Amazing. Absolutely amazing. That the God of glory would love
and have mercy on sinners like us. Amazing love. How can it be? We're going to
be in the 16th chapter of Acts again this morning, if you'd
like to turn with me there. in your Bible, Acts chapter 16. Let's go to the Lord in prayer
and ask his blessings on our meeting together. Our gracious, glorious, and merciful
Heavenly Father, we come into thy holy presence,
thanking you that We have a throne of grace by which to approach
you, knowing that we have an advocate, our sin bearer, our
surety, our savior, thy dear son, who's seated at the right
hand of the majesty on high. Lord, we pray that you'd be pleased
this hour to send your spirit and power Christ will be exalted,
that he'd be lifted up. She would enable us to worship
you. Lord, we are amazed. We're amazed that Christ would
would die for sinners like us. And Lord, we pray that you would
cause us to be even more amazed when we leave this place after
having looked into thy word and after having set our affections
on things above. Lord, that you would deliver
us from the the temporal and the mundane things of this world
and enable us, Lord, to find our joy and our hope and our
salvation, our comfort in Christ. Lord, there's so much unbelief
in us that hinders us. We pray that you would forgive
us for that and forgive us for all the evidences of our unbelief
that are in our lives and Lord, give us hope that we can look
to Christ as our sin bearer and as our justification before Thee. We ask it all in His name. Amen. You have your Bibles open to
Acts chapter 16. We're going to begin reading in verse 30
and read to the end of this to the end of this chapter. And
he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? Now you're familiar with this
passage. We've been looking at it for a few weeks now. Paul's
been imprisoned with Silas in Philippi and the Lord has sent
an earthquake and shook the foundations of that prison and delivered
prisoners, spiritual picture of what the Lord does when the
gospel comes in the power of God, shaking the foundations
of our lives and causing us to be delivered from our sin. And this Philippian jailer being
one of God's elect is is caused by his circumstances to think
that suicide was his only way out. And Paul stopped him, told
him, he said, put away your sword. We're all here safe. And then
he comes before the apostles and he pleads with them, sirs,
what must I do to be saved? Not to get saved, but to be saved. And they said, believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and now shall be saved on thy house. And they
spake unto him the word of the Lord and to all that were 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 set meat before them and rejoiced, believing
in God with all his house. And when it was day, the magistrates
sent the sergeant saying, let those men go. And the keeper
of the prison told this saying to Paul, that the magistrates
had sent to let you go. Now, therefore, depart and go
in peace. But Paul said unto them, they
have beaten us openly, uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us
into prison. And now, do they thrust us out
privately? Nay, barely, but let them come
themselves and fetch us out. And the sergeants told these
words to the magistrates, and they feared. when they heard
that they were Romans. And when they came and besought them and brought
them out and desired them to depart out of the city. And they
went out of the prison and entered into the house of Lydia. And
when they had seen the brethren, they comforted them and departed."
And my question this morning is, what does the baptism of
the Philippian jailer and his family have in common with Paul
insisting that the magistrates come themselves and deliver them
from prison? And the answer to that question
is the testimony of the gospel. Paul was interested in one thing,
as is God and as ought we. And that is the clear testimony
and witness of the gospel. It's really all that matters.
It really is. Caleb read from the scriptures
this morning in Hebrews chapter 9, where the Lord speaks of Christ
coming in the end of the world. And he wasn't speaking of his
second coming, he was speaking of his first coming. Now, if
2,000 years ago, God calls the end of the world, how much closer
are we to the end of the world now? And when it all ends, what's
going to matter? What's going to matter? The testimony
of the gospel. witness of the Church, declaring
the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace to a lost and
dying world. You see, baptism says to the
world, this is who we are. And the insistence that the Apostle
Paul gave to have the magistrates themselves come and essentially
apologized for what they had done, says to the world, this
is who we are not. We've been given the word of
reconciliation, brethren, that men might be reconciled to God. The church of the Lord Jesus
Christ is the only, the only place where that message can
be heard. We've been commissioned by God
to be his witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and
unto the outermost parts of the world. The witness of the gospel,
the clear testimony of the gospel is the only thing that really
matters. Turn to me to second Corinthians
chapter five. I'll tell you what, brethren,
this put, if you believe what I'm saying, this puts everything
in place in your own heart, in your own family, in your own
life and in the world. If you believe what God is telling
us here. That is the testimony of the
gospel that must be preserved, it must be protected, it must
be declared. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter
5. And we'll begin reading at verse
17. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. And all things are of God who
hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and has given
unto us the ministry of reconciliation. So he didn't just, why doesn't
the Lord just take us home when he saves us, when he calls us
out of darkness into his marvelous light? Because we've been left
behind to be his witnesses, to declare this ministry of reconciliation. Look at the next verse. To wit
that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word
of reconciliation." That's the gospel. That's the testimony.
That's the witness. The word of reconciliation. How can a man be right with God? That's the question that men
must hear the answer to. That's the question that they
must believe the answer to. How can I be reconciled to God? One who by nature is estranged
by their sin and by nature is at enmity with God. How can I
be made reconciled to him? Only by the message that God
has given to the church to declare to this lost and dying world.
Look at the next verse. Now then, now then, we are ambassadors
For Christ, now I don't know much about political
ambassadors, but I suspect that that ambassador has to get approval
from the authorities that he's sent by before he can make any
decisions in a foreign land. And he has to give, he or she
has to give exactly the message that they were given to communicate. And they can't just act on their
own or change it up. And so it is with the church.
We are the ambassadors of Christ. He has given us a message and
we can't change it up. We have to declare it just as
clearly and simply as he's given it to us. It's the only hope
that the world has. It's the only hope that you have.
The only hope that I have to be reconciled to God. As though God did beseech you
by us, we pray you in Christ's stead be reconciled to God. So when we preach the gospel,
we don't just say, you know, go home and think about it and,
you know, consider this and let me know if you, you know, if
you have any objections. No, we call on men to believe
the gospel. We call on ourselves to believe
what God has said, don't we? For He, God Almighty, hath made
Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin. To be sin. Actually, just leave out the
verb to be. You see it's in italics in your Bible, don't you? Let's
read it without that. For God Almighty, God the Father,
hath, past tense, made Christ sin for us. The Lord Jesus Christ
bore in his body the sins of his people and owned them as
himself, as his own, and suffered the shame and the judgment of
those sins in a way that satisfied God. You and I can't do that. He's our substitute. Here's the
message. This is the gospel, isn't it?
This is the message of reconciliation. You want to be reconciled to
God? Look to Christ as your sin bearer. Look to Christ as your
Savior, as your satisfaction before God, as your all in all. He's the only one that ever pleased
the Father. God made him sin. who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him." That's what you
and I have to have. We have to have a righteousness
that we can't achieve. We can't come up with it. All our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags before God. The Lord Jesus Christ is Jehovah
Sidkenu. He's the Lord our righteousness.
The only way we're going to be reconciled to God is to have
Christ in our stead as our surety before God Almighty. And so this
ministry of reconciliation has been given to us. Paul's concern was to declare
clearly and simply the gospel and to protect the integrity
of it by exposing the lies that were being told against the church. We want our testimony to be clear. We want it to be simple. We want
it to be uncomplicated. We want it to be consistent,
consistent. at the end of the world, whether
that comes before or after the end of my life or your life,
it's going to be soon. It's going to be soon. And it's
the only thing that's going to matter. As have I been reconciled
to God. And if I have, it will be through
the ministry of reconciliation that the ambassadors of Christ
were faithful to declare unto me. Baptism. Paul was passionate
about declaring through baptism. And baptism is just a physical,
we're going to celebrate baptism this morning. And what is baptism? It's all about union with Christ. buried with Christ in baptism
and raised to walk a new life in Christ Jesus, is saying that
his life is my life. His death is my death. His burial
was my burial. His resurrection is my resurrection. And we're gonna see in the second
hour from Ephesians chapter four that there is but one baptism.
There's one body. People say, well, you know, well,
I've been, I got baptized, you know, in a, no, you got wet. There's one baptism. There's
one gospel. There's one truth that declares
who Christ is and what he's accomplished. And so when Paul answered the
Philippian jailer's question, what must I do to be saved? He said, believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and be baptized. Confess him. Confess him. Confess that his life is your
life. That his righteousness is your righteousness. That his
faith is your faith. That when he died, you died.
And that if what he did and who he is is not sufficient to save
you, you won't be saved. You won't be saved. You're hanging
all your hopes on that one nail. A nail, the scripture says, that's
fastened in a sure place. Paul said, I know whom I have
believed, and I'm persuaded that he's able to keep that which
I've committed unto him against that day. Now, while we're talking
about baptism, particularly from this passage of scripture, the
ordinance of baptism is as simple as the gospel. It's union with
Christ. It's the death, burial, and resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's nothing complicated about
it. but how complicated, how complicated and convoluted groups
that call themselves Christians make out of baptism. How can you understand Covenant
theology what they call that our children are born into a
covenant community and that we baptize them In order to in order
to get hold of that promise that God has given That these babies
are part of the covenant community. What is there? Does that mean
that every child born into a believer's family is assured of salvation? Oh, no, that doesn't mean that.
Well, what does it mean? Well, it just kind of means this
and it means that. And they talk out of both sides of their mouth.
And if you listen to those who baptize babies, and they get
this from this text. Thou and thy household. Now what
God is saying is you and anyone in your house that believes the
gospel will be saved. And everyone that believed the
gospel was baptized. That's all it means. But men
rest the scriptures and they'll take a passage of scripture like
this and they'll justify a tradition that they've carried over from
Roman Catholicism in baptizing babies. And it destroys the gospel. It destroys the gospel. We don't
draw a correlation between baptism and circumcision. Yes, the New
Testament church is the new Israel, but she's a new nation. She's a kingdom of priests. They
only had a few priests in the Old Testament Israel, but now
the New Testament Israel is a kingdom of priests. And no longer is
it necessary like it was in the Old Testament for one man in
Israel to say to another man in Israel, you need to know the
Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them, even
unto the greatest. And when does that happen? It
happens in baptism. Every member of the new Jerusalem
and the new Israel is a baptized, believing, child of God. There's the difference. The circumcision
of the old Testament is likened to the circumcision of the heart,
not done with the hands of man, but done by the spirit of God,
whereby the cutting away of the flesh is the putting away of
our sin. That's the, that's the correlation
between old Testament circumcision, not baptism, not baptism. So, you know, this whole thing
about covenant theology, it's not just
error. It's not just a, you know, something
that needs to be tolerated or tweaked. It's a destruction of
the gospel. It ruins the gospel completely. Paul's desire and concern, as
is ours and as is God's, and that's where we get it from,
is that the simplicity of the gospel would be preserved, and
the simplicity of the gospel is seen in the ordinance of believers'
baptism, period. And this was a bold step for
this Roman soldier, this Philippian jailer. The Roman cult of emperor
worship was very well established. in Rome and in its provinces,
which Philippi was. That's why these magistrates
got so concerned when they found out that Paul was a Roman citizen. Roman citizens have rights in
Roman provinces, and the Roman government was very, very serious
about enforcing those rights and protecting those rights.
And this Roman soldier would have been part of the the cult
of Emperor worship and would have been required to give obeisance
and worship, Julius Caesar called himself the Son of God. He called
himself the Son of God and he demanded, particularly among
the ranks of his soldiers, that these men acknowledge that. And now what's he doing? He's
renouncing his allegiance to the Roman government and to the
worship of Caesar. And he's putting everything on
the line by being baptized. So not only is he professing
his union with Christ, but he's renouncing all the false hopes
that he had in a false gospel and risking his own life in doing
so. And that's what we do when we're
baptized. You remember when Pilate had
our Lord before him and paraded him after having scourged him.
before the Jews and said, behold the man. And they all cried in
unison, crucify him, crucify him. And Paul said, shall I crucify
your king? And the Jews said something that
Pilate had never heard before. We have no king but Caesar. Now, why was Pilate, what was
his primary responsibility? It was to get the Jews to succumb
to the authority of the Romans. It wasn't long after that, that
the Jewish-Roman War took place. But here, Pilate is thinking,
I've achieved my goal. I've accomplished my purpose.
I'm going to be renowned back in Rome. I've gotten these Jews
to finally confess that there is no king but Caesar. See, that's
how important this was, that, you know, that all men would
bow to Caesar. Oh, being baptized and renouncing
any allegiance to Caesar was a very serious matter. As it is today, we know that
the Roman Empire morphed into the Holy Roman Empire, what the
scripture refers to as the mother of all harlots. I'm speaking
of the Catholic Church, and it's not just the Catholic Church.
She's got a lot of children. She's just the mother. She's
got a lot of children. And when you, when you are baptized,
you are doing exactly what this Philippian jailor is doing. I
renounced the authority of Rome and all her children and all
that she stands for and all that she believes. And if this puts
me at odds with all of my religious friends and family members, so
be it. You see, nothing's changed. Nothing's
changed. We're still baptizing believers
as a testimony of the gospel, as a witness of the gospel. And our Lord said, if you confess
me before men, I'll confess you before my heavenly father. You
deny me? Men love the praise of men more than the praise of
God by nature. They don't want to be at odds
with everybody else. That's exactly what believing
on Christ does. You know, even as I speak like
this, I realize that you and I have the great comfort of living
in a country that is religiously pluralistic and, you know, we
have the rights to believe what we want and we have the governing
authorities to protect what we believe. That's not so with most
people. That's not so with your friends
and your brethren in India, even right now today. And yet, though the government
doesn't have the authority here to wield the sword against us
because of what we believe, your friends and family members will
wield the sword of their tongue against you because of what you
believe, and most will cave into that sword. Matter of fact, I
think most folks will probably stand up to the to the sword
of government before they would stand up to the wagging sword
of their friends and family members. And yet that's what baptism does,
doesn't it? Be not surprised. Be not surprised. Psalm 120 verse seven says, I
am for peace. But when I speak, they are for
war. Now, don't misunderstand what
I'm saying. God's people are not for being at odds with people.
I mean, we're not setting ourselves up to be, you know, to be in
conflict with people. I hate conflict. I hate it. We
ought to do everything we can to avoid it whenever possible.
We ought to be, we ought to try to be at peace with all men.
You don't insist upon your rights and don't, you know, don't, don't be a conflict if you don't
have to be. But here's what our Lord said.
When I, when I speak, he said, he said, I am for peace. But
when I speak, they are for war. And that's exactly what they
do. When the gospel of God's free grace in Christ is declared
as it's being right now, the unbeliever will quickly unsheathe
the sword of their tongue and they will blaspheme the very
only hope that they have for peace with God. They will object
to it. They will deny it. They will
be angry over it. and they will destroy themselves
with their own tongue. For by your words you shall be
justified, and by your words you shall be condemned." The
Lord said, I'm for peace. But when I speak, they are for
war. What grace, what grace the Lord
gives his people when they hear his voice and they believe him
and they follow after him and they put down the sword of objections
and they respond to the gospel with, amen, amen, thank you,
Lord. Why did Paul insist that the
magistrates come and admit their wrongdoing? Was he trying to justify himself
just by proving that they were wrong? Was he demanding an apology
so that he could be vindicated? No. He knew. if he let these
charges go undefended that when he left the enemies of the gospel
would use it against the church that they would say see your
leader was a lawless man just as you are and so You see, baptism
and the insistence on the magistrates coming and admitting their fault
and turning them loose were all for the purpose of the testimony
of the gospel. Paul was only interested in protecting
that. Might we have such a passion
for the gospel that we would protect it at all cost that whatever
we do and say, we would ask ourselves, what impact does this have on
the gospel? False accusations. Turn with
me to 1 Peter 3. 1 Peter chapter 3. Look with me at verse 14, if
you will. But if you suffer, but if you
suffer for righteousness sake, happy are you and be not afraid
of their terror. need to be troubled, but sanctify
the Lord God in your heart and be ready always to give an answer
to every man that asketh you a reason for the hope that is
in you with meekness and with fear. Oh, it's not just what
we say, it's how we say it, isn't it? Lord, give me the grace to
testify and witness to the gospel. in a way that will be honoring
to you, having a good conscience that whereas they speak evil
of you of evil doers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse
you of your good conversation in Christ. That was Paul's concern. You falsely accused me and in
doing so, you falsely accused Christ and you falsely accused
the gospel and you falsely accused these brethren and you need to
know that these accusations are not true. What are the accusations
they make against us? When they hear what we believe
about God's free and sovereign grace in Christ, the accomplished
work of our justification before God being done completely outside
of us, what do they say? Oh, that'll lead to lawless licentious
living. They will say things like, if
I believe what you believe, I'd live any way I wanted. And what
does the child of God say to that? Oh, I wish I could live
like I wanted. What you're saying against the
gospel is not true. It's not true. We are not a lawless bunch. We're not rebel rousers, we're
not insurrectionists, we're not trying to cause trouble. We're just protecting the gospel
and declaring it without apology in its simplicity that men might
be reconciled to God. Amen? All right, let's take a
break.