Isaiah chapter 13 begins the Oracle Against the Nations, which is the pronouncement of judgment upon eight nations that surrounded Judah in addition to Judah itself. This section, which is thirteen chapters long, is a difficult section to read, and forces believers to wrestle with how this passage of Scripture if profitable to new covenant believers. But there is a gospel truth in this section that calls us to repentance and to the struggle of faith. (Isaiah 13.9-22) October 17, 2021

FBC Benbrook Sermons

God of the Nations

Will heaven be boring? Will the boredom of heaven be worse that the tortures of hell? These are questions that unbelievers ask, but the truth is that our imaginations of heaven are often trite or even unbiblical. The prophet Isaiah paints a picture of what heaven looks like when God makes all things new, when the old order of things passes away. But the reason the prophet paints a glorious picture of eternity is to remind God’s people of how powerful and loving God really is. The point is that the King of Heaven is also the King of today which is why we can trust Him and rest under His sovereign care. (Isaiah 11.1-10) October 3, 2021.

Will Heaven Be Boring?

After Isaiah had been speaking the Word of the Lord to the people in Judah, God encouraged the prophet and renewed his calling with an incredible vision. This vision not only foreshadows the atoning death of Christ, but it also speaks to the danger of hardening our heart when we hear the Word of the Lord. Twice Jesus quoted the tough words spoken to Isaiah, and the writer of Hebrews echoes the same theme. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart. (Isaiah 6.1-10) September 26, 2021

What Do You Do When You See the Lord?

Jesus was a great storyteller, and many of His parables used the image of the vineyard. One such parable was a retelling of the Parable of the Vineyard told by the prophet Isaiah. The fact that Jesus retold this same parable should cause the people of God to pay special attention to these words from the prophet. The parable makes it very clear that God is looking to find the fruit of justice and righteousness among His people. Isaiah helps us to understand that biblical justice is an overflow of gospel righteousness. (Isaiah 5.1-7) September 19, 2021

Doing Justice and Righteousness

For the Old Testament prophets, “the Day of the Lord” refers to anytime the Lord dramatically intervenes in human history, but the people of Isaiah’s day assumed that God would act to defeat their enemies. They could not conceive of the truth that they would be on God’s enemy’s list. The prophet Isaiah made it clear: “The Lord has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up, and it shall be brought low.” God has always been opposed to the proud, especially when the lofty pride of mankind infiltrates His people. Essentially, human pride is exalting ourselves and minimizing God, whereas God calls us to humble ourselves and exalt the Lord. May the Spirit of God shine His light into the darkness of our pride. (Isaiah 2.6-12) September 12, 2021

God Opposes the Proud

When the Old Testament prophets spoke of “the latter days,” they could be speaking of the restoration of Jerusalem after the exile, or the first coming of the Messiah, or the second coming of the Messiah, or even the eternal heaven. And it does make reading great passages like Isaiah 2 a challenge, but this prophecy does remind us that because of the grace of God to be revealed during “the latter days,” it changes how we live today. As the prophet said, we should walk in the light of the Lord and His latter day grace by having no other gods before Him, by walking in His ways, words, and promises, by welcoming the nations to the gospel table, by doing all we can to be peacemakers, and by setting our hope fully on the eternal grace of the latter days. (Isaiah 2.1-5) September 5, 2021

Walking in the Light of the Latter Days

After the prophet Isaiah described the people of God as “a people laden with iniquity,” we can almost hear the crowd rejecting this message. “Look at how religious we are! Look at all the offerings, solemn assemblies, and Sabbath rules we obey to the letter!” But the Lord was not pleased with their worship. In fact, the Lord called their huge outpourings of religious activity an “abomination” and “vain worship.” And the people of Isaiah’s day were not alone, for Jesus even called out the religious leaders of his day for their vain worship. How do we make sure that our worship is God pleasing instead of offensive? (Isaiah 1.10-20) August 29, 2021

The Last Stop on the Religious Bus

The prophet Isaiah speaks with the conviction that God is present and active in this world, both as a Loving Father and as a Righteous Judge. Not only was this message confronting to the people of Isaiah’s day, but it remains so today for most Americans have no room for the present and active wrath of God in their conception of God. But the wrath of God, rightly understood, does not drive us away from the Righteous Judge. In fact, it draws us deep into the fellowship with a Loving Father. What assumptions about the wrath of God need to change for us to be able to see this? (Isaiah 1.1-9) August 22, 2021

Meet My Friend Isaiah

Jesus commissioned His disciples with the assignment to go to all the nations to preach the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit. But the gospel of Matthew ends with the unique commission to go and make disciples of all nations. For the last 100 years, the church in America has put much effort into the “go” of this commission, and all over the world the gospel is growing and bearing fruit. However, in that same time period, the American church has lost focus of the “make disciples” element of the Great Commission. As a result, the global gospel map has shifted. We must rediscover what it means to both “be a disciple” and to be a “disciple who makes disciples.” (Matthew 28.16-20) August 15, 2021

The Assignment: Be Disciples Who Make Disciples

Why did Jesus invite the disciples to watch Him ascend into heaven? One of the reasons is that they needed to see Jesus as no longer the “humbled, obedient to the point of death” Jesus but the “exalted at the right hand of God with authority over all things” Jesus. Seeing the exalted Jesus was and is essential to the church fulfilling the Great Commission. In addition to the many things the exalted Jesus is doing right now, He is sending the Spirit and exercising authority over all powers. (Acts 1.1-11) August 8, 2021

The Exalted Jesus

We have forever defined one follower of Jesus by his weakest moment. We even call him by that name, “Doubting Thomas.” But instead of being critical of Thomas, perhaps he is a good example of how to journey through our doubts and into faith. The truth is that doubts and questions are part of the journey towards genuine faith, but there are forks in the road where we must choose to view God through the lens of our doubts or view our doubts through the lens of our God. This is why we must deal honestly with our doubts, but also expand our understanding of the beauty and greatness of God. (John 20.24-29) July 25, 2021.

Is There Room for Doubt in Faith?

After His resurrection, Jesus appeared in many ways and to many people demonstrating the proof of His resurrection. In one of these post resurrection appearances, Jesus walked with two disciples as they were returning to the little village of Emmaus. And in that conversation, we see some of the common elements that God uses to help us make sense of the Jesus story. God uses the miracles and teachings of Jesus, our hope for deliverance, the meaning of the crucifixion and resurrection, the Scriptures, the communion of the saints, and even the work of the Spirit in our journey towards saving faith. (Luke 24.13-35) July 11, 2021.

The Journey to Faith

The fact that Jesus was buried after He was crucified was an essential element to the early gospel story. But what is the significance of that fact for believers today? In Romans 6, the Bible tells us that we were buried with Him by baptism into death. This means that when we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we were immersed in Him, an immersion that produced an irreversible change. Unfortunately, the good news of being buried with Him is often hidden by gospel imitations. (Matthew 27.57-61) July 4, 2021

The Good News of Being Buried With Him

According to the gospel of Matthew, at the death of Jesus, the earth shook, the rocks split, and the tombs opened. And after His resurrection, many of the saints who had died were raised and appeared to many in Jerusalem. While we have many questions surrounding this event, one major question is “why?” Why would the Father raise many saints after the resurrection of Jesus and have them appear to many in Jerusalem? A few of the answers to that question include: (1) to call many to saving faith and to birth the church, (2) to demonstrate that God alone is the Giver of Life and has authority over death, and (3) to demonstrate the hope of the resurrection to come. (Matthew 27.50-56) June 27, 2021.

When the Saints...Came Walking Out...

Before Jesus was crucified, He endured the horror of a scourging. While the gospels don’t give much detail to it, it was important enough for the prophet Isaiah to foretell it hundreds of years before it happened. The gospels don’t reflect on the pain of the scourging, and Peter helps us understand how we should react to this horrible event in the life of our Savior. It is by His scourging that we are healed, so that we can return to the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls. (Matthew 27.26-31) May 30, 2021

By His Stripes

The Sunday morning sermons delivered by Todd Pylant at the First Baptist Church of Benbrook, Texas