Someone requested that hymn. I had just turned on the valve
to fill the baptistery and someone called and said, can we sing
There is a Fountain Filled with Blood? I love when that happens. confirmation
of His Word and that His Spirit bears witness with our spirit
and what we're doing. What we're doing, what we're
going to do today, someone's going to confess, profess faith
in Christ and believe His baptism. It's all through the Scripture.
You read it with me in Romans. In this chapter, Matthew 3, go
to Matthew 3, It's mentioned eight times in just 17 verses. That's how important it is. But
we don't preach subjects or topics. We preach Christ. Christ crucified. Baptism is important. It's mentioned
so many times. It's vital. Our Lord commands
it. But baptism doesn't save us. I'm not belittling or lessening
the importance of baptism, but I'm making a factual statement. Baptism doesn't save us. Just
because you're baptized doesn't mean you're saved. There are
some people I wish I'd never baptized. They're not here. Christ saves
us. And we will be saved if we die
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Saved if we believe Him now.
But we'll be saved when we die in the faith. Okay? But Scripture
says, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. I'm not going to qualify that.
Some people say, well, the thief on the cross wasn't baptized.
Oh, boy. Three thousand people at Pentecost
were baptized. And not one of them said, well,
the thief on the cross wasn't baptized. Why wouldn't anybody say that
anyway? It's a delight, it's a privilege.
I guarantee every believer in here, when Sister Kate and I
go into that pool, every one of you will feel like you wish
you were there with us. It's a privilege, an honor to
confess Christ, to profess Him for others. That's what He did. He said, you confess me, I'll
confess you. It's not a shame to call us his
brethren. Oh, I don't want to be ashamed
to call him my master. Let's read verses 13 through
17, Matthew 3. Then cometh Jesus from Galilee
to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him. But John forbade him,
saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?
And Jesus answered and said unto him, Suffer it to be so now,
for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. And John suffered
him. He baptized him. And Jesus, when
he was baptized, when he went up straightway out of the water,
he was immersed. He went down into the river Jordan,
and John put him under the water, that's baptism. And lo, the heavens
were opened unto Christ, and John saw the Spirit of God descending
like a dove and lighting upon Christ. And lo, a voice from
heaven, you know, God hadn't spoken in 400 years. This is
the first time God spoke. This is my beloved in whom I
am well pleased." Well pleased. Now turn with me to 1 Peter chapter
3. 1 Peter chapter 3. Peter mentions baptism. You believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, you're saved. If you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, you'll confess Him. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. If we believe, If we believe,
we will confess Christ in baptism. It's the answer of a good conscience. Look at what Peter says, 1 Peter
3, verse 15. Sanctify the Lord God in your
hearts. That means declare him in such a way that
he is distinguished above all other false gods. Read on. Be ready to give an answer to
every man and ask you a reason of the hope that's in you. with
meekness and fear. Tell them who your God is. Tell
them who you believe. Tell them who your hope is, where
your hope is found, a reason for the hope that's in you. What
is your hope? Can you tell me what your hope of eternal life
is in one word? Christ. We just read that. Hope,
Romans 5. Hope in Christ. There is no other
hope. He's the hope of heaven. A sure hope, a good hope. Down
in verse 21, Peter said, the like figure, speaking of Noah
and the ark, you remember Noah and the ark? Those that were
in that ark were saved. God put them there and shut them
in and pitched, which is a picture of blood covered within, without. Blood in the heart. Testimony
of God's people. And on the outside, when I see
them there, on the mercy sea, on the ark, those in the ark
of Noah were saved, but that ark was under the water, wasn't
it? Just covered with what? Baptized. And the wrath of God fell on
that ark. Not one drop of rain fell on anybody in that ark.
It all fell on the ark. That ark is Jesus Christ. And so, look at verse, that's
what he's saying, the like figure, verse 21, baptism does save us. Not put in the way of the flesh,
actual baptism, but it's the answer of a good conscience. Paul, one in, to the Corinthians
said about the Lord's table, he said, don't take this table,
don't eat this table if you don't know why you're eating it. Remember
that? And don't be baptized if you
don't know why. It's the answer of a good conscience.
And Paul, one time, wrote about a conscience purged from dead
works. All through Romans, it talks
about we're not justified by works. We're not saved by works. No, no, no. Lest any man should
both. We're saved by Christ's works.
Do you know that? The answer of a good conscience,
purged from dead work, purged by blood. We're guilty. We're
guilty of breaking every law, every sin. Not only we're guilty,
we still are, in ourselves. Well, what's going to purge our
conscience from guilt, give us any hope that, you know, we're
going to go to heaven? The blood of Jesus Christ. It's
the only thing. Paid for. Did you understand what you read
in Romans 6? Reckon yourself dead. You've already been punished
for every crime you've ever committed or will commit. Christ paid for
it all. You can't dig up a dead man and
punish him for the same crimes again. The answer of a good conscience,
what we tell people by mouth and by baptism, is tell everybody
we're saying all my hope of salvation is in what Christ did for me
in His life, holy and righteous, my representative,
and God's well-pleased. God said it out loud, I'm well-pleased.
And that's Isaiah 42, and, well, please for His righteousness
sake. Well, I am too. Because by nature, none righteous,
no, not one. But Jehovah said, Kenneth who
came to, made unto us. So we're saying that when Christ
lived, He lived for me. And He kept the law for me. And I'm not trying to keep the
law to be saved. I love God's law. By the law,
no one's justified. We're justified by the faith
of the Lord Jesus Christ, Him keeping the law. And then Christ
went to the Calvary tree, and God laid on Him the iniquity
of all His people, charged Him with all the crimes and sins
of all of God's people, made Him to be sin. God laid on Him. He bore our sins in His body
on the tree. God said, the soul that sinneth
must surely die. The wages of sin is death. Without
the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. That's what
God said. So this is what we're saying when we're baptized. And
you may have a hard time telling people this by mouth. That's
why the Lord instituted baptism. And I don't know how many people
you've spoken to in your lifetime about the gospel. But in being
baptized, I don't know how many in here, but maybe more people
in here witnessing your profession than you'll ever speak to in
your lifetime. You understand? So this is a blessed opportunity.
You understand? Often when someone is baptized,
they invite their family to come witness it and people come. Most
people don't know what it's all about. They think you're just
joining the church and just got religion and so on and so forth. But what we're saying when we
get in that pool is when Christ lived, he lived for me. When
Christ died, I died. I deserve to die. I'm the one
that God should have punished. But Christ was punished for me.
And he was buried. And what we're saying is, I want
to be just buried, plumbed out of sight, get rid of this old
man, this mad body of sin. I want it gone. And when Christ arose, we're
saying, I'm no longer dead and trespassing in sin, but I've
been quickened with Christ, quickened together with Him, raised to
walk in newness of life. Now, I don't want to live for
myself. I don't want to live for sin. I don't want to live
for this world. Paul said, I'm crucified to the
world and the world to me, like all those people in that ark. The world had no affection for
the world. It's perishing. They're looking
for a new world. And that's what we're saying.
Now Christ is my life. So this is a wonderful, wonderful
profession, wonderful opportunity. I'm crucified with Him like Noah
and the ark. Every believer must, every believer
shall, will, if not you're ashamed of the Lord Jesus Christ. You're
not obedient to His commands. Every time I baptize someone,
and I got this from my pastor, I say this, it's a person's name,
Kate McAllister, in obedience to the divine command of Christ
Jesus our Lord, he said, go into all the world, preacher, and
preach the gospel, and he that believeth and is baptized shall
be saved. Go into all the world and baptize
all in my name, the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. That's what he said to do. If we don't do it, we're
in disobedience to Him, and ashamed of Him. He said,
you confess Me, and this is how we do it. First, we go out in
our life and witness a good profession. If we don't, we don't love Him.
We're embarrassed to confess Him. And when we confess Him,
We're not confessing ourselves. We're not saying, now I have
faith. No. There's not a person in here,
starting with me, that thinks you have enough faith. I'm ashamed
of my faith. But this is the profession of
faith. The Lord himself was baptized. Does that make it important?
Why was he baptized? Do you know the answer to that? He was baptized. John said, no,
no, why? One time Peter, the Lord was
washing their feet, remember? He said, don't wash my feet. He said, if I don't, you have
no part in it. If Christ was not baptized, we're lost. Let's see what this
means, okay? Matthew 3, look at verse 1. came
John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea. John
the Baptist. That doesn't mean, that was his
denomination. That's not a denomination. It's
the baptizer. He's distinguished from John
the Apostle. You see? John the Baptizer. That's what he was known for.
There were no Baptists or Presbyterians or Methodists. They were all
just believers. John the Baptizer. What was he
doing? What did he do? What was his
principle work? Why did the Lord send John? Preaching. Preaching, didn't He? All the
prophets were preachers. John is the last Old Testament
prophet. All the prophets were preachers. All the apostles were
preachers. The Lord Himself was a preacher. He preached exactly
what John did, didn't He? Repent. The Kingdom of Heaven
is in Him. So do we. Every true preacher.
Please God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. How shall we hear without a preacher?
Well, what do we preach? What did John preach? Repent. Look at it. Verse 2. Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Over in John's Gospel,
chapter 1, he said, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away
the sin of the world. Repent. The King is here. The kingdom of God, the people
of God. The king is here. He's come to
find his subject and bring them into his kingdom. He's come here
to die to pay for their sin. The Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of a people out of every kindred, nation, tongue, under
heaven. Out of the world. Elect. Out of the world. From
the four corners of the earth, He is elect, gathered, in one,
in Christ. Christ came, He said, I've come
to seek and to save the lost, to die for His sheep, to pay
for their sin. Kingdom of heaven is at hand.
The King has come. And He died. He's the Lamb of
God that was slain for the remission of our sins of God's people. He's the Lamb slain for the foundation
of the world. And when all of God's people go to glory, what
they're going to see, you know what they're going to see? A
lamb as it had been slain. That's Christ. Do you have a
lamb? Exodus 12, every man needs a lamb, must have a lamb. Do
you know why? An innocent substitute. John preached, he preached Christ.
He preached Christ and him crucified, didn't he? Before he was crucified,
he preached Christ crucified, the Lamb of God. Now it says he was preaching in the
wilderness, I like that, of Judea. He was outside the camp, wasn't
he? He wasn't inside. And most of the time, 99% of
the time, you're going to have to go hear a preacher. He's not
going to be down in First Baptist Church, downtown Rocky Mountain. He's not going to be in the First
Methodist Church. He's not going to be in the, in the, not, not,
you won't find it. Our Lord was crucified outside
the camp. Hebrews 13 says we have to go
to him outside the camp, in the wilderness. repent for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand. So he preached. What is repentant? What does
it mean to repent? Paul said, I preached repentance
toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance
toward God. The best chapter in all of God's
Word about repentance is Psalm 51. You want to go there? You know that most of the martyrs
that died at the stake, were burned at the stake and sawn
asunder and all, as Hebrews talks about, most of them went to their
death, quoting Psalm 51. Some of you know why, don't you? They were repenting of their
sins and confessing faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
Psalm 51. There's no better way to describe
repentance than just Psalm 51. Our Lord one time gave this parable,
Luke 18, I believe it is, that there were two men who went to
church and one of them was a Pharisee and he lifted his eyes to heaven
and he prayed thus with himself because God didn't hear him.
He said, Father, I thank you that I'm not like other men.
I fast, I tithe, I pray, I go to church. I've never missed
a service in 20 years and on and on it went. There's another
man in the back who was the chief of centers. Everybody knew he
was a no-good center, low-down center, and he was a Republican. And he wouldn't lift his eyes
to heaven. All he could do was beat on his
chest like there's something inside of me that I can't get
rid of and I hate it. But I am. It's what I am, and
I hate myself. And he prayed seven words. God
be merciful to me, the sinner. That's repentance. Look at Psalm
51. Have mercy upon me, O God, according
to Thy lovingkindness. according unto the multitude
that I tend to mercies, blot out my transgressions." Have
you ever read in Hebrews where it says that Christ on the cross
blotted out the handwriting of the ordinance? Every time I quote
that or even say the word blotted out, Brother John Davis just
smiles. He knows what that means. If
you've got a bad record, if you've got a bad past, if you've got
a bad present, You're thankful that the blood of Jesus Christ
blots it out. There's no condemnation, not
one charge laid to God's people. God has justified why? Because
Christ died and blotted them out by the blood. Wash me throughly
from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. What
can wash away our sin? If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive our sins. The blood of Jesus
Christ, God said, cleanses. I acknowledge, verse 3, my transgressions,
my sin, not sins, my sin, what I am. Sins, we commit sins because
of what we are, sinners. My sin is ever before me. Paul said, in me, that is, in
my flesh, my old man, dwelleth no good thing. There's no soundness
in my flesh. I'm a leper in my flesh. But thank God there's another
law. A new man within her. Christ in you. The hope of God.
And you had nothing to do with that man. Read on. He said, Against thee
and thee only have I sinned. Sins against God. Sins against
God's mercy. God's grace. God's love. God's compassion. God's provisions. God's command. God's thoughts. All against God. Against thee and thee only have
I done this evil in thy sight, an open sight of God, in direct
rebellion against God, that thou must be justified when
you speak. When you pronounce me guilty,
you're just. He says you're going to be clear
when you judge. When you sentence me to death, you'll be just. That's what I deserve. Verse
5, I was shapen in iniquity, in sin did my mother conceive
me. I was born an Adam, I died, and my parents, sinners, and
I'm a sinner. Behold, thou desirest truth in
the inward part, in the hidden part. Yes, you make me know wisdom
in the hidden part. And a new man, purge me with
hyssop. What's that? I'll be clean. Wash me, I'll
be whiter than snow. What's that? Hyssop. You ever remember hearing about
Hyssop? All the way back in Exodus 12. Again, see it's all about
the crucifixion of Christ. Our Lord told the children of
Israel in those homes, He said, I'm coming through and I'm going
to kill the firstborn in every house because everybody's guilty.
But when I see the blood, I'll pass it over to you. So take
a bunch of Hyssop. and dip it in the blood of a
lamb, every house a lamb, and dip that hyssop, that healing
herb, a bitter herb, in that blood and put it on the doorpost
and the lintel of that house. And when I see the blood, I will
pass over you. And the death angel will not
smite you. That's Christ crucified. You
see that? Purge me with hyssop. I'll be
clean. Wash me and I'll be whiter than
snow. Verse 9, hide thy face from my
sin, blot out all mine iniquity. God hid his face from Christ. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? We hid, as it were, our faces
from him. The longest time we wouldn't
come and sit in this place for anything. If we did, it was because
our parents made us. We weren't doing it willingly.
Couldn't wait to get out, like some still in here. He had our
faith. Not interested. I preached to
some. Not interested in Jesus Christ. Why should he be interested in
that? Well, this is confession. I hid,
as it were, my face from you, and now I realize that God hid
His face from Christ for my sake, that God forsook Christ for my
sake, that God laid on Him my iniquity,
that God punished Him because of me, what I did. Can you imagine? You know me.
You see me. I believe you love me, most of
you. But what if you committed some horrible crime and you were
sentenced to death and I took your place? And I went out there
and I took a sword and just pierced me and you watched me die and
my blood died for you. How did that make you feel? It
was your crime. You did it. But I took your place
out of love to you. That's what Christ did for all
these people. And greater love hath no man
than I. That's repentance. That's repentance. Matthew 3. Go back there now. Go back there.
Matthew 3. So all the people, all the people, all the people, it says, came,
verse 6, were baptized of John in Jordan, confessing their sins. This is a type of confessing
our sins to God, mind you. Don't confess your individual
particular sins to man. Don't do it. Don't do it now.
But confess every one of them to God. This is a type of confession.
We're getting in that pool and we say, I just deserve to die. My life wasn't worth living. I'm a criminal, just like that
thief on the ground. It's a type of repentance, baptism. I'm a sinner, but I've heard
the gospel. I've heard the soul that sins
will surely die, but I've heard the gospel say that Christ is
the Lamb of God, the substitute. He died for sinners. And I'm just an old sinner and
nothing at all, but here's my hope that Jesus Christ is my
all in all. All my righteousness, my goodness
must be perfect, my sin payment, my life. I've heard the blood makes atonement
for the soul, covers the sins of His people, Lord, I believe,
I hope, I hope, I believe He died for me. That's what we're
doing when we're baptized. But why was Christ baptized? It says in verse 13, Then cometh
Jesus from Galilee to Jordan to John to be baptized, the God-man. God became a man and came to
a man to be baptized. And John didn't
understand. No, no, no, no, I need you to
baptize me. Oh, that's why he came, baptized
with fire. He baptized in his blood. Christ
was baptized. He said in verse 15, it becomes
us to fulfill all righteousness. I wish I could make this simple.
You have to be as good as God to be in God's heaven. And you
can't do it. Christ could and did. He earned
heaven. He's the only human being to
ever live that the gates of heaven, so open the gates of heaven.
This man has earned heaven. Well done. Come on in. Thought, word, deed, everything.
He had no sin. We're seeing through and through.
We must be holy and righteous. We must keep the law perfectly.
We can. Try as we may, we can. Christ
did. He was perfectly righteous. God
never said that out loud about anybody. I'm well pleased. He
did about Christ. And God accepts us, this is on
our sign out here, Ephesians 1, 6, the praise of the glory
of His grace, God's grace, where He hath made us accepted in the
Beloved, His righteous desire. You see, Christ came to fulfill
the law, and He's showing us that He fulfilled the law of
righteousness, alright? And all in the law purified by
blood. All of them. Water and blood. Talk about washing. Talk about
blood sprinkled. Everything purified with blood.
So Christ became us. He became a man. He came to save
us by being made sin for us. Nobody really understands that.
Hebrews 5 says this, let me quote this to you. This will clear
this up. It says, The high priest has
compassion on the ignorant, them that are out of the way, for
he himself is compassed with infirmity. And by reason thereof,
as for the people, so also for himself he offers sin. Christ was made sin. He became sin. And there's no
other sacrifice for sin but His own blood. In places like Psalm 38, Christ
cried from the cross, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? He's us. He's guilty. Though He didn't
commit it, not His own guilt, but our guilt. So Christ was
baptized not only for Himself, but for us. And God took it. God accepted. Christ was covered
with water in baptism, and on the cross He's covered with His
own blood. Like the ark. The ark didn't
sin. We sinned. The mercy seat didn't
sin. We sinned. But that blood was
poured out on that mercy seat. Covered. The law that was inside,
that we broke, kept perfectly. Fruit and bread. Christ was covered
in His own blood. Baptism. That's as good as I
can do with that. Christ commands us to be baptized. Everybody came to John to be
baptized. They must. Christ came to John
to be baptized. God said, do this, do that. Christ
did. God said, be baptized of John. He did. You understand that? He did, and He commands us. Now
let me close with this. Baptism is both a funeral and
a marriage. It's your funeral. You're able
to preach your own funeral. It's your funeral. You're saying,
I died in Christ. I was buried with Christ. But
now I live. It's a funeral and a new birth. I died in Christ, but I live. I'm born again. of blood and water. It's a funeral,
and it's a wedding, a marriage. It's a public avowal. You publicly
avow. A little difference between confess
and profess. Confession is you admit your
guilt, and you admit, you confess that God's Word is true. And
profession is what you proclaim to other people. You witness
a good profession. This is what I believe. Marriage, baptism like marriage,
like a wedding, is a public profession of love and faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Confession of faith, profession
of faith, love, commitment. If there's no confession, No commitment is no salvation. Okay? Like marriage. If someone
says they love someone, if they don't marry them, in God's eyes,
they're under judgment. Judgment. If you love someone,
you'll marry them. It's a public profession that
this is the person I love, I want to live with, I want to die with. This is the person I want to
live for. This is the person I want to commune with, live
with, serve. This is the person I love. I
take this person. Do you? I do. Christ said that. He came to marry a forlorn woman. He came. Will you take this sinner? I do. I will. I do. Will you do all till death do
you part? I will. I do. That's what Christ
said, and we do too, by His grace. Baptism is a confession of sin.
It's a confession of faith in Christ. Baptism is a confession
of our guilt. It's a confession of Christ's
holiness. It's a confession of our need,
our love for Him, our faith for Him. It's a confession of love,
commitment, and life with Christ. It's a confession of being dead
to this world. When Noah built that ark, he
said he was condemning the world. This world is dying and perishing,
and this is not my home. God's preparing for me another
place. That's what you're doing when you're baptized. Is this
what you believe, Kate McAllister, everything I've preached this
morning? That's what you're saying. Women can't preach, but I did
it for you. She's smiling. She's nodding
her head. This is what she's going to do. And if you believe
Christ and lead Christ, this is what you'll do today.