned closely with sound catechetical teaching, underscoring the doctrinal solidarity that exists across confessional traditions. The gathering is described as an occasion for edification, fellowship, and the opening of Scripture in a spirit of unity rather than controversy.
Live Stream - December 15, 2024
John 16:25–28 forms the doctrinal climax of the upper room discourse, where Christ sets before his disciples three interlocking truths: the manner of his instruction through figurative language soon to be illumined by the Spirit, the direct access believers have to the Father through the Son in the new covenant era, and the Christological ground of that access in the Eternal generation, Incarnation, and Ascension of the Son. The sermon presses into the Eternal generation of the Son — his being begotten of the Father before all worlds, not by creation or adoption but by an Eternal relation of origin — and then into the Incarnation as the assumption of human nature without any compromise to his divinity. The unchanging love of the Father for his elect, grounded not in their merit but in sovereign grace and the mediation of Christ, is held out as the sustaining comfort for disciples facing tribulation, and the call to unbelievers is to look to Christ — his blood and righteousness — as the only escape from divine judgment.
Baptism - Shannon
Baptism is an ordinance of the New Covenant ordained by Jesus Christ, administered by immersion to those who actually profess repentance, faith, and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. Drawing from chapter 29 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, this administration of the ordinance situates believer's baptism within the broader Reformed confessional tradition, noting the Baptists' deliberate alignment with Presbyterian and Congregationalist Brethren on the doctrines of justification, the Trinity, and much else, while differing on the proper subjects and mode of baptism. The outward sign of immersion into water visibly expresses Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, grounded in Romans 6, as the candidate publicly professes faith in Christ alone for salvation.
Of the Duties of the Priests and Levites
Numbers 18–19 belongs to a literary unit stretching from chapters 16 through 19, all of which works to vindicate Aaron's God-ordained priesthood in the aftermath of Korah's rebellion. Chapter 18 defines the distinct duties and the provision of both priests and Levites, while chapter 19 supplies the purification rites that answer Israel's terrified cry in chapter 17 — 'shall we all utterly die?' — by providing a lawful way of drawing near to a holy God. The regulative principle of worship stands at the centre of these chapters: God alone determines who may approach Him, by what means, and under what conditions, and the death penalties attached to violations are not capricious but reflect the consuming holiness of the Lord. These Old Covenant arrangements point forward to the Lord Jesus Christ, the great High Priest who is also the Lamb, the one who both provides atonement and promotes and protects true worship under the New Covenant.
2LCF Chapter 28 - Of Baptism and the Lord's Supper
2LCF Chapter 28 presents baptism and the Lord's Supper as two ordinances of positive and sovereign institution appointed by the Lord Jesus Christ, the only lawgiver, to be continued in His church until the end of the age. This session traces the confessional groundwork laid in 2LCF chapters 8, 14, 17, 22, and 26 before examining Chapter 28's two brief paragraphs in detail. The particular Baptist choice of 'ordinance' over 'sacrament,' the exclusion of 'seal,' and the inclusion of 'positive' are each shown to be polemically deliberate — asserting that baptism and the Lord's Supper are divine commands to be obeyed only by those who can render obedience, that is, regenerate believers. The session closes by grounding lawful administration of the ordinances in Matthew 28 and the commission given to qualified, called ministers of the gospel.
Ask FGBC #27: Why the shift from Saturday to Sunday worship?
Why did Christian worship shift from the seventh day to the first day of the week? This Q&A response argues that Sunday observance is not an abolition of the fourth commandment but its new-covenant fulfillment, grounded in Christ's resurrection as the inauguration of new creation. The moral principle embedded in the fourth commandment — one day in seven set apart for the worship of God — transcends any particular covenant, while the positive element specifying which day shifts from Saturday to Sunday in light of Christ's finished work and rest. Drawing on Hebrews 4, the eighth-day Sabbath typology of the Old Testament, and the 1689 LBCF's treatment of the Lord's Day, the speaker urges believers to receive Sunday worship not as a burden but as the highest delight and privilege available to the people of God.
The Vindication of the Aaronic Priesthood
Numbers 16:41–17 records the immediate aftermath of Korah's rebellion: Israel accuses Moses and Aaron of murder, God's wrath breaks out in a plague, and Aaron runs into the congregation with a censer to make atonement, standing between the dead and the living until the plague stops. Chapter 17 then confirms the Aaronic priesthood definitively when Aaron's rod alone buds, blossoms, and produces ripe almonds, functioning as a perpetual sign against any future usurper of the priestly office. The typological weight of Aaron's intercession in verse 48 points forward to Christ, who stands between dead sinners and the wrath of God, propitating that wrath by his blood. The sermon calls hearers to recognize both the sinfulness of Israel's hasty accusation and the glory of the priestly atonement that alone grants the unholy access to a holy God.
The Rebellion of Korah & Company
Numbers 16:1–40 records a combined ecclesiastical and political mutiny against God's ordained leaders: Korah, a Kohathite Levite, challenges Aaron's exclusive priesthood, while Dathan and Abiram challenge Moses' civil authority. The rebellion is not merely an internal dispute but an act of treason against the living God, who appointed both men to their offices. God vindicates Moses and Aaron by a catastrophic judgment — the earth swallows the ringleaders and fire consumes the 250 who offered incense — and the bronze censers are hammered into an altar covering as a perpetual memorial against unauthorized priestly intrusion. The passage warns that malcontents misrepresent truth, recruit the influential, and ultimately reap divine judgment when they resist God's ordained authority structures.
2LCF Chapter 27 – Of the Communion of Saints
The communion of saints, as confessed in 2LCF Chapter 27, is grounded in the believer's union with Christ by the Spirit and through faith — a union that conveys participation in His graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory without any divinization of the creature or diminishment of Christ's divinity. From that vertical union flows a horizontal obligation: holy fellowship in corporate worship, mutual edification through rightly ordered spiritual gifts, and material relief distributed according to ability and necessity. A necessary qualification guards the confession against both spiritual individualism and collectivist error: the communion of saints neither licenses neglect of public worship nor grants any person a right to another's private property, placing both socialism and communism in direct conflict with the Eighth and Tenth Commandments.
The Requirements for Religious Life
Numbers 15 interrupts the narrative of Israel's rebellion in chapters 11–14 with renewed covenant obligations — laws of offerings, provisions for unintentional sin, and the command to wear tassels. The placement is deliberate: faithfulness to God's ordained means of grace is the proper remedy for the kind of corporate collapse just witnessed. The sermon traces how God's judgment on one generation does not exhaust His covenant mercy, and draws a typological line from Mosaic sacrifice and priesthood through to the once-for-all offering of Christ and the believer's advocate before the Father.
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.
Ask FGBC #18: Should churches observe holy days?
The regulative principle of worship governs which days the church is obligated to observe, and the only holy day Scripture commands is the Lord's Day — the Christian Sabbath. Drawing on 1689 LBCF chapters 21 and 22, this Q&A explains why Reformed Baptist churches do not hold services on Good Friday, Christmas, or other traditional holy days: God has not commanded them, and imposing them binds consciences in ways Scripture does not authorize. The Lord's Supper, not Good Friday, is the appointed means of remembering Christ's death; every Lord's Day is already a resurrection celebration.
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.
Ask FGBC #15: How can I steward my children, and know they are saved?
A parent's fear that their children may not be among the elect raises the question of how to steward children toward faith and how to have confidence in their salvation. Drawing on the doctrine of the means of grace, the answer is plainly stated: bring children consistently to the worship of God, where the Word is faithfully preached, and trust that God ordinarily works conversion through those appointed means. No parental method guarantees salvation, but faithless substitutes — sports on the Lord's Day, churches chasing entertainment — rob children of the very instrument God has appointed. The exhortation is simple: live a credible Christian life before your children, keep them in the assembly, and trust God to work.
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.
2LCF Chapter 25 - Of Marriage
Marriage as a divine institution is examined through the four paragraphs of 2LCF Chapter 25, with Matthew 19:5–6 as the anchor text where Christ grounds marriage in the creation of male and female. The sermon argues that marriage is not a social construct or ecclesiastical sacrament but a creation ordinance ordained by God before the fall, designed for the union of one man and one woman in monogamous covenant. A threefold providential purpose is unfolded — companionship, the inhabitation of creation, and a hedge against sexual immorality — and the regulative bounds of marriage regarding consanguinity, affinity, and Christian marital duty are applied against both contemporary sexual confusion and Roman Catholic sacerdotalism.
The Intercessory Prayer of the Apostle
Paul's intercessory prayer in Philippians 1:9–11 reveals what the apostle most deeply desires for the church: not comfort or relief from suffering, but abounding love anchored in knowledge and discernment, sincere and blameless conduct persevering to the day of Christ, and good fruit borne entirely by the agency of Jesus Christ to the glory of God. The sermon works through two main petitions — the disposition of the heart (vv. 9–10a) and the actions of the life (vv. 10b–11) — showing that love divorced from sound theology produces sentimentalism, while theology divorced from discernment produces loveless pride. The whole is framed by the Pauline conviction that from justification by faith alone flows the life of sanctification, and that every fruit of righteousness is not the cause but the consequence of God's grace, rendered ultimately to the glory and praise of God.
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.
2LCF Chapter 24 - Of the Civil Magistrate
What does the Bible teach about civil government, and how should Christians relate to governing authorities? Working through 2 London Baptist Confession of Faith Chapter 24, this study expounds the divine origin and limited purpose of civil magistracy, the lawfulness of Christian participation in government, and the qualified obedience owed to rulers who govern within God-ordained bounds. The particular Baptists are shown to occupy a distinct position between the Anabaptist rejection of civil authority and the Erastian tendencies of their Presbyterian contemporaries, grounding Christian submission not in the authority of the magistrate but in the sovereign ordination of God over all nations.
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.
2LCF Chapter 23 - Of Lawful Oaths and Vows
The lawful use of oaths and vows — their definition, sanctity, necessary care, and required clarity — is examined through 2LCF Chapter 23 against the backdrop of three historical abuses: Roman Catholic monastical vows, state imposition on conscience, and the Anabaptist and Quaker rejection of oaths altogether. The chapter is read in full and then expounded paragraph by paragraph, demonstrating from Deuteronomy, Matthew 5, Matthew 26, and Hebrews 6 that oaths are a legitimate element of religious worship reserved for matters of weight and moment, taken only in the name of God with holy fear and reverence. The session concludes by connecting the call to truthfulness with the person of Christ, who as the only one who ever spoke in perfect truth, stands as the substitute for those who break their word.