Open your Bibles with me back
to Acts chapter 2, the portion of scripture that Brother Stan
read. Now I just want to say a few
words concerning the two ordinances that Christ gave to his church. the ordinances of baptism and
the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. I've entitled this message, Obedience
and Confession. Obedience and Confession. Now,
when I read over in Psalm 107, one of the verses there, verse
2, makes this statement. It says, Let the redeemed of
the Lord say so. And I love that verse, let the
redeemed of the Lord say so. If the Lord has redeemed you
and the Holy Spirit has given you life and energized your heart
and your mind and your understanding and brought out your love to
Christ, then you're going to say so. Now, how do we say so? What he's talking about there
is confessing Christ before men, isn't he? say so, testify of
the glory of Christ. He's not talking about standing
up and giving testimonies and bragging on yourself and even
talking about what you think the Lord's done for you in this
life. He does a lot for us, more than we even realize. But he's
talking about confessing Christ before men. Now, how do the redeemed
of the Lord say so? How do we confess Christ? We
do so in our confession of faith. When we come to Christ, we come
to him openly, publicly, confessing him as our Savior, our Lord,
our Redeemer, that he is our all in all. We confess him in
truth, in the doctrine of Christ. Look at Acts chapter 2 and verse
41. Now, Peter had preached a great
message of the grace of God in Christ at Pentecost. And it says
in verse 41 of chapter 2, "...then they that gladly received his
word," gladly receiving his word, not fighting it, not debating
it, not arguing with it, not confusing it or making it muddy
and unsure and unclear, but just gladly receiving the word. That's
confessing Christ. That's how the redeemed of the
Lord say so. We confess Christ by gladly,
joyfully, cheerfully, and humbly, submissively receiving his word,
his word of truth in Christ, how God saves sinners. That's
what Peter preached. He preached to these Jews who
had the Old Testament scriptures, who had been brought up under
the Old Covenant. He preached to them who God is, a God who
is sovereign and holy and just and righteous and yet merciful
and loving and gracious and compassionate. And he preached to them how man
by nature is sinful and helpless, totally impotent, depraved, wretched,
and his only hope of salvation is in God's grace through Christ,
mercy. We read in that psalm, his mercy
endureth forever. That's our hope, God's mercy
enduring not just for a time, but forever. And we know that
there is no mercy from God outside of Christ. Christ is the mercy
seat. He is everything that God has
for sinners in the way of mercy and grace and love and compassion. So we say so in gladly receiving
his word. God's people don't fight God's
word. Now, we have sinful desires, rebellion within us, that it's
a warfare. But we're going to receive his
word by his spirit, by his power. And then it says they that gladly
received his word were baptized. Now, baptism That blessed ordinance
of confession, that's what that is, and that's why I titled this
Obedience and Confession. You know, people over the centuries
have debated three things basically about baptism. Number one, they
argue about what it accomplishes. Some say it actually accomplishes
salvation. Some say that at least if you
can baptize infants, it accomplishes cleansing from original sin.
Some say that it is the application of the blood and the power of
Christ to the sinner, actually getting in the water. But baptism
does not accomplish any of those things. Not one. What does baptism
accomplish? Baptism accomplishes one thing,
confessing Christ before men. And really, it's supposed to
be. If we're taught aright and if we see things are right from
the scripture, Baptism should be the first act of confession
of those who gladly receive the word. Now, we're not told that
Peter said anything in this sermon about baptism, but he did say
in verse 40, it says, with many other words did he testify and
exhort, saying, save yourselves from this untoward generation.
That means separate yourselves out from this ungodly generation. And Peter said something to these
folks about confessing Christ in baptism, and he said something
about that it was only for those who received the word. Now, that's
the second thing that people have debated and argued about,
about baptism. To whom should it be administered?
Should it be administered to babies? Should it be administered
to those who walk an aisle and accept Jesus, whether they be
three years old or twelve years old? Who? Who should baptism
be administered to? Well, the Bible says that baptism
should be administered to those who believe the gospel. It's
for believers. It's believers' baptism. Now,
the word baptism appears in many different contexts in the scripture.
Sometimes it's not referring to water baptism. Now, this ordinance,
the ordinance of the Church, is water baptism. The word means
immersion. It doesn't mean sprinkling. It
doesn't mean pouring. It means immersion. And it is
a picture. It's a confession that pictures
a sinner's union with Christ in his death, his burial, and
resurrection, so that when the sinner goes down into the water,
he's confessing before men that he died with Christ and was buried
with him. And when he comes up out of the
water, he's confessing before men that when Christ was raised
from the dead, he was raised with him. Sometimes the word
baptism doesn't refer to water baptism. It refers to our union,
our immersion in Christ. Romans chapter 6, I'm going to
preach on that next Sunday morning, when it talks about those who
are baptized into his death. That's not going to happen tonight
when Brother Bill gets into the water here. He's not going to
be baptized into the death of Christ tonight. He was baptized
into the death of Christ at Calvary. Do you understand that? What
he's going to be confessing is that when Christ died, he died. Christ was his representative,
his substitute, his sin-bearer, his sin-offering, his mediator,
his high priest, his Lamb. So he's confessing in this act
of confession here that 2,000 years ago when the Lord Jesus
Christ died on that cross, He died for his sins. He died for
my sins. He put away my sins. And he justified
me and gave me his righteousness. And I didn't know about it until
the Holy Spirit came and brought me under the preaching of the
gospel and revealed it to my heart and let me in on it, what
went on. And when you come to that point
of faith in Christ and true repentance, then you confess that the redeemed
of the Lord say so in believer's baptism. Another thing men have
argued about in baptism is how much water is to be used. Enough
to get the sinner down into the water, basically. Isn't that
right? It's immersion. What does it
accomplish? It's obedience and confession.
That's what it is. Look back up at verse 38. Listen
to this verse here. The word order is right here
in the translation of it, as the King James translators gave
it to us. They were pricked in their hearts.
Scripture says. That means they were convicted
in their hearts, in their minds, in their affections, in their
wills, in their spirit, their inner man. That's a work of the
Holy Spirit, isn't it? When you were pricked in your
heart and saw your sinfulness, saw your guilt and your defilement
and your depravity, that was a work of the Spirit, wasn't
it? Conviction of sin. And they said unto Peter and
to the rest of them, what are we going to do? Men and brethren,
what shall we do?" And Peter just simply said to them, repent,
repent. Now, repentance comes with faith. Repentance is a change of mind,
a change of heart, a change of direction. We read it this morning
in Acts chapter 17 when those who hated the gospel that Paul
preached in Thessalonica, they said, these men have turned the
world upside down. That's what the gospel does.
It flip-flops our world, our way of thinking, our way of acting,
our way of seeing things, our way of judging things. And it
says here, he says, repent and be baptized every one of you
in the name of Jesus Christ. That means when you're baptized
in water in this public confession, you're identifying with Jesus
Christ. You're identifying with his people
too. You're making a public confession of something that has already
taken place. You're not doing it to be saved.
You're confessing before men, I've already been saved. Isn't
that right? By the grace of God. Water, literal
water won't wash away sin. It takes the blood of a substitute. appointed of God." But look at
this verse again. He says, be baptized every one
of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. Now,
he doesn't say here, be baptized every one of you for the remission
of sins, does he? It says, be baptized in the name
of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. Now, where does the
remission of sins go back to? Well, the Bible says without
the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. It doesn't
say without being baptized. There's no remission. Without
going down into literal water, it says, without the shedding
of blood, there's no remission. Now, who shed blood? The Lord
Jesus Christ. Without the shedding of his blood
on the cross of Calvary, without his righteousness, there's no
forgiveness, there's no pardon, there's no salvation. So he says,
be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ.
Now, anybody that gets into the baptismal pool, Thinking that
baptism either washes their sins away or that baptism is even
the application of the power of the blood of Christ to them
at that time, or thinking that this water will regenerate them,
they're not being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, are
they? They're being baptized in their own name because it's
an act that they do. You see, it's a condition they
meet. But you see, this remission of sins that he's speaking of
here has already taken place when Christ died on Calvary.
That's when our sins were borne away and he gave us his righteousness.
And then he says, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost, which is that special power of the Holy Ghost given
in that time for the ministry of the gospel. Look at Acts chapter
8. Now, you see, this is a special
service tonight. You know, this is the first time
I've ever conducted a service where we have both ordinances
taking place. We're going to take the Lord's
Suffering, and Brother Bill Pennington is going to confess the Lord
in baptism, and he's going to say a few words to you here in
just a few minutes. But who is to be baptized? Well, you remember in this passage
here. The evangelist Philip was called by the Holy Spirit out
into the desert to preach to a man, an Ethiopian, who had
been to Jerusalem, and this man was reading Isaiah chapter 53.
And Philip came upon him, and he was reading from this chapter,
look at Acts chapter 8, look at verse 33. He's talking about what he's
reading. He's talking about Christ and his humiliation, his judgment
was taken away, who shall declare his generation, for his life
is taken from the earth. And the eunuch answered Philip
and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet of this,
of himself or of some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth
and began at the same scripture and preached unto him baptism. No, he preached unto him Jesus. the remission of sins, the cleansing
of sin, justification before God in Christ Jesus the Lord. And it says in verse 36, And
as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water. And
the eunuch said, See, here is water. What doth hinder me to
be baptized? Now, listen to Philip's answer
here. And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart. Now, you're not going to believe
until you've been regenerated. Regeneration is the giving of
spiritual life from God by his Spirit. So baptism is not going
to regenerate you. Philip said, if you believe with
all your heart. You've already been born again
by the Spirit, see, if you believe with all your heart, if you've
repented. And he says, thou mayest. Now, who's going to be baptized?
Only those chosen of God, redeemed by the blood, regenerated by
the Spirit. Now, that settles the issue of
baptism. Now, turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, and I'll tell you,
it's a blessed ordinance of confession and obedience to the Lord. Now, we're going to take the
Lord's Supper. Now, baptism is a one-time ordinance. It's not
something we do over and over again, because it's an ordinance
of confession, and we talk about You know, being baptized, and
sometimes we're a little too loose with that term. For example,
you can only be baptized under the preaching of the gospel now,
because it's a regenerate sinner who's baptized. You're not regenerated,
you're not born again under the preaching of a lie. We're begotten
again, the scripture says in James 1.18, by what? The word
of truth. The preaching of Christ and him
crucified. So somebody said, well, I've
been baptized five times. No, you haven't. No, you haven't. If you've ever been baptized
once, that's all you've ever been baptized. Now, you might
have been dunked in water four or five times. You might have
gone through a religious ritual several times. You might have
thought you'd been baptized. But if you've ever been baptized
scripturally once, you've been baptized once, and that's all
you'll ever be baptized. There's no need to do it again,
it's a confession. But now, the Lord's Supper, we
call it sometimes communion. It's communion with the Lord,
it's communion with the Lord's people, and I always read when
we take the Lord's Supper, and I'm going to do this again tonight,
I always read from this passage in 1 Corinthians, chapter 11,
because this is where Paul instructs the Corinthian church concerning
this blessed ordinance of the Lord's Supper. Now, as baptism
is an ordinance of confession and obedience, which is the initial
confession of a believing sinner, the Lord's Suffering is a continual
confession. When you take the Lord's Suffering,
you're saying so, just like the redeemed say so. You're confessing
your union with Christ in his death and in his burial and in
his resurrection. Because you're partaking of these
elements, we use two elements, we use unleavened bread. Now
why is that important? Because the unleavened bread
represents the perfect sinless body of Christ. Leaven in the
scriptures is a type of sin. That's why we don't use saltine
crackers. That's why we don't use just regular, we use unleavened
bread because that's what our Lord used and he instituted this
as an ordinance, it's a command of the Lord. And then we use
wine and not grape juice. Now, why do we use wine? Because
wine represents the blood of Christ, the pure, unspoiled,
uncorruptible blood of Christ. Grape juice spoils, wine doesn't.
And therefore we use that element that the Lord instituted that
will properly symbolize his blood and his body. Now, this unleavened
bread and this wine does not in any way turn into his blood
and body. We don't believe that. We don't
believe it even spiritually turns in to his blood and his body.
It still remains wine. It'll always be wine. It's unleavened
bread. It'll always be unleavened bread. But it typifies, symbolizes,
and pictures the body and the blood of our Savior. And that's
why we take it. And this is an ordinance of remembrance. It's a memorial. Now look at
verse 23. He says, "...for I have received
of the Lord That which also I delivered unto you," so this is a command
of the Lord, see, this is not a command of the Church. Some
organizations act like this is the Church's responsibility.
Now, we do have responsibilities as a Church, but this is an ordinance
of the Lord. And he said, "...that which also
I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in
which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks,
he broke it." and said, Take ye, this is my body which is
broken for you, this do," now listen to this, "...in remembrance
of me." Not in remembrance of your sins, not in remembrance
of your accomplishments, not in remembrance of your sorrows,
but in remembrance of Christ. This speaks of his perfect body,
the God-man offering himself upon the cross of Calvary for
our sins. And verse 25, "...after the same
manner also he took the cup, when he had sucked, saying, This
cup is the New Testament, or the New Covenant, in my blood."
Here's the ratification of the New Covenant, in the shed blood
of Christ. Remember what I said this morning.
Now, blood means his death. It's not talking about that physical
blood running through his veins. He did shed that blood. He had
to shed that blood. He had to die. But it's what
this blood is. It's his death on the cross,
his payment for our sin debt, his satisfaction along justice,
his righteousness by which we're justified. And he says, this
do ye as oft as you drink it in remembrance of me. Now, men
have argued about these things, such as the elements. They've
argued about how often should we take it. They've argued about
who should take it. But here's the command of God
to everyone who examines themselves," look here, verse 26, "...for
as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup," now here's
what we're showing forth in the Lord's Supper now. We're showing
forth the Lord's death, the Lord's accomplishment, the Lord's finished
work, the Lord's satisfaction until he comes. So this is an
ordinance that we're to keep continually until he comes again. The church is here on earth.
So he says in verse 27, "...wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread,
and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of
the body and blood of the Lord." Now, what is it to do it unworthily?
It's to do it improperly, with a wrong attitude, a wrong spirit,
not remembering Christ. That's what it is. People say,
well, I've got to make myself worthy. Well, step one there
is wrong. Because you cannot make yourself
worthy. The Bible says, worthy is the
Lamb. And our worthiness is the Lamb
slain. And that's what we're confessing
as we follow the Lord in obedience to this command in the Lord's
Supper. That our worthiness is found complete in Christ. And
so, don't do it improperly. Don't do it flippantly. The Corinthian
church here was having a party. That's what they were doing.
They were having a party with it. They turned it into a meal
instead of an ordinance, a time of worship and prayer and meditation.
So he says, don't do this. You're guilty. In other words,
you're not dealing correctly and rightly and worshipfully
and fearfully with the body and blood of the Lord. So he says
in verse 28, now listen to this, but let a man examine himself.
Now he doesn't say let the church examine him and see if he's fit.
Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread
and drink of that cup." Now, how are we to examine ourselves?
We're to examine ourselves to see whether we're in the faith.
That's what he says. Now, what does that mean? That
we're to examine ourselves to meditate and see, is Christ my
only hope? I'd examine myself to see if
I've had a good week and therefore I'm worthy to take it. I'm fit
and qualified. to examine myself to see am I
trusting Christ and him alone. So he says in verse 29, for he
that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh judgment,
that's what that is, to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. I believe it has a twofold application,
not understanding and properly judging the value of Christ and
not being in fellowship with his people. His body and His
blood and His body the church. You see, it's like this. In this thing about taking the
Lord's Supper, our only worthiness is Christ. His blood and His
righteousness alone. And there's not one person in
here who's looking to Christ that I can't sit down with in
total communion and fellowship and unity and take the Lord's
Supper with. And if I look around and say, well, that fellow back
there, he's not worthy, let me tell you something. That's between
him and the Lord. If he's not looking to Christ,
the Lord will deal with him. I know we're not supposed to
just be flippant with it and so free with it that we offer
it to anybody. We're not, listen, let me tell
you something now. Tonight when we take the Lord's Supper here
in a few minutes, we're not offering it to just anybody. We're offering
it to those who are looking to Christ. You see the difference?
If you're not looking to Christ, I urge you and beg you, don't
take of this supper. If he's not your hope and your
all in all, if he's not your complete redemption and justification,
do not take this supper. And that's as far as I'm going
to leave it, right there. This is for his sheep, remembering
him.