crown him with many crowns. Let's
all stand together. ? Crown Him with many crowns ?
The Lamb upon His throne ? Hark how the heavenly anthem drowns
? All music but its own ? Awake my soul and sing ? Of Him who
died for thee and hail him as thy matchless king through all
eternity. ? Crown him the Lord of love
? Behold his hands and side ? Rich wounds yet visible above ? In
beauty glorified ? No angel in the sky Can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his wandering eye At mysteries so bright. ? Crown Him the Lord of life
? Who triumphed o'er the grave ? Who rose victorious to the
strife ? For those He came to save ? His glories now we sing
? Who died and rose on high Who died eternal life to bring and
lives that death may die. ? Crown Him the Lord of heaven
? One with the Father known ? One with the Spirit through Him given
? From yonder glorious throne ? To Thee be endless praise ?
For Thou for us hast lied ? Be Thou, O Lord, through endless
days ? Adored and magnified Please be seated. Good morning. Our hope this morning is that
the Lord Jesus Christ will be magnified, glorified, that we
would be irresistibly drawn to Him, to trust Him for everything
in this life and in the life to come. We have a very special day today.
We're going to observe the Lord's table and we're going to witness
a believer's baptism for three new believers that the Lord has
called out of darkness into his marvelous light. I can't think
of a greater joy for a body of believers than to witness baptism. So very, very thankful for that. I'm sure that most of you have
met Larry and Susie from Montana. I've been out there a couple
of times and preached for them. And Eric, you went out there
with me one time. Bert, you went out there. And
just a sweet group of believers out there. Larry and Susie just
told me this morning that a couple that are faithful brethren in
the fellowship out there, Larry and Sharon Grimes, their only
son, who was in his 30s, was snowmobiling yesterday. and was
killed in an avalanche. And so Lord told us to bear the
burdens of one another. And I can't think of a greater
burden than to lose a child. So I want us to pray for Larry
and Sharon Grimes as they suffer with the grief that they're having
right now over the loss of their son. Let's pray together. Our merciful heavenly father,
we're so very thankful that you've once again brought us here to
this place. You've given us a desire to hear
thy word and Lord how we pray that you would now give us ears
to hear and that you would warm our hearts in faith to rest all
our hope and all our desire on thy dear son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Lord, we do pray for our brethren,
for Larry and Sharon, and pray for them and the loss of their
son, Eric. Lord, ask that you would comfort
them as no man can provide them comfort in this time. Lord, that
you would assure their hearts of your salvation and your grace
and the supply of your mercy would be abundant to them. For
our brethren that are in Great Falls, Lord, that you would use
this time to strengthen them as a body and unite their hearts
together in Christ. For it's in his name we pray,
amen. Last night the Lord changed the
direction that I was to go this morning in this first message
and I just felt a need to preach a message on baptism. And so
I want to be very deliberate and as clear and simple on the
subject of baptism that I can possibly be in these next few
minutes. Men have always rest the scripture
to their own destruction. Men have always taken the word
of God and made it to mean things that it doesn't mean. The Lord
has written his word in such a way as to give the unbeliever
enough rope to hang himself. And when God says that he sent
a strong delusion, those who had no love for the truth, no
love for Christ, God sent them a strong delusion that they should
believe the lie. And if you listen to the delusion
that men have, It's always based on scripture. The means by which
God sends the strong delusion is his word. It's his word. Men take the word of God and
they rest it and they twist it and they pervert it to mean things
that it doesn't mean and they rest the hope of their salvation
in their error. The Lord said to the Pharisees,
he said, you do err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power
of God. And I don't want to be guilty
of that. I don't want to be erring when
it comes to the scriptures. I want to understand by the grace
of God, what the Lord meant clearly when it comes to this subject
of baptism and everything else relative to the gospel for that
matter. There are three errors, as I
can see, that religious people make when it comes to baptism. The first one is that they will
say baptism is unnecessary for salvation and therefore it is
of little consequence or no consequence at all. And that is to err when
it comes to the scriptures. If a person refuses to be baptized,
what they are saying is that I don't believe God's word. If they think that baptism is
of no importance or is insignificant, they are denying the clear teaching
of God's word. Turn with me to 1 Peter chapter
three, please. 1 Peter chapter three. And we'll begin reading in verse
18. For Christ also hath once suffered
for sins. He bore all the sins of all of
his people in his body upon the tree and suffered the wrath of
God in order to establish justice for God's people. No sin can
go unpunished. The just for the unjust. the one who was himself without
sin, bore and owned to himself the sins of his people, that
he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but
quickened by the Spirit of God. By which also he went and preached
unto the spirits in prison." Now here's a verse of scripture
that men will pull out of context and they'll say, well, the Lord
after his death went to hell and preached to the devils. That's
not the reference here. The reference here is in the
following verses. Which sometimes were disobedient
when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of
Noah while the ark was a preparing wherein few, that is eight souls,
were saved by water. So the Spirit of Christ was preaching
through the ministry of Noah to those disobedient souls that
lived during the days of Noah. But only eight were saved. Only those who were in the ark
were saved. In other words, the disobedient
souls in the days of Noah did not believe God. Now we're dealing with the subject
of baptism is of Noah. No importance. It's not necessary. The life, the like figure, now
here it is, the like figure where unto even baptism doth also now
save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but
the answer of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ. Now what's a good conscience
towards God? A good conscience towards God
is to believe God. That's what a good conscience
towards God is, is to believe everything God says. Now, a person
who says that baptism is of no consequence or it's insignificant
or I can be saved and I don't need to be baptized, what they're
saying is they don't believe the clear teaching of scripture.
And at any point where you don't believe God, you are an unbeliever. Believers believe everything
God says. So men rest the scriptures when
they say that baptism is insignificant or unimportant or unnecessary
because by saying that, they are saying, I don't believe God.
I don't believe God. It's not baptism that saves.
It's not the putting away of the flesh that saves. It's faith
that saves. And faith believes God. So a
person who says that baptism is unnecessary, and I've heard
people say that. I've heard people under my preaching
say, well, I believe the gospel, but I don't need to be baptized.
That's not important. And what you're saying by saying
that is that you don't believe the gospel. What I'm just saying,
we're not talking about folks out there on the fringe. We're
talking about people that sit under the gospel who have come to that
conclusion. If we're saved by grace, we're
saved in the covenant of grace, we're saved from the foundations
of the world, we're saved through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ, then we're not saved by works, then I don't want to
make a work out of baptism. So anything that, you know, baptism
is just by saying that you are saying I don't believe God. I
don't believe God. The scriptures clearly call on
us as we're going to see in a few more verses. The second error
that men make is to make baptism necessary for salvation. That's
the opposite extreme, isn't it? They make a work out of baptism. And many people do that. Many
religious groups will say that there are certain things you
have to do in order to be saved and baptism is one of them. Some
of us came out of Catholicism. That's a big teaching in the
Catholic church and there's many Protestant groups that have carried
on that tradition. If baptism is necessary for salvation,
what person in the scriptures is given to us as the clearest,
most unquestioned experience of being saved? The thief on
the cross. out of the Lord's mouth, this
day thou shalt be with me in paradise. If baptism is necessary
for salvation, then what God said didn't happen. It didn't
happen. So those are two errors that
men make. The third error that people make
when it comes to the subject of baptism is to baptize babies. There used to be a time when
I felt a need to contradict that error in great detail with all
sorts of arguments from scripture, but I'm beyond that now. Baptizing
babies is contrary to the gospel at every level, every level. Baptism is for believers. If you listen to people who talk
about, and the Protestant groups that have carried over this baptism
of babies is just a carryover from Catholicism. And they will
say, well, you know, the child's not saved, but he is a member
of the covenant of grace. No, the children are not members
of the covenant grace. There's only one way to become
a member of the covenant of grace, and that's through the new birth.
That's through the new birth. And the new birth happens when
God enables a sinner to rest all his hopes on the Lord Jesus
Christ, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. So, that out of
the way, what sayeth the scriptures concerning baptism? Well, baptism
is a very simple, simple, just that baptism is the gospel. It's
the gospel. It's not confusing. It's not
contradictory. Paul, in writing to Timothy,
he said, I fear, lest as Eve was deceived by Satan in the
garden, that you should be drawn away from that simplicity that
is in Christ Jesus. Baptism is an outward sign, an
outward picture of union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Union
with Christ. And we see that in the baptism
of the Lord Jesus himself. You remember when the Lord came
to the River Jordan where John was baptizing and God had already
said to John, the one whom you see the Spirit of God to come
down on, he it is that's the Christ. And you know that's still
true. In order to know who it is that's
the Christ, God has to reveal to us what he revealed to John.
The Spirit of God comes down upon him and anoints him in the
full power of the Spirit of God to accomplish the purpose for
which God sent him. And when John saw that, the Lord
came to John and said, John, you're going to baptize me. And
what did John say? Oh, Lord, I'm not worthy to baptize
you. You need to be baptizing me. I'm not worthy to unlatch
your sandals. To be of the lowest servant and
wash your feet is what John was saying. And the Lord said, he
said, suffer it to be so, for it becometh us. to fulfill all
righteousness. In other words, the baptism of
the Lord Jesus Christ was necessary in order for righteousness to
be established, in order for righteousness to be fulfilled. If anyone's baptism saves, it
is the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what did his baptism
represent? Well, later on, the sons of Zebedee,
James and John, sent their mother to the Lord to appeal to the
Lord for her sons to be on his right hand and on his left hand
when he entered into his kingdom, thinking that he was going to
be an earthly king. And the Lord said, you don't know what you're
asking. Are you able to drink of the cup from which I drink? and to be baptized with the baptism
that I'm going to be baptized with?" And James and John said,
we are, we're able. And the Lord said, and you shall
indeed drink of the cup that I'm going to drink from and be
baptized with the baptism that I'm going to be baptized with.
The word baptism, the very word means to be immersed. It means
to be immersed, which makes the whole idea of sprinkling babies
or anybody else for that matter, it takes away the whole picture. The Lord Jesus Christ was immersed. He was immersed in the faithfulness
of his obedience to the Father and he was baptized by fire on
Calvary's cross when he drank of that cup, the cup of sin,
he drank of that cup and bore the full wrath of God's justice
as he hung on Calvary's cross as our sin bearer, as our substitute,
and was baptized with the fire of God's wrath. And in him were
all those for whom God chose in the covenant of grace, all
those for whom he lived, he was now dying for. That's why Paul
said, I am crucified with Christ. So the life of Christ is my life. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ
is my death. The resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ is my resurrection. And baptism just simply pictures
that. I am identifying with the death,
burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I really
drank of the very cup that he drank from. And I really suffered
the baptism that he suffered when I was in him. on that day
when God poured out his wrath to put away my sin. Baptism has
everything to do with union with the Lord Jesus Christ. And it
is the believer's first step of obedience, confessing publicly
before God's people that all my hope is in the life, death,
burial, resurrection, ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is my life. I have no life outside of Christ.
Not before God. Not before God. That's the gospel,
isn't it? Union with Christ is the gospel.
And that's what baptism is all about. Turn with me to Colossians
chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2. So back to Noah and his family,
they were saved by water. You see, the same water that
destroyed the earth is the water that lifted up the ark. And the
same wrath that was poured out on the Lord Jesus Christ is the
wrath that will punish for eternity those who are not found in Christ.
But it is the wrath of God that lifts up the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is our ark. Oh, to be found in him, not having
our own righteousness, which is of the law, but that righteousness,
which is by the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the water that's being spoken of there in 1 Peter. So look
at what Paul says to the church at Colossae in Colossians chapter
2 beginning at verse 9. For in him, the Lord Jesus Christ,
dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. So here's the incarnation of
God. God was made flesh and dwelt
among us. Fully God, fully man, the Word
of God comes and dwells among us. And the fullness of the Godhead,
all the attributes, all the nature, all the characteristics of God
Almighty are in the Lord Jesus Christ and you are complete in
Him. So everything that God requires
from a sinner, He looks to Christ for. You are, that's the next
verse. Look, you are complete in him,
which is the head of all principality and power in whom also you are
circumcised with the circumcision made without hands in putting
off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of
Christ. A circumcision was the cutting
away the flesh. This is a circumcision of the
heart. The circumcision of the heart means that I'm not looking
to anything that I do for the hope of my salvation. I'm not
looking to any fleshly work for my acceptance before God. I'm
looking for the circumcision of the Lord Jesus Christ, which
his flesh was cut away when God put him to death on Calvary's
cross. Buried with him in baptism, wherein
also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of
God who hath raised him from the dead. So it's the faith and
the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ that obligated God
to raise him from the dead. Baptism is just simply declaring
the hope of all my salvation is my union with Christ, my spiritual
oneness with him. Even as the scripture says, a
man is to leave his father and his mother and to be cleave unto
his wife and the two shall become one flesh. Here's the bride and
the bridegroom, the head and the body. We are one together
with Christ. So we're not looking to our circumcision.
We're not looking to something that we've done with our hands.
We're looking to what God did when he circumcised the Lord
Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross. And you being dead in your sins
and the uncircumcision of your flesh, that's where we were. When we were outside of Christ
before the new birth, we were dead in our sins. Hath he quickened, that means
to be made alive, that's the resurrection. That's the reference
to the resurrection. God quickened the Lord Jesus
Christ. The scripture calls him the first
born among many brethren. So it's the resurrection of Christ
that gives me hope that God's going to raise me. Hath He quickened together with
Him, having forgiven all of your trespasses. There's baptism. Baptism is publicly identifying
my hope in the life, the death, the burial, the resurrection,
the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ for all my acceptance
before God. Not anything I do, but everything
that he did. Secondly, baptism is a command
from God. When the Lord Right before the
Lord ascended back into glory, he instructed the disciples when
he said, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. All power has been given unto
me, all authority. And the only power that any man
has, you know, religious leaders love flexing their muscles and
using their fleshly power to intimidate men. The only power
that any man has is the power that resides in the Word of God.
If I'm able to stand here and say, thus saith the Lord, the
power is in Christ, the power is in His Word. The power doesn't
reside in a man. The man has no authority. It's
the Word of God that has all authority and God's people bow
to that authority. And the Lord Jesus Christ says,
all power has been given unto me by God in heaven and in earth. And I'm the one that's going
to save and I'm the one that's going to reign sovereign in the
hearts of my people. Go ye therefore. You know, the Lord sends a man
to the mission field, that's great. But the literal interpretation
of go ye therefore is this, you can look it up, as you are going,
as you are going, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I've commanded you, and lo, I am with you always,
even until the end of the earth." Might God give us an opportunity
to, as we are living our lives in this world, to tell people
about the Lord Jesus Christ? And when we do, they're going
to want to be baptized, those whom the Lord saves. We never,
I never talk to anybody about being baptized individually.
I pray the Lord, the Spirit of God is speaking to somebody's
heart right now because I think there's folks that say they believe
what they heard but they haven't submitted. It's the first step
of obedience at baptizing. Baptize them in the name of the
Father. He's the one who elected the people of God sovereignly
according to His will and purpose in the covenant of grace before
Adam was ever called. You know, in religion they talk
about when someone's baptized they said, well a new name's
been written in heaven. No, no new names are written in heaven.
Those names were written before the foundations of the world.
The last book of life is an eternal book. All the names of all of
God's people. So we're baptized in the name
of the Father knowing that He's the one who chose a people. We're baptized in the name of
the Son knowing that He's the one who was sent to redeem those
whom the Father had chosen. And we're baptized in the name
of the Holy Spirit, knowing that He's the one who opens our eyes
so that we can see, opens our ears so that we can hear, and
gives us a new heart to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You
see, this matter of salvation is a cooperative work of grace
by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And so when we're
baptized, we're baptized in all three persons of the triune Godhead. That's what baptism is. It's confessing faith that salvation's
of the Lord. My election was of God, my redemption
was of God, my regeneration was of God. And I'm confessing that
all the hope of my salvation was in the work of God. Thirdly, baptism is the pattern
of preaching in the New Testament. The very first sermon that was
publicly preached after the ascension of Christ is found in Acts chapter
2 on the day of Pentecost. Peter stood up, Peter of all
people. Now there's an example that God's
not looking to the power of man. Peter was probably the weakest
of all the disciples. I mean, he was the most, he was
the most like water. He was the most unreliable and
fickle and, you know, and yet God used Peter to preach the
gospel on the day of Pentecost. Well, there's a humbling example.
God uses men like Peter, men like me, to preach the gospel
and that he might get all the glory. That no man could glory
in his presence. But Peter concluded that message
by saying, God hath made this same Jesus whom thou hast crucified
both Lord and Christ. God hath made him. You crucified
him. God made him Lord and Christ. And the scripture says that they
were cut to their hearts and said, what can we do? And Peter didn't say, there's
nothing you can do, just go home and hope that God You know, God
speaks to you, you have some experience, you have some warm
feeling overcome you. No, he said, repent and be baptized
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ. And on the authority
of God's word, I can stand here this morning and say to you,
repent, change your mind about how it is that God saves sinners. He doesn't save sinners by their
works. He saves them by the work of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Change your mind about who you
are. You're a sinner. You've got no righteousness.
You've got nothing to offer God for your acceptance before Him.
Change your mind about who He is. He's the sovereign God who
holds, as you said this morning, Bert, in our prayer time, He
holds your soul in His hand and He will do with it whatsoever
He wills. And when you come to believe
that, you'll have no option but to beg Him for mercy. And our
God delights in showing mercy. He delights in showing mercy.
So this is not a fatalistic thing. God says, repent and be baptized
every one of you. every one of you, no exceptions. That story in Acts chapter 2
goes on to say, then they that gladly received the word that
same day were added unto the church 3,000 souls. They were baptized 3,000 of them. There's only a dozen disciples. So they didn't interrogate them.
They didn't put them through a new members class. They didn't
make sure they had all their theology straightened out. No,
they heard and they believed and they submitted obediently
to the will of God by being baptized. Fourthly, and my last point,
what is the requirement for baptism? Well, you remember the story
of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 8. Scripture says that
he had been to Jerusalem for to worship. He had heard of the
God called Jehovah, who was the God of the Jews, and I'm sure
that he had investigated every other God that he could possibly
hear about to try to figure out how can a man be right with God?
And he went to Jerusalem in hopes of finding salvation. And he
didn't. In the Jewish religion, they
were still bound by the law. He didn't find the gospel, but
he had a copy of scripture. And going back to Ethiopia, still
searching, he's reading from Isaiah chapter 53. And though he didn't find God,
God found him. God took Philip from Samaria
and said, Philip, I'm taking you down to Gaza. I'm taking
you to the desert. It was a revival taking place
where Philip was, and Philip must have thought, you know,
Lord, you're doing a work here, why would you? No, because every
lost soul is of infinite importance to me. And there's one man riding
on a chariot, reading the scriptures, who I'm purposed to save, and
I'm gonna send you to preach the gospel to him. And Philip
joined up with him going in that chariot. And you remember the
Ethiopian, Philip said, understand is what thou readest. Now you
can just imagine what poor Philip would have been dressed like.
You know, some sort of desert Bedouin coming up to a man in
a chariot who was the treasurer of Candace, the queen of Ethiopia. This man was wealthy. This man
was powerful. He probably had a large entourage
with him. And yet God put it in the Ethiopian
eunuch's heart to say to this humble Philip, how can I lest
a man should guide me? I need someone to explain to
me what this says. And that's what preaching is.
And so the Ethiopian had been reading from Isaiah chapter 53,
where the Lord said he was led like a sheep to the slaughter.
And as a lamb before his shearers was dumb, he didn't open, he
opened not his mouth. And the Ethiopian said, is this
scripture talking about Isaiah or is he talking about another?
And Philip began right there in Isaiah chapter 53, the scripture
said, and preached unto him Jesus. No, he's not talking about him,
he's talking about another. He's talking about the sin bearer.
He's talking about the one who is the life of his people, the
one to whom we must trust and identify with for all of our
salvation. And after the Ethiopian heard
the gospel, they came upon an oasis, I assume, there in the
desert. There was some water. And the
Ethiopian said, look, there's some water. What doth hinder
me to be baptized? And what did Philip say? If thou believest with all thine
heart, thou canst. Now, don't misunderstand that
statement, because every believer can say, I believe, help thou
mine unbelief. So what does that say about all
of our heart? You see, we're always conflicted, aren't we?
There's always unbelief involved in our faith. And yet the Ethiopian
said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Now that's
what's required for salvation, for baptism. I believe that Jesus,
Jehovah does the saving, is the Christ, the anointed one, the
one son of God to accomplish the salvation of his people.
And I believe that He is the Son of God. He's all-powerful
and sovereign. And if I'm going to be saved,
He's going to have to do it. And I believe that with all my heart.
Do you believe that with all your heart? All your heart. You know, I don't know much.
And there's a lot of things I'm conflicted about. But if there's
anything I believe, it is that. It is that. follow the Lord Jesus Christ
in baptism. They came off the chariot, he
was baptized, Philip was caught away, went back to wherever God
sent him, and the Ethiopian went on his way, a believer baptized
in the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, let's take a break. th th