Let's bow and have a word of
prayer before we get started this morning. Heavenly Father, we are thank
you for the riches of heaven has been bestowed upon us, your
people. We thank you, Father, for those eternal gifts that's
been given in heavenly places. We thank you, Father, for the
imputation of righteousness to our account by the blood of Jesus
Christ. Father, we thank you for this
time together as a family, as a body, as your people, as a
church gathered here today, Lord, to worship you and to serve you,
Father, not only in worship, but in the preaching of the word.
Father, we just pray today that you might glorify yourself in
us, through us, Father, we need your help today to praise you
and worship you rightly, spirited and true. Father, we seek your
Holy Spirit to enable us once again to preach the things of
Scripture and to preach without error, but to preach the truth.
Father, we ask that you might bind each heart this morning
to your word, Lord, that they might hear and understand, Father,
that they might rejoice and be edified in the things that are
being said. Father, we might easily be disturbed in our mind
and it might be looking to other things outside of what's going
on today here. And Father, the distraction might
cause us to think on other things. But Father, I pray that you might
reign in our thoughts, that you might reign in our emotions that
you might reign in everything, Father, and that they might be
subdued to the hearing of the preaching of God's word. Father,
I pray for those that are here that you might feed them with
this word today, that you might edify them, build them up in
the holy faith. Father, that even in these ecclesiastical
messages, that they might learn and they might grow in the grace
and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Father, I pray for those listening
and watching by live stream. Father, we pray for them as well,
that you might touch and minister to them where they're at as well. Lord, I pray that these messages
have been profitable to them. And Lord, we pray for our church.
We ask, Lord, that you might continue to bless it. Even though
we're a small congregation here, Father, we feel the blessing
of Christ each time we meet. the opportunity that we've been
given to gather together under the gospel of Jesus Christ. And
Father, Lord, we pray that if there's any others in Joplin
that love and believe this truth of sovereign grace, Father, Lord,
that you'd bring them to us, that you would cause our paths
to meet, however it is, Lord, in your providence that you would
cause them to come. Lord, we pray that they would
come, whether it be by making disciples or whether it be by
word of mouth to hear about our church being here. whether it
be by personal acquaintances. Lord, we just pray that you would
add to your church daily such as should be saved. And Lord,
we just look to you because you are the head of the church. We
know that no pastor, no deacon, no ruling board, no one is the
head over your church, but you and you alone are the head of
your church. And this word of God that you've
given to us and revealed by your spirit alone is our only rule
of faith to know about the things that you have said and done.
and what you have for us. And so, Father, we just pray
that today that we might not look to our own selves, that
we might not look to our own devices, that our own intellect,
our own thoughts or traditions, Lord, but we might look solely
to the word of God and trust that you would teach us and give
us all that we need for life and godliness. Lord, again, we
thank you for this day and we ask you the blessing. In Jesus'
name we pray, amen. Well, this morning we're gonna
continue in our study of the ordinances of the church and
we're in the section or the ordinance of baptism. And last week, we
looked at the proper mode of baptism being immersion. And
we saw that everywhere in scripture that the baptisms were taking
place. We saw that they were immersed. We looked at several, places
in scripture where the word was used and that that
word was meant to immerse or to fully submerge. And then we
also have seen that the mode needs to be commensurate with
the symbol or with the substance that it is showing forth. We
also saw last week that There were many, many, many reformers
and other men that have give credence to the fact that the
word baptizo or the original mode was baptism by full immersion
of believers in the first church and the practice of Jesus and
the apostles. And we saw the inconsistency
of their own teaching And again, if you missed that last week,
you want to go back and read that. I read several quotes from
the reformers, from the Puritans and the Scottish Presbyterians,
from the Westminster Confession of Faith. I read several things
from that. We've seen that baptism was easily
regarded as the correct mode by the almost the whole majority
of the Westminster Confession writers. And if you want that,
those articles that I was reading from, I did secure those this
week from the publisher of that book that I had that I was reading
out of. I did secure those, the book in PDF form itself, Abraham
Booth's In Defense of the Baptist, and also the foreword by Bill
Lee that I was reading all those quotes out of. I do have that
given to us by the publisher and given right to distribute
that as I see fit. So if you would like that, I'll
be glad to send you a copy of that or print you off a copy
if you don't have a computer or anything like that. And if
you do have a computer or you're watching or listening, you can
just send me a personal message online and I will email that
or messenger that over to you whichever way is convenient for
you. So we looked at that last week,
and today, as far as the ordinance itself, we're gonna end with
the administrator of baptism, the proper administrator of baptism. If you remember, we talked about
at the very beginning that there were kind of four things that
were needed for scriptural baptism. There is the proper candidate,
and that is the person who is a believer, There is the proper
mode, which is by immersion. Then there is the proper gospel.
You have to be baptized under the correct doctrine. And then
there is the proper administrator, and that is what we'll be looking
at today. The administrator of baptism
seems to have quite a little bit of discussion between many
Christians, professing Christians today. Some think that it's just
okay for anybody to baptize and that just any straight person
that's out there doing whatever they want to do, some parachurch
organization not doing its thing, some youth camp, some men's retreat
or women's retreat, whatever the case might be that's out
there, that these organizations have just the freedom to baptize
anybody that professes Jesus Christ. And as I've seen in my
experience in the past, a lot of times people are rushed into
baptism upon a, just a confession that, you know, I wanna be saved,
and so we wanna rush them right into the, baptismal waters instead
of talking with them and seeing whether there's fruits of repentance
there, worthy of repentance as John did. And I'm not saying
that we need to like drag things out either. You know, in the
scripture, there was like the Ethiopian eunuch, there was baptism
right away with some of the other instances. And we'll read those
instances today with like Cornelius's house, the jailer, things such
as that. They took them out and they baptized
them right away. At the day of Pentecost, they
took them and right away. But again, whenever we see those
things, we can't divorce those instances that we see of immediate
baptisms away from the fact that we've already learned that the
commission calls us to make disciples. And that's why it's so crucial.
That's why I spent so long of a time preaching on the commission
of the church. That's why I spent so long on
the teaching of the church being a local, visible assembly. A called out group of baptized
believers who have been gathered together to conduct the business
of the kingdom, okay? That's why I've spent so long
in those areas is because we see that for a church who is
an organized body that comes together, who is taking up the
oracles and the ordinances of Jesus Christ, the preaching,
the teaching, the ministration of the gospel, whether it's in
here or out there, that is who Jesus has commissioned to do
the work. And so in the teaching of all these things that Christ
has commanded, we are to make disciples. And a disciple is
one who believes and follows the teachings of Jesus. And we
learned that the teachings of Jesus was a gospel of free and
sovereign grace, a gospel of imputation, a gospel of irresistible
grace, a gospel of complete and total inability for those who
are dead in trespasses and sins. A gospel of election, a gospel
of particular atonement, a gospel of preservation and perseverance
by the Holy Spirit. Jesus taught all five points
of that tulip, if you want to use the word tulip. Some people
use the term five points of Calvinism. I hate that phrase. I used to
use it, but I've come to learn that it ain't got nothing to
do with Calvin, okay? that this, and TULIP, same thing,
you know, it's a nice acronym to have to keep us remembering
things. But Jesus taught the doctrine
of free and sovereign grace. That was his gospel. And he had
many disciples, so-called disciples, that had followed him, but whenever
he began to teach those things, they went away from him and no
more followed him because they were not actually disciples.
If they were disciples, they would have continued to be discipled,
and they would, in turn, turn from disciples to disciplers,
saying, I agree with what he says, I believe what he says,
I follow what he says, and in turn, I am gonna stand for and
defend and propagate what he says. That's what a follower
is. A follower or a disciple is one who not only hears and
believes, but also begins to follow, and in following that,
is convinced, that's repentance, they're convinced that that's
the truth, that's not the truth, now I'm believing this truth,
they're convinced of that, they repent of their wrong thinking,
they head in the direction of the right thinking, and from
there on, they begin to stand in and defend that which is true. Why? Because I'm a follower of
Jesus Christ. I'm not a follower of Jacob Arminius. I'm not a
follower of John Calvin. I'm not a follower of this guy
or that guy. I'm not a follower of the Southern Baptists. I'm
not a follower of the Church of Christ. I'm not a follower
of the Particular Baptist. I'm not a follower of the Primitive
Baptist. It doesn't matter what organization, what association
or convention or whatever. It doesn't matter. It matters
what does this say? What did Jesus say? And a disciple
is someone who follows. Now, we have to understand that.
We have to get that in our mind because if we don't get that
in our mind, the commission really makes no sense and has no bearing
on anything that we do. We have to understand that the
ones that we are to baptize are the ones who have been made disciples,
not ones who just raise their hand and say, I want to accept
Jesus or I want to be baptized. There has to be this Is that
person a disciple of Jesus Christ? Because if it's not, the prerequisite
to be baptized is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. That's what
Jesus said here. Go ye therefore and teach all
nations, okay? And if you look with me, Mark
chapter 16, I wanna just kinda make this concrete here. Again,
we've talked about this a lot, but it's worth repeating, reminding. Mark chapter 16, if you would.
This is another occurrence of Jesus given the commission. It says, and he said unto them,
go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. Okay, and
so here we see again that Jesus says go into all the world and
preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. So the prerequisite to someone
being baptized is someone who believes. Is it just any kind
of belief? Just believing that Jesus died,
buried, and was resurrected? No, we learned that it was how
he died according to scripture, how he was buried and resurrected
according to scripture. Okay, if we don't believe that,
if we don't believe what he taught, about salvation, what he taught
about his work. If we don't believe what the
scriptures teach about the salvation of Jesus Christ and how that
it will justify, it will accomplish, it will do everything that it
was intended to do, not just make it possible, not just make
it a proposition, not to make it an offer or an invitation.
No, Jesus actually did save in his work. And so that and that
alone is the basis of and the means by which we are saved. And so, if that's not what the
person is believing, and you say, well, you know, you have
to take time to teach these things. Yes, we need to be very clear
in our gospel presentation. We need to be very clear whenever
we are talking to people and they begin to ask about baptism,
we start talking to them about all these things. If you remember,
even with the Ethiopian eunuch, what did Philip do? Philip went
to the Word of God, and he began to teach, and he began at such
and such, and went to such and such, and taught him all these
things, and all of it pertaining to how it pertained to Jesus
Christ, right? And that Ethiopian eunuch, by
the time it was all done, somewhere along the way in that had been
taught, you need to be baptized. Now, whether he'd learned that
from Philip at that particular meeting there, or whether he
had learned that in Jerusalem as he had been going back and
forth to Jerusalem to worship? Whether he learned that from
the first church that was practicing that there? I don't know. But all I know is the Ethiopian
eunuch realized that whenever he believed that, he wanted to
be baptized. And whenever he asked to be baptized,
did Philip say, well, yeah, let's just get out of here. Let's just
get out here in the water and I'll baptize you. Yeah, if that's
what you want to do. What did Philip say? If you believe
with all your heart, you can be baptized. But was Philip saying
that you believe with all your heart just anything? No, it was
the gospel, the things that Jesus had taught. Remember that. All
things whatsoever I have commanded. That's what they are to believe.
If they're believing something else, then they're not a disciple
yet and you shouldn't be baptizing them yet. And so for those who
think that you ought to just rush them right out into the
water and say, well, nowhere in the scripture do they sit
there and have weeks of lessons and all that. I'm not talking
about having weeks of lessons. You've got to make sure, are
they believing what you're saying in the gospel? You know, all
these street preachers that go out, and especially some of these
quasi Calvinist type street preachers, who talk to these people and
they give them just kind of this nutshell of the gospel, but they
don't give them the substance of the gospel. They don't give
them particular redemption. They don't give them irresistible
grace. They don't give them particular, or excuse me, I said particular
redemption. total depravity. They don't give them all those
things they do. They'll give them the law and tell them, hey, can you do,
did you do this? Did you do this? Did you do this? Well, the law
says this, the law says this, the law says this, according
to this, what should God do to you? I've seen all kinds of videos
of people using that stuff by Ray Comfort and all those guys
that go out there and just think that salvation is an invitation
that you can convince someone to be saved. That isn't how it
works. The preaching of the gospel is
a thing that people, whenever they first hear it, I don't want
to understand what you are saying about that. But if the Holy Spirit
has revealed that, has caused them to come alive spiritually,
and if the Holy Spirit is teaching them inwardly, their heart and
their mind, these things, whenever they hear that, they will, like
an ax, be pricked in the heart. And they'll say, well, okay,
then what do we need to do? And then you begin to teach them
about that. But they have to first show forth fruits of repentance. I'm not saying rush out and baptize
them right away, but I'm not saying wait for days and days
and months and years and whatever. There needs to be a time to see
whether or not that's true. Now, side note, I will say this,
with children, I think there needs to be a proper time because
a lot of times children like to be baptized for different
reasons. Just like I've talked about myself,
whenever I was a little kid, that I wanted to be baptized,
but the reason why is because I couldn't get to the Lord's
Supper without being baptized. And so what did I do? I said,
well, hey, I want to have Jesus in my heart so I can get baptized
so I can get to the Lord's Supper. See? So what should have happened
is there should have been some time to say, okay, Well, we'll
baptize her, but let's just see. I did that with our oldest daughter
whenever she first said that she thought she needed to be
baptized. And we talked and talked and
talked. It went a long time. And I kept
putting her off. I kept putting her off because
I knew if this is something that's real, the Holy Spirit is going
to continue to convict her of those things and to make sure
that she understood. So I'm not just saying this without
experience I have the experience and we practice that with our
children and but we need to we need to make sure so in the Commission
as far as the or excuse me in the ordinance of baptism the
proper administrator is someone that has to be following the
administration's rules right to be an administrator you have
to follow the administration What was the administration?
Well, we go back to Jesus who commissioned the administrators. And in Matthew chapter 28, we
look at verse 18 and it says, and Jesus came and spake unto
them, saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and earth.
Go ye, and if you remember in our sermon on the commission,
sermons, I guess, plural, on commissions, remember that ye
is plural, it's not singular. He's not telling each individual
to go out and do, it's a plural, okay? Go ye therefore. He's talking to the church, if
you remember, the people who were there, who were the ones
that was there. There was the women that was there, there was the
brethren that was there, there was the apostles that were there,
right? So everybody in that local church
was there. I say this is the 120 that was
there. Because if you look in Acts, they came away from this
mountain where they'd gotten these instructions and went into
the upper room. And it was from there that they
began to discuss about Judas needing to be replaced. And they
voted upon a replacement for Judas. It was there that that
120 that came down, the same 120 that the Holy Spirit came
down upon. And they began with like tons
of fire on there. That right there is the same
group of people, and that was the women, the brethren, with
the apostles. So the whole church was there,
whose names and numbers were 120. Jesus is giving this commission
to that body. He's giving the commission to
the church as an institution, that a local church that is a
gathered body of called out people who have been called out, who
have been baptized and believed, are called out to form a body. Whenever the city council comes
together, they are a group of people that has been called out
and specifically elected by people to form a body. They represent
Joplin. But is all of Joplin the body? No, all of Joplin's not the body.
They're the body and they represent everyone as the administrators
of that kingdom or that city, right? They're the representatives
and the administrators of the city. Well, Jesus has commissioned
and gathered a church, has commissioned it, and the church, the local
assembly, is the ones who are to govern the affairs of the
kingdom. And there may be other believers
out there, and they should be in churches. If they're at all
possible and able to get to a New Testament church, they should
be a part of that church. Christ has called them to that.
That's part of the commission, to go and be made disciple, to
baptize, and then to come back underneath those people and be
taught all the things that Christ has commanded. It's a reciprocal
thing. And so the church is the one
being commissioned here, the local church. Go ye therefore
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and the Son. So the first thing that we see
of who is the administrator, the proper administrator, is
the local church and the local church only. Parachurch organizations,
missionary societies, missionary boards, youth camps, all these
other things that our para-church organizations do not have the
right or authority to give the ordinance of baptism, okay? And I will say that each individual
does not have the authority to give baptism apart from the church
granting that authority to baptize. And I think the Bible will show
us that, will prove that to us as we get in and look at it.
Because no place in scripture do we find anyone outside of
the local church or ordained by the local church baptizing
anybody. Can't find it anywhere. There's
one instance, and as we'll see, in that instance, the people
who he baptized were baptized by Paul whenever he came through
there because they had not been properly baptized. And so I hope
to show what the Bible teaches and let that be our ruling factor
and not by what we think, believe, what the emotions run and traditions
say. So we see here that the commission
was given to the church. So only the church can perform
the baptism because it's the only one authorized to do it.
And within the church, only those who the church elect as administrators
of that, because, I mean, all of us that are members of this
church can't go baptize somebody in the baptistry, all right,
or the lake or wherever we're gonna be, okay? So what do we
do? We choose a man to represent
the church to do the baptizing. Now, in most cases, that's usually
the pastor, okay? That's usually one of the ordained
men of the church, right? Now, I'm not saying that it only
has to be an ordained man, but it does have to be someone who
the church authorizes to do that. There is no prerequisites in
the scripture for anybody to be a baptizer other than the
fact that they need to be a member of that local church. Okay? There's no other prerequisites
there. However, the example we see in scripture is that the
only people that ever baptized anybody was someone who was directly
given authority by God to baptize. And that's what I hope to share
today in our scriptures. So, where did it all start? Well,
baptism started with John. It didn't start before John.
The Old Testament baptisms were not New Testament baptisms. It
started with John. Look with me if you would at
John chapter one. John chapter one. Now someone
says, well, you know, preacher, I don't even know why this is
important. I mean, you're kind of, you know, these are, these are
secondary issues. These are, are to some, it may
be even third dairy or fourth dairy issues. Uh, those aren't
words by the way. Uh, they may say, you know, this
is so, you know, unneeded, you know, preach Christ, preach Christ. Okay. Again, Ecclesiastical teaching
is preaching Christ because Christ taught us to teach all things
whatsoever he commanded. Christ also, by his Holy Spirit,
wrote in here that all scripture is given by inspiration of God
and is profitable. Even those parts about baptism
is profitable. The Bible says that we are to
preach the whole counsel of God. That includes everything. And
so in preaching ecclesiastical things, We are not only following
Christ in his commands to teach all things and to use the Bible
to study, to show ourselves approved, to understand what it says, but
to carry out our commission. That's why I think that it's
so dangerous for any of our friends and relatives who say that baptism
isn't important because You know, and some of them, you know, have
even said that baptism is completely ceased. Again, I take you to
the Great Commission. Has the Great Commission ceased?
Well, if the Great Commission hasn't ceased, then neither has
baptism, because baptism is intertwined and is part of the Great Commission. And so we cannot just, you know,
do away with that. And so ecclesiastical teaching
on the church and upon the ordinances of the church and things like
that, are proper ways of how we build ourselves up in the
holy faith, how we are to pass on from generation to generation,
how the Lord's church is to function and what Christ has commanded
on not only what we are, but how we are to carry out what
we're to do. And so ecclesiastical teaching
is about Christ. Is it preaching the cross every
time we go? Maybe not so, but in preaching
the ordinances, one of the things that we've learned in the ordinances
is that Ordinance of baptism is about the cross. Whenever
we get to the Lord's Supper, what are we going to find? That
ordinance is about the cross. It's Jesus's way of teaching
us and telling us how to pictorially preach the cross in both ordinances. And so it is important. We should
be preaching about these things. I don't think we ought to harbor
about these. I know some church, all they preach about is local
church and baptism. Global church baptism, global
church baptism, and that's all they preach. They preach that
over and over and over again. I don't think we ought to do
that. I think we ought to spread these teachings out over a period
of time. If we have new people that begin
to come into our membership, maybe go back and do a smaller,
you know, we've done a pretty extensive study on this here
on the church over these last several months now. But I don't
think it should be the thing that we write on all the time.
We need to, again, preach the whole counsel of God. But look
with me if you would, John chapter one. We first look at John was
the first baptizer, Baptist, John the Baptist. He was the
first baptizer. And some would say, well, there
you go. John wasn't in the church and John wasn't ordained by the
church to administrate baptism. Well, if you remember, John was
the man who God in prophecy, had said would come to prepare
a way for Christ and also to prepare a people for Christ,
right? Christ, it's his church, he is
the one who is gonna build it. So Christ is the builder of the
church. He is the one who instituted and gathered that first church
and built that first church and began to build upon that church
in every generation. He has been building the church.
Okay, and so John was the precursor who came before Christ to prepare
people because the church is made up of what? Baptized believers. So before
there can be a church, there has to be baptized believers. That's why John came first, Jesus
came later. Okay, John came to prepare the
people to be scripturally ready for being part of the church. And so John, yes, he wasn't part
of the church. John, yes, he wasn't ordained
by the church. Why? Because the church had not
started to exist before that, during that time period. It began
when Jesus came up out of those waters and then started going
down that seashore and started saying, follow me, follow me,
follow me. And those 12 apostles was gathered
out And then all those people that John had baptized began
to follow them, and then they began to be taught by Jesus.
That was the first church. Jesus gathered that together
that John prepared. But we see, though, that even
though John wasn't in the church, and John wasn't ordained by the
church, and we'll see another example of this later, but we'll
see that John still had proper authority given to him He was
called by God to do this very thing. Look at John chapter one. It says, there was a man sent
from God whose name was John. The same came for a witness to
bear witness of the light that all men through him might believe. He was not that light, but was
sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light,
which lighted every man that cometh into the world. All right,
so we see here that John was sent by God. Now we know that's true. I don't
have to go back and read all the Old Testament prophecies
concerning John. I don't have to go to all the
scriptures when John was born. What did the angels say? There's
something special gonna be born about your child, right? Okay,
don't have to go to the place where Mary comes in talks and
John leaps in the womb whenever he hears the sound of Jesus'
name. Okay? Don't have to go to that. We
don't have to go to all the verses that talk about John being where
Jesus says that John is the, of all the men born of woman,
John is the greatest. That John was the prophet. He
is the one that the Old Testament talked about was the Elias to
come. Okay? All those verses tell us that
John is this man that was prophesied to be the forerunner of Jesus
who had the authority to preach and baptize. So even though this
didn't happen within the church and was ordained by the church
because the church had not yet existed, this man John was called
by God. He was a man sent from God. So there is the authority. John
had the authority from God. Matter of fact, we'll read here
in a few minutes, but John, Jesus even uses that very argument
whenever he was talking to the Pharisees about where did John
get his authority to baptize. But we see here that John was
a man sent from God. So the proper authority that
we will find in the New Testament after John the Baptist is the
local church. Jesus established a local church
to carry out the personal ministry of Christ on this earth. Christ called out the assembled
people, and immediately after that, he baptized them. So John
did that, Jesus did that with the apostles, the first church
did that, and every subsequent New Testament church has done
that. Jesus assembled baptized believers right after he was
baptized himself, He commissioned them to preach and to baptize
almost immediately. Immediately, Jesus told these
apostles to begin to preach and to baptize. And then whenever
Jesus was about to ascend back to heaven, what did he do? What
was his last words to them? To preach and to baptize. If
you don't think that that's important, then why? Why don't you think
that's important? because Jesus made that of utmost
importance. He had someone do it before he
started his ministry. He himself in his ministry did
it. He appointed the church to be the doers of that in his stead
when he left. That was the last thing he told
them before he left. Preach, baptize. Those who are
disciples, then you teach them, continue to teach them all things. So it is, it's very important,
but we see that the administrator is very important. John was the
administrator sent by God. The authority doesn't rest necessarily
in the individual, but in the church. Now, I want us to see
a few things here and we're gonna read through some verses. As
a matter of fact, I compiled quite a list and we're gonna
try to go through these quickly, just to see all the places where
baptism was taking place. I want you to see that it was
either by John, it was by the church, or it was by someone
else appointed by God to do the baptizing. So, turn with me if
you would to Matthew chapter three. Matthew chapter three. I kinda wanna do this like I
did with the definition or the nature of the church, I want
to prove by scripture and the plethora of scripture to show
you there is no place where a person outside of the church, except
for John and this other person that we'll talk about here in
a minute. I think everybody knows who I'm talking about, but I
don't want to get there faster than we are. That no place in
scripture, is there any baptism being taken place except by the
church, someone appointed by the church to do so. John chapter
three, look with me starting in verse one. In those days came
John the Baptist, by the way, again, the man sent by God, preaching
in the wilderness of Judea and saying, repent ye for the kingdom
of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken
of by the prophet Isaiah saying, the voice of one crying in the
wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his path straight. Okay, so we see he's there to
prepare the way. So the way hasn't come yet, okay? The way hasn't come. It's not there yet. The church
isn't built. The church hasn't started yet.
He's to come to prepare the way for the church, for Jesus. And the same John had his raiment
of camel's hair and a leather girdle about his loins, and his
meat was locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem,
and all Judea, and all the region around about Jordan, and were
baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins." They weren't going
to the priest, they weren't going to the Pharisees, they weren't going
to anybody else. They were going to John, a man who was not well
known among those people. He was a man who lived out in
the wilderness, had all this funky clothes on, eating locusts
and honey, I mean, the man probably looked like a wild man. And they went out into, what
does it say there? They went out to meet him. They traveled from where they
were to John, confessing their sins and being baptized. So they
traveled from their area where they lived, and that was not
just Jerusalem, it was all Judea and all the region about Jordan.
They came. to John. Why? Because John was
a man sent by God to do the preaching and baptizing. But when he saw
many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, notice it
says his baptism. Don't you think that the whole,
don't you think that he should, Matthew should have wrote whenever
he came to Christian baptism, when they came to Christian baptism? Or do you think it should have
said when it came to the church's baptism? Or to Jesus' baptism? Or to God's
baptism? It says to His baptism. Why do
you think it says, why did the Holy Spirit have Matthew right
when they came to His baptism? Because His baptism was a particular
baptism that was different than anybody else's ritual washings,
all this kind of stuff that so many people want to put up as
proof that, oh, it's nothing new. or this is something intermediate
between something else, okay? He had a baptism that was not
like anything else that had ever been seen before. But also, it
was his baptism because he is the only one at that point in
time that was authorized to perform it. John's baptism, matter of
fact, we'll see as we go through here, many places in the scripture,
it refers to unto the baptism of John. John's baptism. You have to have the baptism
of John unto the baptism of John. So we see it was specific. Why? Because there's something
unique and special about that because that baptism is the only
baptism authorized by heaven, authorized by God. And John was
the only one authorized to carry it out. John didn't have a buddy
out there baptizing with him in the water. John didn't say,
well, you Pharisees are religious guys, come on down here and help
me. No, they were baptized by John because John was the man
sent by God. But when he saw many of the Pharisees
and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation
of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come,
therefore fruits meet for repentance. And think not to say with yourselves,
we have Abraham to our father, For I say unto you that God is
able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And
now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees. Therefore,
every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down
and cast into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water
unto repentance. But he that cometh after me is
mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall
baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire, whose fan is in
his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor and gather his
wheat in the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with a quenchable
fire. Then cometh Jesus." So now not
only all these other people, but now Jesus comes from Galilee. I looked it up this week. That's
60 miles from Galilee to where John was baptized in Jordan. 60 miles Jesus walked to be baptized
by John. Now, could have Jesus authorized
somebody in Galilee and say, hey, come and baptize me? Could
he have done that? Well, he definitely had the right
to do that. But if you remember, to fulfill
all righteousness, all the things that the father had purposed
and planned and decreed and was part of his fulfillment of righteousness,
Jesus had to be baptized by the administrator that God had sent.
And so Jesus walked 60 miles to Jordan to be baptized of him. But John forbade him, saying,
I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me.
So John recognized, hey, man, who am I to baptize you? You're
God. You're the Lamb that takes away
the sin of man. You're Jesus. You're the Christ. You're the
Messiah. You have the authority to baptize me. Where do I have
the authority to baptize you? And Jesus said, suffer to be
so now for thus it becometh us. Again, remember, we talked about
this earlier in our study on baptism. It becometh us. The
baptism that was the part of Jesus fulfilling all righteousness
wasn't just Jesus himself going under the water and coming up,
but it was John, who was the man sent by God, performing that,
administrating that under the authority of God. And so that
set the precedence for the New Testament church. That set the
precedence for Jesus Christ to teach his church that it must
be this way. And if I submitted myself to
this, you need to submit yourself to this as well. If I, your master,
have submitted this, you, my servant, should also submit yourself
to these things. Is the servant greater than the
master? Absolutely not. And the master walked 60 miles
to the proper administrator to be baptized of him. Is being
baptized by the proper administrator important? I think it is. Scripturally,
I think it is. We can't find anywhere else where
baptism is performed other than the administrators. Is it okay
to be baptized in a church that doesn't preach the doctrines
of Jesus Christ? Well, absolutely not. He didn't give the commission
to that church. That church is not a disciple
of him. If somebody is preaching a gospel
that is by decisionism or a gospel that is by free will or a gospel
that is just an offer that only you can make it happen by accepting
Jesus, believing on Jesus, whatever the case might be, if that's
the gospel that you're baptized under, well, that church isn't
disciples of Jesus Christ because they're not teaching Jesus' gospel.
And so if they're not disciples, they haven't been baptized. That's
not a church, and they have no authority to baptize because
Jesus only give authority to a baptized believing church. I mean, all kinds of things fall
apart if it's not there. If it's not there, then it does
not fit what Jesus has commanded. And so here we see that Jesus
said, suffered now to be so, for thus it becometh us to fulfill
all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And Jesus,
when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water,
and although the heavens were open unto him, and he saw the
Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him,
and lo, a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased. And so we see that Jesus was
baptized by John. Look, if you would, at Matthew
chapter 21. Matthew chapter 21. Look with me at verse 23. Remember, this is just on the heels of
Jesus clearing out the temple. It says, and when he was come
into the temple, the chief priests and elders of the people came
unto him as he was teaching and said, by what authority dost
thou these things? Who gave thee this authority? And Jesus answered and said unto
them, I also will ask you one thing, which if ye tell me, I
and likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things.
So here they're understanding there has to be authority in
preaching and teaching, okay? Who has authorized you to come
in here to do this? Why are they saying this? Now,
this is where, brethren, we have to study the Bible. We have to
know it, we have to read carefully and meditate upon God's word,
and why we can't just take baptism flippantly and say, well, it
just doesn't matter, or it isn't any effect anymore, or it's a
secondary issue, or any of those things, because if you look and
see what's being told here, you'll find that authority, these religious
leaders knew there's something about authority to preach, and
now Jesus is gonna tie that also to baptism, but there is authority
behind that, and why did they think that? Because in the Old
Testament, the oracles and the ordinances of the temple worship,
the tabernacle worship, was only given to a certain group of people,
and it was specific. Only the Levites was given authority
to carry out the ordinances of the tabernacle. The Levites were
the only ones who was to give the things of God and to perform
the services of that. The prophets were the ones who
were called to give forth the words of God. So there was authority
given to the prophet, there was authority given to the Levite,
the priest, to carry out the things of God. And then, of course,
through the disobedience and the hardness and the selfishness
of men, God give them a king through the king God ordered
and ruled over Israel. But the prophet, the priest,
and the king were all ones who were given authority to carry
out the works of the kingdom of God, or in that case, the
things of Israel, the oracles and the ordinances of God. So
they knew just not anybody can get up here and teach and preach
only those who have been given authority, and they wanted to
know, who's your authority? We don't know you as, we haven't
seen you as an authority here. You don't have any authority
here to give that. And so Jesus said, I'll tell
you who my authority is if you'll tell me one thing. And look what
he does. He goes to the baptism of John. He said, the baptism
of John, whence was it? From heaven or of men? So Jesus has asked him, Who gave
John? John's baptism. Was it under
the authority of heaven or under the authority of men? And they reasoned with themselves,
saying, if we shall say from heaven, he will say unto us,
why did ye not believe him? But if we shall say of men, we
fear the people for all hold John as a prophet. So see, these
men, now they're in a conundrum. If we say that he got the authority
from men, then we're in big trouble. See, these men didn't believe
John. They didn't believe. Remember when they went down
and John said, show forth fruits of repentance? Well, there were
some that showed forth fruits and was baptized. We see that
some of the Pharisees and religious leaders were converted. But the
majority of them, they didn't believe. So they never did show
forth fruits of repentance. They never did get baptized by
John. They rejected that. And we'll see that here in a
few minutes in some verses. They rejected the baptism of John
and Jesus here was saying, well, if you reject the baptism of
John, was it because it was not from heaven and from men? But
yet those people knew everybody around here is seeing this and
they say, this is Elias. It's come. This man is a prophet
of God. This was a man sent by God. And
if we say that his authority was from men, then all those
people are going to look at us and think we're crazy and not
listen to us anymore because they know this man came from
God. See, they were collaborating. They were already, they were
twisted men. They knew the truth. They knew this man fits. John
the Baptist fits that prophet that was to come to prepare for
the Messiah. They knew up to this point in time, they knew
Jesus fit the bill of who the Messiah was. Everything that
Jesus had been doing pointed to the Messiah that the Old Testament
had been talking about. They knew it, but they rejected
it. They didn't want to have nothing
to do with it because he didn't come the way they thought he
should come. He didn't save the way they thought he should save.
He didn't come in and prop them up because of all their good
works and law keeping. He came saying, this is a righteousness
that's a foreign righteousness. It's not what you do. And they
didn't like that. It upturned everything that they
had twisted from the scriptures and had been teaching the people
now for hundreds of years. And now the people have been
turned from the Messiah that was to come unto their work system. And so Jesus is making it about
authority. John's baptism, did the authority
come from heaven or from men? If it came from men, you don't
need to listen to it. But if it came from heaven, then
why didn't you submit to it? So that's what Jesus was getting
at. John's baptism came from heaven. It was recognized by
the people. It came from heaven. It's only
those who are the religious who don't recognize the authority
in baptism. Those who think that their baptism
or whatever they've done is good enough. But Jesus said, listen,
John's baptism is by the authority of heaven. By the way, that's
where Jesus' authority came from. But what did they say? And they
answered Jesus and said, we cannot tell. See, they copped out. And Jesus said unto them, neither
tell I you by what authority I do these things. But what think
ye? A certain man had two sons, and
he came to the first and said, son, go work today in my vineyard.
And he answered and said, I will not. But afterwards, he repented
and went. And he came the second and said,
likewise. And he answered and said, I go,
sir, and went not. Whither then Twain did the will
of his father? They said unto him the first.
Jesus said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you that the
publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before
you. For John came unto you in the
way of righteousness. John came unto you in the way
of righteousness. So there again, that solidifies
the fact that John came under the authority of God. His baptism
was from heaven. It was authorized by God. John came unto you in the way
of righteousness, and ye believed him not. But the publicans and
the harlots believed him, and ye, when ye had seen it, repented
not afterward that ye might believe him. Okay? We see here that Jesus
very clearly points that John's baptism was under the authority
of God, by the authority of God, and was the only one authorized
by God at the time of John's baptism to baptize. And those
men that went out, the religious men said, you know, hey, if that's
what it means that I can't be baptized unless I follow after
what you're teaching, then forget it, I'm not gonna, and so they
rejected that. And so we see that this baptism, the proper
administrator, again, was John. He had the authority. Look now
with me, if you would, to Mark chapter 1. Mark chapter 1. We'll start reading in verse 1. In
the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
as it is written in the prophets, behold, I send my messenger before
thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. So here
again, who's that talking to or talking about? It's talking
about John again, okay? So John is the beginning of the
gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the
prophets. He's the one coming to preach
that clear revelation of the gospel and preparing a way for
the Lord. The voice of one crying in the
wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord, make his path straight. John did baptize. So here again,
we see baptize is connected with the administrator, John. John
did baptize in the wilderness and preach the baptism of repentance
for the remission of sin. And there went out unto him all
the land of Judea and of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him
in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. And John was clothed
with camel's hair and with a girdle of the skin about his loins,
and he did eat locusts and honey, and preached, saying, There cometh
one mightier than I after me, the latches of whose shoes I
am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed baptize you
with water, and he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. And
it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth
of Galilee and was baptized of John in the Jordan. So Matthew
and Mark both give the same account that John was a man sent by God,
that John had the authority to baptize and that it was recognized
by not only those people, but also by Jesus himself and was
baptized there. Turn over to Mark chapter 11,
verse 30. Mark chapter 11. This is the same account that
we've seen in Matthew, but I want to show you again that here's
two witnesses. Okay, we've had two witnesses
of both things here now. Now there, verse 27, starting
with verse 27. And they come again to Jerusalem,
and as he was walking in the temple, there come to him the
chief priests and scribes and the elders, and saying to him,
by what authority dost thou these things? Who gave thee this authority
to do these things? And Jesus answered and said unto
him, I will also ask you one question, and answer me, and
I will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism
of John, was it from heaven or of men? Answer me. And they reasoned
with themselves, saying, if we say from heaven, he will say,
why did ye not believe him? But if we say of men, they feared
of the people. For all men counted John, that
he was a prophet indeed. And they answered and said unto
Jesus we cannot tell Jesus answered saith unto them Neither do I
tell you by what authority I do these things Okay, so we see
that there's a second witness to the validity of John being
the administrator of the baptism that he was properly the administrator
by divine authority mark chapter 16 if you would We just read this, and I wanna
reiterate it here. Verse 14. It says, afterward, he appeared
unto the leaven as they sat at meat and upbraided them with
their unbelief and hardness of heart because they believed not
them which had seen him after he had risen. And he said unto
them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. So we see here that Jesus has
commissioned or told these men to go and to baptize, to preach
the gospel and to baptize those who believe. So now we see that
the administrator is the Apostles here, and we'll see that a little
bit more clearly in a few more verses here. Look if you would
at Luke chapter three. Verse one. Now, the 15th year
of the reign of Tiberius Caesar Pontius Pilate being governor
of Judea and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip,
Tetrarch of Eteria, and of the region of Trachonitis and Lysanias,
the Tetrarch of Abilene, Ananias and Caiaphas being the high priest,
the word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias in the wilderness,
and he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism
of repentance for the remission of sin, as it is written in the
book of the words of Isaiah, the prophet, saying, the voice
of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord,
make his path straight. Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked
shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Then said he to the multitude
that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers,
who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? I'm going
to stop right there. We're going to drop down and
see verse 12 also. Well, matter of fact, let's go
ahead and read verse 12. Then came also publicans to be baptized
and said unto him, Master, what shall we do? And he said unto
them, exact no more than that which is appointed unto you.
And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, and what shall
we do? And he said unto them, do violence to no man, neither
accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages. And as the people
were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of
John, whether he were the Christ or not, John answered, saying
unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier
than I come with the latchet of whose shoes I'm not worthy
to unloose. He shall baptize you with the
Holy Ghost and with fire. And so we see here that John,
I'll go down to verse 21, go ahead and knock all these out.
Now, when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that
Jesus also being baptized and praying, the heaven was opened
and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove
upon him. And a voice came from heaven
and said, thou are my beloved son and thee I am well pleased
And so we see here another witness. There's a third witness of John's
validity to be baptized, or to be the administrator of baptism. And we see that other people
coming to him to be baptized, that he had the authority to
baptize. The Bible says that in the mouth
of two or three witnesses, the thing is established. So we see
here three witnesses to that very thing. Look with me if you
would to Luke chapter 7. Starting in verse 24. And when the messengers of John
were departed, he began to speak. Now remember, John had sent the
messengers to Jesus to ask him, you know, are you really the
Christ? And Jesus told them, hey, go
back and tell John, John was in prison, to go back and tell
John that the blind see, that the lame walk, the lepers are
cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised. What was that
to tell John? Well, John knew, he knew what
the Messiah was going to be doing when he came. And he's saying,
this is happening. Okay. So verse 24, and when the
messengers of John were departed, He, Jesus, began to speak unto
the people concerning John. What went ye out into the wilderness
for to see, a reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out
for to see, a man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they which
are gorgeously appareled and live delicately are in king's
courts. But what went ye out for to see,
a prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much
more than a prophet. Was he a prophet? Yes, he was.
He's preaching the words of God. He was a prophet. Okay, but he
wasn't just a prophet. This is he of whom it is written,
behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare
thy way before thee. To perform, to prepare thy way
before thee. This is worthy of a study. It
just kind of come upon me just now. To prepare, Thy way. If you remember in Acts, when
it spoke of the disciples, the religious leaders and people
referred to the disciples of Jesus as the people of the way. So does the thy way before thee? Is that possibly a reference
to the actual people? that the believers? Because they
were called the Way and Acts. Jesus is also called the Way.
Is it just a direction? The Way is also considered a
movement, right? The Way. A group of people, a
specific group of people. Anyway, something to think about.
Verse 28, for I say unto you, among those that are born of
woman, there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist. Jesus called him the Baptist.
I don't think that's such a bad name to have if that's what we
do. We baptize. Nothing wrong with being called
a Baptist. Now, if you take it too far and
start giving credence to denominational things, then you've gone too
far. But whenever we use the term Baptist as it speaks to
the ministry, that we've been given to do, which we have been
given to do if we're a New Testament church, right? Make disciples
and baptize, and then teach them to make disciples and baptize. But he that is least in the kingdom
of God is greater than he. Why? Well, because John was not
part of the church. All those baptized believers
were gathered into the church, but John wasn't. John had a specific
calling to ministry of God to prepare the way of Jesus. Even
John himself testified to the fact that he was not part of
the bride, but he was a friend of the bridegroom. He wasn't
part of the bride. He wasn't part of the church.
He never was gathered into the church. Matter of fact, you don't
see anywhere. John was never baptized himself. Okay. So there was something different
going on with this baptism. It was a new type of baptism.
This baptism was for all those who believed, but it was for
those who believed to be added to the church. So John wasn't
baptized and added to the church. John was the baptizer. But the Pharisees and lawyers,
and here it is, this is what I wanted you to see here. But
the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the counsel of God against
themselves being not baptized of Him. Whenever you reject being baptized
scripturally, you are not rejecting the counsel of a church, although
you are. You're not rejecting the counsel
of the preacher, although you would be, but you're rejecting
the counsel of God against yourselves. The counsel of God is saying
when you become a believer to be scripturally baptized. But
yet the Bible says that those who do not do that reject the
counsel of God So you're not rejecting us as
a church, you're rejecting the counsel of God. Look at Luke chapter 20. Sorry, wrong page. Luke chapter
20, starting verse one. And it came to pass that on one
of those days as he taught in the temple, taught the, I'll
start over. And it came to pass that on one
of those days as he taught the people in the temple and preached
the gospel, the chief priest and the scribes came upon him
with the elders and spake unto him saying, tell us by what authority
does thou these things or who is it or who is he that gave
thee this authority? And he answered and said unto
them, I will also ask you one thing, and answer me. The baptism
of John, was it from heaven or of men? And they reasoned with
themselves, saying, if we shall say from heaven, he will say,
why then believe ye not him not? But if we say of men, all the
people will stone us, for they be persuaded that John was a
prophet. And they answered that they could
not tell whence it was, and Jesus said unto them, neither tell
I you by what authority I do these things." There's a fourth
witness now to the fact that John's authority was from baptism,
or baptism was from heaven, okay? So I'm just going through the
books front to back here in the New Testament, and we're looking
at all the places where baptism is talked about and we're seeing
that every one of those, they're tied to the authority of someone
who was given that authority, okay? So John, again, by a fourth
witness, was the one authorized by God to baptize. Look with
me, if you would, at John chapter one. We've already read that first
passage in John chapter six, but let's look, if you would,
John chapter 1, and drop down with me if you would. Down at verse 25, speaking of the Pharisees,
and they asked him and said unto him, Why baptize thou then, if
thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?
See, they were wondering, something's going on here. 400 years of silence.
And now all of a sudden, this man comes on the scene preaching
repentance and baptism and talking about the Messiah to come, the
Lamb of God that takes away the sin of man. He starts coming
and preaching these things. It kind of gets the religious
guys, well, wait a minute, shouldn't that have come to us? The religious
elite, shouldn't that message come to us? But it didn't come
to them, it came to a wild man out in the wilderness. And he
came out preaching these things. And they wanted to know, hey,
who give you the authority To do this, if you're not Christ,
if you're not Elias, if you're not the prophet, then who in
the world give you the authority to come out and preach these
things and to baptize doing these things? And John answered them
and he says, I baptize with. How did John answer their question
of why baptize thou then if thou be not that Christ nor Elias,
neither that prophet? They're wanting to know, by what
authority do you have to baptize? John said, I baptize with water,
but there standeth one among you whom ye know not. He it is
who coming after me is preferred before me, who shoelatcheth I'm
not worthy to unloose. These things were done in Bethabara,
beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing. The next day, John
seeth Jesus coming unto him and saith, behold the Lamb of God,
which taketh away the sin of the world. This is he of whom
I said, after me come with a man which is preferred before me,
for he was before me." What is it John's saying here? When John
said that up in the previous verse, he was answering them,
I baptize you with water, but there stands one among you whom
you know not. That's the answer to why baptizing. Who gave you
this authority to baptize? The one who's among you that
you don't know whose shoelaces I'm not worthy to unloose. I'm
talking about the Lamb of God takes away the sin of man, God
in the flesh, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, Christ, Yeshua, Meshach,
however you want to say it, okay? There's only one that can give
authority to baptize and that's God. He said, and I knew him
not, but that he should be made manifest to Israel. Therefore,
am I come baptizing with water. Therefore, am I come. I've come baptizing in water.
Why? To prepare a way, the way, to prepare a people, to prepare
the way for him, to prepare these people. And all I know is I was
told that this is the message to preach, and this is what I
ought to do when people believe. I'm going to baptize him. Why?
Because I've been made the administrator? Yep. Why? Because I've been made
the one who's to preach this message? Yep. He got that authority from God.
And John Bear Record saying, I saw the Spirit descending from
heaven like a dove in a boat on high. And I knew him not,
but he that sent me to baptize with water, he that sent me to
baptize with water, the same said unto me, upon whom thou
shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same
as he which baptized him with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and
bear record that this is the Son of God." Again, the next
day, after John stood and two of his disciples and Jesus, looking
upon Jesus as he walked and said, behold, the Lamb of God. And
the two disciples heard him speak and they followed Jesus. John
was pointing people to Jesus. He wasn't trying to make a following
for himself. He was pointing people to Jesus. His baptism
was to show forth that righteousness which it was to come, but it
was pointing people to Jesus. In your baptism, you are pointing
people to Jesus. In your baptism, you're telling
on Jesus on what he did. We sing those songs. Tell me
the story of Jesus. Write on my heart every word.
We sing this song. I love to tell the story. But brethren, in your baptism,
you're doing the exact same thing. In your baptism, you're telling
the story of Jesus and his love for you. Our baptism points people to
Jesus, but listen, if our baptism isn't by the proper administrator,
then our baptism isn't a scriptural baptism. And if we don't submit
to scriptural baptism, then we reject the counsel of God against
us. Look, if you would, with me at
John chapter three. Says in verse twenty two, John
chapter three, verse twenty two. After these things came Jesus
and his disciples into the land of Judea, and there he tarried
with them and baptized. And John also was baptizing in
Anon near to Selim, because there was much water there. And they
came and were baptized, for John was not yet cast into prison."
Now, so here we see now, John, the authorized baptizer, is baptizing
in Anon near to Selim, because there was much water there. Jesus
and his disciples, came into the land of Judea and tarried
there within, and baptized." Now, if you don't read the rest
of the scripture, you'll think Jesus was the one doing the baptizing.
But we're fixing to find out Jesus wasn't the one actually
baptizing. Look at verse 25. Then there arose a question between
some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying. And
they came unto John and said unto him, He that was with thee
beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, behold, the same baptizeth,
and all men come to him. So here they're recognizing,
okay, John, you were the only one baptizing, and then the guy
that you've been talking about, now he's baptizing. But yet all men are coming to
him now to be baptized. And John answering them said,
a man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. So here we see John was given
from heaven to baptize. That's a fifth witness now, isn't
it? That John was the administrator by God to baptize. It was given
unto him. Ye yourselves bear me witness
that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. There's a sixth witness, that
John was sent as that witness. and to baptize. He that hath
the bride is the bridegroom. Wait a minute. Who are you talking
about, John? The bride and the bridegroom. Well, the bride are
those ones that Jesus had prepared for him. There was a bride prepared for
Jesus. How were they prepared? They
were made disciples by preaching the gospel and they were baptized. That's how they were made prepared. They became his bride when he
gathered them together. He that hath the bride is the
bridegroom. I don't have the bride. I wasn't
called to have the bride, the bridegroom was. But the friend
of the bridegroom, speaking of John, which standeth and heareth
him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This
my joy therefore is fulfilled. So John is saying, I'm not in
the bride, because I can't be, I haven't been baptized. I was sent to prepare the way,
to preach and to baptize, but I'm not that. And now that Jesus
has got the bride, it's his to have, it's his to teach, it's
his to give instruction to. I was to prepare you for that,
to preach repentance and to baptize you. And now with that, Jesus
is gathering you together and you're his, you're his bride.
From then on, he's your, you're his responsibility. And so he
says, he, him, excuse me, I lost my
place. But the friend of the bridegroom
which standeth and hears him rejoices greatly because of the
bridegroom's voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled.
John was happy that the bride had been given to the bridegroom.
And now the bridegroom was now taking care of the bride, feeding
the bride. giving the bride all that it
needs. He says, He must increase, but I must decrease. Do you know what I'm saying?
The time for my ministry has come. It's now Jesus who's doing
these things. He that cometh from above is
above all. He that is of the earth is earthly and speaketh
of the earth. And he that cometh from heaven
is above all. And what he hath seen and heard
that he testifieth, and no man receiveth his testimony. He that
hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true.
For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God. For God giveth
not the Spirit by measure unto him. The Father loveth the Son,
and hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth on
the Son hath everlasting life. And he that believeth not the
Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Here, John is preaching a gospel message. Now look at verse one
of chapter four. When therefore the Lord knew
how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more
disciples than John, verse two, though Jesus himself baptized
not but his disciples. Okay. He left Judea and departed again
unto Galilee. So here we see that Jesus knew
and recognized that these men were beginning to see that Jesus
was baptizing more people than John. He left the region. But here's what I want you to
see in that. Jesus had authorized his disciples to do the baptizing
now. So it wasn't just John, it was
the disciples now baptizing. And at this point, we see that
that is the 12, the apostles, okay? The 12. Look with me, if you would, to
Acts chapter one. Acts chapter one. Acts chapter 1, look at verse
22. This was the prerequisite to
become the apostle, to fill the office that Judas left. Verse 22, beginning from the
baptism of John unto that same day that he was taken up from
us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection. So here again, we see baptized
tied to an administrator, and that administrator was John,
okay? So from the baptism of John until
that time, someone had to be picked out. And who was the administrators
of baptism during that time period? It was John or it was Jesus'
disciples. Nowhere do we see baptism tied
to anything except by a proper administrator, that was sent
by God or ordained by God to do so. Once again, look at chapter
two, verse 38. At the end of Peter's gospel
message, then Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized
every one of you. in the name of Jesus Christ for
the remissions of sin, and you shall receive the gift of the
Holy Ghost for the promises unto you and to your children and
to all that are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall
call. And with many other words did
he testify and exhort, saying, save yourselves from this untoward
generation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized,
and the same day there were added unto them, whose then, The 120,
whose names and numbers were 120, the 120, there was added
unto them about 3,000 souls, and they continued steadfastly
in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and the breaking of
bread and in prayers. That right there is a commission.
Repent, make disciples, they repent, right? Be baptized. become the members of the local
church so that they might be taught all things whatsoever
Jesus had commanded. So here we see that these men
were baptized, but who was it that did the baptism? Well, it
doesn't say explicitly there, but the ones who they were at
to was the church, the 120. And up to this point, the only
ones that's ever baptized anybody has been John or the disciples
appointed by Jesus. And here, the apostles appointed
by Jesus was the ones who were conducting the affairs here. Look with me if you would, Acts
chapter 8. Again, we're looking at every instance where baptism,
the act of baptism was taking place. And we're seeing, is there
any other thing in Scripture showing us who can baptize? Acts
chapter 8. Look at verse 12. But when they believed
Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God in the name
of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Then Simeon himself believed
also. And when he was baptized, he
continued with Philip and wondered beholding the miracles and signs
which were done. Now, when the apostles, which
were at Jerusalem, heard that Samaria had received the word
of God, they sent it to them, Peter and John, who, when they
were come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy
Ghost. For as yet he was fallen upon none of them, only they
were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then laid they
their hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost. So we
see here that baptism was by Philip, who Philip was an authorized
person of the church. He was an ordained deacon of
the church who was sent out to preach by the church. Okay. Look, if you would, at verse
down to verse 36. Actually, let's go back to verse
30, 35. This is the account of the Ethiopian eunuch. It says,
then Philip opened his mouth and began to sing scripture and
preached unto him Jesus. And as they went out, or 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? And Philip said, if thou believest
with all thine heart, thou mayest. So there's the prerequisite,
okay? That's the prerequisite. You
have to be a believer. If you ain't a believer, you
can't be baptized. And he answered and said, I believe
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the
church to stand still. And they went down both into
the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. So here we see another instance
of baptism. And again, baptism was administrated
by one who was not only the member of the local church in Jerusalem,
but he was a man who was ordained by that church as a deacon, as
a servant of the church, okay? So far, we haven't found one
example of anybody outside the church or appointed by the church
that has baptized anybody. Acts chapter nine. if you would. And I'm going to start reading
here at verse 1. It's going to, you know, I'm
waiting to get down to some later portions in the chapter, but
I want you to get the context here. And Saul, yet breathing
out threatenings and slaughters, remember who Saul is, right?
Saul is the Apostle Paul, but Saul was his name before God
changed it to Paul. Okay, Saul was that religious,
pharisaical zealot who was out destroying and killing Christians. Matter of fact, Philip that we
just was reading about was one of the ones that, or I'm sorry,
not Philip, who was it that, it's just now slipped my mind.
who was the Deacon Stephen. The Deacon Stephen was one of
the ones that Paul had given authority for them to take and
to kill stone. And a matter of fact, he held
all the coats of those guys that was out there doing it. But anyway,
and Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples
of the Lord, went unto a high priest, the high priest, and
desired of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues that if he
found any of this way, there it is, this way, these people
are recognized as the way, right? Whether they were men or women,
he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. And as he journeyed,
he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him
a light from heaven. And he fell to the earth and
heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecuteth thou
me? And he said, who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am
Jesus, whom thou persecuted. It is hard for thee to kick against
the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what
will thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, arise
and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou
must do. And the men which journeyed with
him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And
Saul arose from the earth, and when his eyes were opened, he
saw no man. but they led him by the hand
and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without
sight, and neither did eat nor drink. And there was a certain
disciple at Damascus named Ananias, a certain disciple in Damascus
named Ananias." Okay, so we see here that this man is a believer,
and he is a disciple, at Damascus. And to him said the Lord in a
vision, Ananias. And he said, behold, I am here,
Lord. And the Lord said unto him, arise
and go into the street, which is called Straight, and inquire
in the house of Judas for one called Solomon. That's not Judas
who betrayed Jesus, by the way. and inquire in the house of Judas
of one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold, he prayeth, and hath
seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in and putting
his hand on him that he might receive his sight. Then Ananias
answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man how much
evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem, and here he hath
authority from the chief priest to bind all that call on thy
name. But the Lord said unto him, go thy way, for he is a
chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and
kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great
things he must suffer for my name's sake. And Ananias went
his way and entered into the house, and putting his hands
on him, said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared
unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me. So Jesus has sent Ananias to
Paul to preach to Paul to heal him of his blindness. But watch
what else here. That thou might receive thy sight
and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from
his eyes as it had been scales. And he received sight forthwith
and arose and was baptized. So Ananias baptized Paul, but
yet Ananias, as we see again, was a man sent by God to do so. But we also learn that Ananias
was a disciple, right? He was a disciple at Damascus. He was afraid that Paul was going
to come and persecute him like he had the rest of the church
at Jerusalem. Okay, so Ananias here is a disciple
and we learned that in this Bible, those who are disciples are ones
who have been taught, believe the doctrines of Christ and are
baptized. So Ananias was a part of the
church, whether he was one from Jerusalem that got scattered
to Damascus or whether he was one that came to believe by the
church of Damascus? Either way, Ananias was a disciple
in the church. But that doesn't have any bearing
on this at this point, because Ananias was specifically sent
by Jesus to do this to Paul. Now, some may say while we're
here at this passage, see there, Paul, He had all kinds of stuff
going on with him that he hated the church and all like that.
Now all of a sudden, boom, he's going to be baptized straight
with or forthwith. What does it say there? How does it say?
And here, forthwith and arose and was baptized. They didn't wait for Paul. Well,
whenever God tells you, this is my chosen vessel, I think
you can take it for a fact that, okay, this person, If he's not
believing now as a believer, this is a chosen vessel of God.
We have every right to baptize this person because he is a chosen
vessel of God. But yet Paul did believe, if
you see there on the road in Damascus, he asked, what Lord do you want
me to do? Okay, I'm turning from what I'm
doing. I'm not gonna go persecute people
no more. What do you want me to do? And did it. He was pricked
in the heart. He couldn't kick against pricks. He was pricked in the heart.
When he was pricked in the heart and believed, he said, what must
I do? And what did the Lord tell him to do? He said, all right,
go down to this man. He's going to talk to you. He's going to,
he's going to lay his hands on you, heal you, and he's going
to baptize you. You baptize him. So again, proper administrator,
a man sent by God. and tied to the church. Look in Acts chapter 10. Acts
chapter 10. Look with me, if you would, down
to verse... Verse 37. The word, I say, you know, which
was published throughout all Judea and began from Galilee
after the baptism, which John preached, how God anointed Jesus
of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about
doing good and healing all that were oppressed of him, of the
devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all things
which he did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem,
whom they slew and hanged on a tree. Him God raised up the
third day and showed him openly, not to all the people, but unto
witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and drink
with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to
preach unto the people and to testify that it is he which was
ordained of God to be the judge of the quick and the dead. To
him gave all the prophets witness that through his name, whosoever
believeth in him shall receive remission of sin. And while Peter
yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which
heard the word. And they of the circumcision,
which believed, were astonished as many as came with Peter, because
that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy
Ghost. For they heard them speak with
tongues and magnify God, then answered Peter, Can any man forbid
water that these should not be baptized, which have received
the Holy Ghost as well as we? And he commanded, he didn't encourage,
he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then
prayed they him to tarry certain days. So here again, we see baptism
back up in 37. We see that it was, The baptism of John again referred
to John given given another witness that baptism was was by John
and John was the administrator of that by God and that it was
a valid baptism We also see now here that Peter is preaching
to these Gentiles and in Cornelius's house and these Gentiles whenever
they heard the word they believed on the word and The Holy Ghost
came down and here again, guys, there was a physical thing that
happened to show validity of who they were, okay? So there
was no doubt in there. So the reason they didn't have
to wait to be baptized is because God validated their salvation. God validated who they were,
just like God validated to Ananias who Paul was. Whenever there
is a validation by God, there is no need to wait for us to
baptize you. Unfortunately, God doesn't speak
out of the clouds to us in verbal form anymore. So sometimes when
people make professions of faith, then we have to consider, well,
what faith are you confessing? That's why we have to talk to
them, see what gospel they're believing. But here, the Holy
Spirit of God came down ratified that, said, hey, there they are. And so they could go right out
of bed, but notice who baptized. It wasn't just anybody. It was the apostles. A few more verses here, brethren,
if you can hang on, we'll be done with this, not have to carry
it over till next Lord's Day. Acts chapter 11. Look, if you would, with me at
verse 11. And behold, immediately there
were three men already coming to the house where I was, sent
from Caesarea unto me. And the Spirit bade me go with
them, nothing doubting. Moreover, these six brethren
accompanied me, and we entered into the man's house. And he
showed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood
and said unto him, send men to Joppa and call for Simon, whose
surname is Peter, who shall tell thee words whereby thou and all
thy house shall be saved." Now, side note, All those pedo-baptists
that wanna say, there you go, he baptized the whole house.
Look what he says there. Who shall tell thee words whereby
thou and all thy house shall be saved. The whole house was saved. They
got baptized. So if it was children, then the
children believed. They were saved and were baptized. And as I began to speak, the
Holy Ghost fell on them as on us at the beginning. Then remembered
I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized
with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. Now we're
gonna be talking about this Holy Ghost baptism thing after we're
done with this portion of of our stuff, so Lord willing, either
next week or the week after that, I'm still kind of preparing that
message. Even now, I haven't finished it, and hopefully I'll
be ready for that, Lord willing, next week. But if not, we'll
look at something in the meantime until I'm finished preparing
that. But he says here that baptism,
that they were baptized, And for as much then as God gave
them the light gift as he did unto us, who believed on the
Lord Jesus Christ, what was I that I could withstand God? When they
heard these things, they held their peace and glorified God,
saying, then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance
unto life." And so again, we see here that baptism went back and he remembered,
hey, John, who was water baptizing, also said that there's gonna
be a baptism that was gonna come by the Holy Ghost, although it
happened on the Jews first, now it's happening on the Gentiles. Okay, now it's happened on the
Gentiles. But he equated that baptism on the Gentiles with
that going all the way back to what happened to them at the
very beginning, okay? And of course, again, we'll talk
about that later as we can. The baptism again, we see here,
no one outside the local church was doing any baptizing at all. Look with me at Acts chapter
13. Acts chapter 13. Look with me, if you would, to
verse 22. And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David
to be their king, to whom also he gave testimony and said, I
have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart,
which shall fulfill all my will. Of this man's seed hath God,
according to his promise, raised unto Israel a Savior, Jesus. Matter of fact, if you look at
that, that's basically saying the same thing. He said, raised
unto you Israel, Jesus, Jesus. The word Jesus means Savior,
okay? When John had first preached
before his coming, the baptism of repentance to all the people
of Israel. And as John fulfilled his course,
he said, whom think ye that I am? I am not he. But behold, there
cometh one after me whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to
lose. Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and
whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation
sent. And they that dwell at Jerusalem
and the rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices
of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have
fulfilled them in condemning him. And though they found no
cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be
slain. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him,
they took him down to a tree. Yes. They took him down from the tree
and laid him in the sepulcher, but God raised him from the dead.
And he was seen many days of them which came up with him from
Galilee to Jerusalem. Who are his witnesses under the
people? And we declare unto you glad tidings how that the promise
which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto
us, their dear children, and that he raised up Jesus again. And that is also written in the
second Psalm, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Now, in the preaching of the
gospel, he goes back, Paul goes back here and he says, when John
had first preached before his coming, the baptism of repentance,
to all the people of Israel." John's baptism again, this is
a witness to John and his baptism being not only a valid baptism,
but also showing the beginning of the gospel and the gospel
mode on how we are to do the things, the commission of Jesus
Christ. Preach the gospel, baptize. That's how we are to do it. Preach
the gospel and to baptize. Of course, again, John was the
one who was authorized to do that. in that passage. Look at
Acts chapter 16. Acts chapter 16. Look at verse 15. Or verse 14. Let's start with verse
14. And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of
the city of Thyatira, which worshiped God, heard us, whose heart the
Lord opened. OK, so not only did she hear,
so that tells us that she had been Born again, the heart who
the Lord opened, again, that tells us she had been born again.
The Lord opened up her heart. She had the pricks in her heart.
The Lord opened up her heart that she attended unto the things
which were spoken, that she believed and attended the things that
were spoken. When she was baptized and her household, she besought
us saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord,
come into my house and abide there. And she constrained us. Now, who was it that was there
that did the baptizing? It was Paul and Silas, right?
Who were Paul, an apostle, who was also sent by God, and Silas,
who was also a man sent by the church as a minister of the gospel. So they both came from the local
church. They both had church authority
to baptize. Look with me, if you would, down
to verse 33. And he took them the same hour
in the night. Now this here is the Philippian jailer, if I'm not
mistaken, the Philippian jailer. Let's back up and we'll see. Verse 17. The same followed
Paul and us, and cried, saying, these men are the servants of
the Most High God, and show us the way of salvation. And this
did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned
and said to the Spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ
to come out of her. And he came out of the same mouth.
And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone,
they caught Paul and Silas and drew them into the marketplace
unto the rulers and brought them to the magistrates,
saying, these men being Jews do exceedingly trouble our city
and teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive, neither
to observe, being Romans. And the multitude rose up together
against them, and the magistrates rent off their clothes and commanded
to beat them. And when they had laid stripes
upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to
keep them safely." I'm just going to pause here for a second. Something
just came to my mind. All y'all that are watching on
Facebook, when you get befriended by Facebook and you start talking
about you've been persecuted, yeah, you've been persecuted.
If you've lost a friend or a buddy or someone is, you know, don't
want you to be around you believe the gospel or something like
that. Is that persecution? Yes, but these guys right here,
they just got beat and thrown into prison. None of us has experienced
that. None of us has had real persecution
like our forefathers have before us. It said, and when they had
laid many stripes upon him, they cast him into prison, charging
the jailer to keep him safely. who having received such a charge,
thrust them into the inner prison and made their feet fast in the
stocks. And at midnight, Paul and Silas
prayed and sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard them.
And suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations
of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors
were opened and everyone's bands were loose. And the keeper of
the prison, Awakened out of his sleep and seeing the prisoners'
doors open, he drew out his sword and would have killed himself,
supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried
with a loud voice saying, do thyself no harm, for we are all
here. Then he called for a light and
sprang in and came trembling and fell down before Paul and
Silas and brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to
be saved? So obviously this jailer had
been listening in on what all had been taught and the prayers
and the singing that they had been doing. Don't know what they
were singing. They're probably singing some stuff out of the Psalms
or something like that. And this guy says, sirs, what
must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That was the prerequisite,
believe. And they spake. unto him, that
was the prerequisite to baptism, not the prerequisite to salvation,
by the way. And they spake unto him the word
of the Lord and to all that were in his house. So they didn't
just say, believe on the Lord and then wait for the hand to
be raised. They went on after that. They said, what must you
do? Well, believe on the Lord Jesus. And thou shalt be, present tense,
thou shalt be saved. If you're believing on the Lord
Jesus, you're already saved. But what did they do? And they
spake unto him the word of the Lord and to all that were in
his house. So they preached to everybody
that was there and in his house. And he took them the same hour
of the night and washed their stripes and was baptized, he
and all his straightway. And when he had brought them
into his house, he said, meet before them and rejoice, believing
in God with all his house. All of his house was believing
in God. So those Pato Baptists that want
to look at this as, all right, the Philippian jailer and all
his family was baptized. So there was infants baptized
in the New Testament. Well, for one, it doesn't say
infants. It says his whole household. If you'll do a little research
on how that word household was used back then, that talked about
everybody who was in your house, whether that was a relative,
whether that was a guest, or whether that was a slave, they
were called your household. Okay? But even at that, it is
quantified and qualified. It was those who were in his
house, and who qualified? Those that believed and rejoiced,
believing in God with all his house. His whole house was believing
in God. And so they were baptized. And when it was day, the magistrate
said, we don't need to go any further than that. Okay, so here
again, we see baptism, but who did the baptizing? Well, Peter,
or excuse me, Paul and Silas. And who was the ones getting
baptized? Those who believed. So there was a proper administrator
here. Again, baptism was conducted by one who was authorized by
the church to do so. Look at Acts chapter 19. Acts chapter 19. Start in verse 1. And it came to pass
that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the
upper coast, came to Ephesus and finding certain disciples.
He said unto them, Have you received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?
And they said unto him, we have not much as heard whether there
be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, unto what
then were you baptized? And they said unto John's baptism.
Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance,
saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should
come after him, that is on Christ. When they heard this, they were
baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And whenever Paul had
laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them, and
they spake with tongues and prophesied. and all the men were about 12.
Now, who was the one who baptized them? Well, it came to pass that
while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the
upper coast, came to Ephesus and finding certain disciples.
Okay, Paul found some disciples where Apollos had been. If you
actually go up into chapter 18, you'll find this in verse 24. And a certain Jew named Apollos,
born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures,
came to Ephesus." Okay, that's where Paul found these believers,
found these men. This man was instructed in the
way of the Lord, and being fervent in the Spirit, he spake and taught
diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism
of John. And he began to speak boldly
in the synagogue, whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they
took him unto them and expounded unto him the way of God more
perfectly. So Apollos, even though he was
an eloquent man, mighty in the scriptures, fervent in the spirit,
instructing in the way of the Lord, was instructing incorrectly
and was teaching some things not correctly. And so Aquila and Priscilla had
to pull him aside and expound unto him the way of God more
perfectly. And when he was disposed to pass
into Achaia, the disciples to receive him, whom when he was
come, helped them which had believed through grace. For he mightily
convinced the Jews and that publicly showing by the scriptures that
Jesus was Christ. Okay, so something about Apollo's
preaching in Ephesus wasn't quite on track. Quill and Priscilla
had to come and correct him on that. Well, when Paul came into
Ephesus, he came across some of these men that Apollos had
been preaching to. And he said, ask them, have you
received the Holy Ghost yet? And they said, we've not even
heard of the Holy Ghost. Well, what were you baptized unto then?
What gospel, what doctrine were you baptized unto? They said,
unto John. His baptism. They said, well, wait a minute.
Now, John very well knew and taught the baptism, or very well
taught the Holy Spirit. So someone has taught you wrongly.
They've not taught you what Jesus has taught. Because John preached
and knew about Holy Spirit, Holy Ghost. He witnessed the Holy
Ghost itself coming down in physical form. He knew about the Holy
Ghost, but yet you don't know about the Holy Ghost, so you
haven't heard the message that John really preached. You may
have heard a partial one, like Apollos was preaching. And so
he said to them, and then Paul, or then said Paul, John verily
baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people
that they should believe on him what should come after him, not
on John. See, these men were obviously
preaching to believe on John. So the doctrine was wrong, that
they were baptized under. Not to mention, Apollos wasn't
sent by a church to baptize either. No church had sent Apollos to
baptize. Now come later, he joined up
with those men, but originally Apollos was not sent from the
church to baptize. If he had been sent by the church
to baptize, he would have already been made a disciple to the point
of knowing what the Holy Ghost was, to preach about the Holy
Ghost. If he would have been taught and sent, that would have
meant that to be sent by the church, that means one who was
ordained by the church to go and preach the gospel. They would
have met the criteria of those who the Bible gives as men who
are to be ordained to preach the gospel. And one of the things
is they have to know and understand the teachings of Jesus Christ. So whenever that was learned,
Paul said, well, that ain't right. And so he preached to them correctly.
And when they heard this, then they were baptized. It didn't
say they were re-baptized. It said they were baptized in
the name of the Lord Jesus. So here, there were people who
were baptized that Paul said, wait a minute, that baptism isn't
baptism. You're not believing the right
gospel, for one. You're not believing the right
doctrine. And second of all, Paulist wasn't sin. Okay, he
wasn't a man sent to baptize. And so they baptized these believers
whenever they began to believe the truth here. Okay, so again,
no baptism outside of men who were ordained of God, right? I mean,
obviously there was something invalid with that baptism by
which Apollos baptized them. By whatever baptism those men
had, It was considered invalid. So is there such thing as an
invalid baptism? Now this goes for all my friends
who I love dearly and I don't want to be at odds with, but
we have to face what the Bible teaches on things. There is such
thing as an invalid baptism. So to say that baptism doesn't
matter just as long as we get wet, then that's wrong. There is an invalid way to be
baptized. And these men, Paul did not consider
that baptism. He baptized them. The Bible says
that they were baptized. Then Acts chapter 22, look at
that if you will. Acts 22, verse 16. In fact, let's move up to verse
14. He said, the God of our fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldest
know his will and see that just one, and should adhere to the
voice of thou now. For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of
what thou hast seen and heard. And now, why tarriest thou? Arise
and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling upon the name
of the Lord. And it came to pass that when
I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple,
I was in a trance, and I saw him saying unto me, make haste
and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy
testimony concerning me. Now, this was Paul giving his
account of his conversion on the road to Damascus, and Ananias
baptizing him. And again, we see a second witness
that Ananias' baptism was valid baptism. It was because he was
a man sent by God, okay, and that Paul received that baptism as one who believed. Every passage that we've just
seen here, speaking of when someone got baptized, the act of baptism,
we saw that in every instance there was someone who was either
directly by the voice of God called and sent to baptize, or
was from the church ordained and sent and baptized from that
perspective. Not one person outside of that.
And the only place in scripture where one outside of that baptized
They did not recognize that baptism as baptism. And every place that
there was someone who was believing something other than the faith
once delivered to the saints by Jesus Christ to that first
church, they didn't recognize that baptism as valid. And so
they baptized them in every case. So there is a proper administrator
of baptism. Someone said, now you keep talking
about Paul baptizing. Paul didn't baptize anybody.
The Bible says he didn't baptize. Matter of fact, he was glad he
didn't baptize anybody. There's a lot of people taking
that out of context, and they're not reading it for all that it
is. I want you to look at this, and when we finish, as soon as
we're done looking at this, 1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians 1. Let's look at
the context of what Paul is saying when he said, I'm glad that I
didn't baptize, or I thank God that I baptized none of you.
1 Corinthians 1. Look at verse 10. Now remember,
he's writing to the Corinth church. The Corinth church was a church
that was divided. It was a church that had all
kinds of problems. They were misusing the gifts
of the spirit. They were misusing the ordinances
of God. There was immorality in the Corinthian
church. There was a flip in authority. In the Corinthian church, all
kinds of stuff is going on in the Corinthian church. And here,
the Holy Spirit writes to the Corinthians. He says now, what
Paul says here, now, I beseech you, brethren, by the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and
that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly
joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. Does
that tell us that we can come to an agreement on how things
should be done? I think it does. For it hath been declared unto
me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe,
that there are contentions among you." Disagreements, arguments,
there's division and contention among each other. Now this I
say that every one of you sayeth, well, I'm of Paul. One contentious
person says, well, I'm of Paul. And another one says, well, I'm
of Apollos. And then one says, well, I'm a Peter, Cephas. I
follow after Paul. He's the best apostle. Well,
I follow after Cephas, Peter. He was one of the first apostles.
Well, I follow after Apollos. He was a man mighty in the scriptures. And then another says, I have
Christ. Then Paul says this, is Christ divided? Is Christ
divided? What's he meaning in that? There's
a lot in that, guys, that we're missing. What does he say when
he says, is Christ divided? After he said, I'm of Paul, I'm
of Apollos, I'm of Cephas, I'm of Christ. Christ is not divided. His doctrine is not divided.
His doctrine is going to be preached the same, whether it is Paul,
whether it is Apollos, whether it is Cephas, or whether it's
Christ. Christ's doctrine doesn't mold
and change to your denomination, to your tradition. It stays the
same. That's why we have to have the
Bible as our rule of faith, because that's the doctrine of Christ.
And we can't deviate from that. If that makes us a Baptist, well,
wonderful. If that doesn't make us a Baptist,
well, wonderful too. Long as we are scriptural, that's
what we look for. And here, if we're saying, well,
I'm going to follow what this guy said. Well, I'm going to
follow what this guy said. He said, listen, All those guys,
Apollos, after he was corrected, all those guys are saying the
same thing. Paul isn't saying anything different than Peter,
and Peter isn't saying anything different than Apollos, and all
three of those guys are not saying anything different than what
Jesus said. The doctrine is the same. Is
Christ the Bible? Was Paul crucified for you? You're
not the one, I'm not the one you ought to be following as
far as looking up to me for everything, it's Christ. He says, was Christ
crucified for you? Or were, here it is, or were
ye baptized in the name of Paul? See, there was this division
of people taking factions and looking to men instead of looking
to Christ. And Paul was saying, did Christ
die for you? And he's equating baptism with
Christ's death. He said, did Paul die for you? Was ye baptized in the name of
Paul? Baptism is in the name of Jesus.
Why? Because it pictures Jesus and
what he did. So there again is that tie of
baptism being the picture of death, burial, and resurrection,
not anything else. It's a picture of that. But he's
saying here, listen, the problem is you're looking to men and
idolizing men, looking and building men up when you should be looking
to Christ. And so that's the context of
where Paul is about to say this. I thank God that I baptized none
of you but Crispus and Gaius, lest, here it is, lest any should
say that I had baptized in mine own name. He said, you guys have
got this so squirreled up, I'm glad that out of you guys, the
only ones that I baptized was Crispus and Gaius. Because if
I would have baptized all y'all, there would be a big cult following
going on, from what it sounds like. Because you're following
after men. He says, and I baptize also the
house of Stephanas. Besides, I know not whether I
baptize any other. So Paul did baptize. He said,
for Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not
with wisdom of words, lest a cross of Christ should be made of none
effect. Okay, so here now someone said, well, there you go. Paul
says, I wasn't sent to be baptized. Well, did Paul baptize? Yes. Paul did baptize, why? Because
he was sent of the church to baptize. But God did not send Paul to
baptize but to preach in these churches. But who did the baptizing
in those churches? Paul did baptize some and he
had that authority from Jesus. But what is Paul saying here?
Listen, it isn't about who baptized you. Don't follow after them. Because actually the baptism
The baptism is authorized by the church. I wasn't sent by
Christ to baptize, I was sent by Christ to preach the gospel. It's the church's responsibility
to baptize. That's who had the commission,
not me as an individual, even though I do have authority to
baptize and I did baptize. But look into me, the authority
of baptism goes to the church. And that's why I was sent to
preach the gospel. I'm an apostle, not a pastor. Okay, Paul was not a pastor. He was an apostle, different
office. As the apostle, he traveled around. Was there apostles who
were pastors? Absolutely. But Paul wasn't. Paul was not a pastor. The churches
were the ones who were baptizing these people as Paul was preaching. and they were added to that church,
whether it was Antioch, whether it was Damascus, whether it was
wherever, okay? So don't think that because Paul
made these comments that baptism isn't important that we shouldn't
keep it, or that Paul didn't think that there was an importance
in baptism, okay? If there wasn't an importance
in baptism, then why did Paul baptize Crispus and Gaius in
the house of Stephanas, okay? But if Paul is a follower of
Jesus Christ, then he's gonna think baptism is important because
Jesus taught baptism is important. Is there a proper administrator
to baptism? Absolutely, there is. You know,
in our government, to become a citizen, if you're not born
here in the United States, you're trying to become a citizen of
the government. Our government has authorized
certain judicial people to oversee the questioning and recognizing
whether some have the qualifications that is needed to become a citizen
of the United States. Okay? Now, I don't have that
authority from our government to do that. Do I know about our
government's history? Yep. Do I know about our country's
history? Yep. Do I know what it takes
to be a citizen of the United States? Yes, I do. And say, let's
use Brother Igor. We know Brother Igor, which,
by the way, in case I haven't told y'all, just a few months
back, Brother Igor actually become a citizen of the United States.
He finally went through, got through the process legally. He got it legally. He got through the process legally,
and he is now a citizen of the United States, and he's happy
about that. But he had to go through the process on how it
had to be done. But let's just take, for instance,
say he came over to my house one night. And I said, well,
I know everything that you need to know about being a citizen.
And so I start telling him everything he needs to know. And then I
give him a quiz. Well, what do you need to do?
What about this? What about this? What about this one? And if he passes
all the muster, then what do I do? All right, Brother Igor,
I make you a citizen of the United States. Now, if he goes to any
bank or goes to any workplace or if he goes to the IRS, are
they going to recognize him as a citizen of the United States
because I did that? No. Why? Because I didn't have
no authority to do that. Even though I could do that,
and even though he may actually know all the stuff because of
what I told him, that doesn't make him an authorized citizen
of the United States. Brethren, it's kind of similar
to that in baptism. The official baptizing may be
saved and sincere. The individual being baptized
may be saved and sincere. But unless the authority is scriptural,
the act of baptism is null and void. Unless a person begins
with the baptism of John, as Jesus did, the baptism is not
scriptural. So that's why we want to follow
after God and submit ourselves to scriptural baptism, not only
in the way, the mode, not only in the candidate who it's supposed
to be, not only under the gospel that it's supposed to be under,
but under the administrator of who's supposed to do that. It's
only then that we have proper baptism. And so I would encourage
all those that are here today or those who are listening or
watching, if you've not been, if you're not, if you wasn't
the proper candidate at the time that you were dumped in water
or sprinkled or poured or whatever, if it wasn't by immersion, If
it wasn't under the gospel of Jesus, the true gospel of Jesus
Christ, by a church who has the authority to baptize, then I
would encourage you to seek after baptism because you've not yet
been baptized. You've only been wetted down
in some other thing. And so I encourage you to do
that. Does that mean you're saved or not saved? No, it doesn't.
But that is proper obedience in the service of Jesus Christ.
It's part of the commission of the church. And for you to be
a disciple means you follow the teachings of Jesus. And that's
what he taught. And that's what he taught his
apostles to teach. And that's what those apostles
taught the church to teach. And that's what every New Testament
church has taught from generation to generation. And if you're
in a church that doesn't teach that, you probably ought to find
another church because you're not in a church that is a New
Testament church. Anybody have any questions? All right. Lord willing, next week, we're
gonna look at the baptism of the Holy Spirit, of the Holy
Ghost. What does it mean? Is it what
people say it is? Is it a special anointing of
God that gives you the ability to speak in tongues and all kinds
of stuff like that? Or is it a baptism that causes
you to be born again? We're gonna find out whether
that's the case, or is it something else? and I would push that it's
something else. If you believe it's one or the
other, then tune back in next week because we'll find out that
the Bible teaches that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not an
ongoing thing. All right, anybody got any questions,
comments? All right, let's bow and have
a word of prayer.