When the Lord Jesus Christ was
baptized, he gave, in his baptism, a great and glorious picture
of redemption. When he was baptized, it was
a picture of redemption. He said unto John, he said, Thus
it becomes us to fulfill all righteousness. By which I understand
not that he fulfilled all righteousness by being baptized, but that his
baptism was a picture or an emblem of the fulfillment of all righteousness. That which God requires is righteousness. God requires a righteousness
that there is no more, or a righteousness
that is not defaced in any way. A perfect righteousness is what
God requires, a righteousness from the cradle to the grave." Now, I know, and if you don't
know, you ought to know, and I hope you'll find out, that
the righteousness that God requires as the ground of our acceptance
with Him is not of ourselves. nor can it be of ourselves. We
cannot produce what God requires. He requires this righteousness,
but we can't produce it. But we also know that what He
requires, He supplies. What He requires, He provides. And that's what our Lord Jesus
Christ is talking about. He's got to come. He's not just any man, but He's the
God-man. He's the Son of God, the second
person of the Godhead. He comes, and in the incarnation,
He takes upon himself a robe of human flesh. God becomes a
man. The Son of God becomes a man.
So there's a divine nature and a human nature in one person. And he's known in the Scriptures
as the God-man. All God and all man in one person. And as a man, he comes to stand
in the stead of the people that He represents. And He represents
the people that God chose unto Himself out of the human race,
a number that no man can number, out of every tribe, every tongue,
every kindred, every nation. He chose unto Himself that. And
our Lord Jesus Christ, he come as their representative. He come
as their sponsor. He come to provide God with that
righteousness that he requires out of all of those that he chose
in eternity past, that righteousness that God requires is established by Son
of the Lord. No angels, angels couldn't do
it. Departed saints couldn't do it.
Abraham, the father of the faithful, he couldn't do it. Only God could
provide for himself a righteousness that would meet his demands.
That's the only way a man can be saved. Man can't be saved
by saying, well, God will show mercy to me. I'm ignorant and I've done the
best I can. Things like that, you know, that
we offer here as humans to other humans in order to compromise
or in order to establish some peace or something like that.
God in his justice and his holiness requires this righteousness perfect
righteousness from the cradle to the grave, and only God can
provide it. So God so loved these people. He so loved the people that He
chose unto Himself. He must save them, and the only
way they can be saved is for God to become a man, and as a
man accomplish their redemption. and fulfill all righteousness.
Now, that's what the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ pictures.
It's a picture of redemption. Now, let me read this just in
order that we might establish this business of righteousness. I know this sometimes scares
a lot of people when you talk about what God demands. God demands
perfection. And when you say that, perfection,
perfection, That means not the trace or thought of imperfection
ever crossed your soul. It means of mind and spirit and
soul and body, absolute conformity to the divine requirements of
God. Holy, holy righteousness, not
to think a wrong thought, not to insinuate or Make mistakes. Perfection, perfection. Now,
listen. Paul, in his writing to the Romans, he says in the
tenth chapter, he said, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer
to God for Israel is for Israel, the Jews. Jews were among the
smallest of all the peoples that inhabited the world. at that
time. They were the smallest of all
of them. They weren't great like the Egyptians or the Syrians,
the Philistines. They were the smallest. And He
chose that nation of Jews, He chose them to be His earthly
people. And He dwelled with them. He had them build a tabernacle,
and the tabernacle was the meeting place between God and man through
the blood of the sacrifice. Israel. And Paul, who's a preacher
to the Gentiles, but yet he's a Jew himself. He's a devout
Jew. He killed people because they
were followers of God's Christ. He put them in jail. consented
to their death, played havoc with that small number of people,
the people of the way in the book of Acts. But anyhow, listen,
he says, Brother, my heart's desire, the desire of my heart
and my prayer to God Almighty is this, it's for Israel that
they might be saved. They needed to be saved. They
needed a righteousness that would conform and comply with the required
righteousness of a holy God. They needed that. He said, I'm
praying for them because they ain't got that. He wouldn't have
said, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they
might be saved if they had a righteousness, that righteousness that God required. If they had one, Paul wouldn't
say, well, I pray for them that they might be saved. He said,
For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God. They're what
the evangelists or the evangelical people refer to in our day as
someone that is on fire for God. The Pentecostals and those, oh,
they're on fire for God. I bear them record they have
a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. They have a lot
of zeal, a lot of fraud. There's a lot of froth and there's
a lot of foam, but there's no substance to their zeal. They don't have any knowledge. Now listen, for they being ignorant
of God's righteousness, being ignorant of what God requires,
that's what Paul says, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness
and going about, to establish their own righteousness. That
is, they're ignorant of what God requires, so they're going
about to establish a righteousness of their own whereby they might
stand upon as the ground of their acceptance with God. They go about, they're going
about to establish their own righteousness, and have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God." Remember, I'm telling
you that the Lord Jesus Christ was baptized, and being baptized
is a picture of righteousness fulfilled, righteousness established. It's the righteousness of God
in Christ. They have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God. Now listen to this fourth verse.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believes." Everyone that believes. All right. What was
done with the Lord Jesus Christ when he was baptized? Well, first,
he was regarded as one who was dead. Therefore, he was buried beneath
the water. And that's one reason why we
make light of sprinkling as a substitute for baptism. Baptists have always
made light of that. And the reason I make light of
it is this, is because the word of the living God is the only
rule of our faith and practice. And the Word of God says that
baptism is a picture of a burial. So first the Lord Jesus was looked
upon as one who was dead, and therefore he was buried beneath
the water. Now, when you sprinkle someone,
it's not showing forth a burial. Put a little water on their head,
and then he walks away and sits down. Or they cradle a baby in
their arms and go back and sit down. Now, when a man is baptized
like the Lord Jesus Christ was baptized, he is regarded as one
that is dead, Therefore, he's buried beneath the water. Now,
if I go up to the cemetery and am in the process of having the
burial service for one of the brethren or sisters, we are not
content with taking a handful of dirt and throwing it on the
corpse and say, Now you're dead and now you're buried. And walk
away. No, but we dig that hole six feet deep and four feet wide,
about eight feet long. And we take that body, whether
in the box or out of the box, we take that body and put him
in the ground and cover them up with dirt. Now, that's a picture of a burial.
First, when the Lord Jesus Christ was buried, well, he was first
considered as dead, therefore buried beneath the water. And by doing that, or giving
himself over to John the Baptist, it's saying that he had come
to this earth to be obedient unto death, even the death of
the cross, and in due time he would actually die and be buried. But I'm saying this baptism here
is a picture of what He will do in order that we might be
redeemed, that we might be saved. But now listen, this baptism
does not consist in merely plunging a person under the water. In order for it to be a scriptural
baptism like the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ, he must be
lifted out of the water again. If you don't lift him out of
the water, you know what will happen, Brown? He'll die. He'll drown if you don't take
him up out of the water. I wouldn't last very long if
I baptized people and left them in the water or held them down
and wouldn't let them get back up out of the water. Oh, no. Even the death on the cross.
He must be lifted out again, otherwise be drowned and not
baptized. So the Savior, when He arose
out of the water, set forth His own resurrection by His baptism,
He figuratively said this. He said, I shall die for sinners,
I shall rise again for sinners, and I shall go back to heaven
to intercede for sinners." See? The death, the burial, and the
resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. He did not fulfill all
righteousness by just being baptized, but it was the picture of the
fulfillment of all righteousness that He must come to establish
this righteousness. And the wages that he must pay
is that he must lay down his life. And he laid down his life. When they came for him, why,
he said, he said, lay down your sticks and your stones. Whom do you seek? They said,
Jesus. Well, he said, And he said, I could have called
10,000 angels to do battle for me. Isn't that
right? He laid it down. He gave himself. He poured out
his soul unto death to fulfill the righteousness that God requires
out of me. as a poor, helpless, hopeless
sinner. I'll talk some more about it here. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
10. Verse 1 of that 10th chapter. Moreover, brethren, the Apostle writing to, he's writing unto the church
of God. In the first chapter he says, Paul called to be an
apostle. An apostle means one that has
been sent of God. God sent the apostle Paul, called
to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, not of Buddha or Mohammed or
Abraham, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God. according
to God's will and purpose. And he says, unto the church
of God which is at Corinth, unto this family of believers who
have united themselves and identified themselves with the Lord Jesus
Christ in being in subjection to him, committed to him, committed
to his cause, and committed to his claims, there are believers
in him. They believe that he's their
lord, their governor, their king, their president, their priest. They're all in all. They're leaders. They commit themselves to him.
They're in this city of Corinth, which was in Greece. And he says, Unto this church
of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ,
That is, to those that were set apart by God in Christ before
the world ever was. Called saints, to them that are
sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all that in every
place called upon the name of the Lord Jesus, our Lord, both
theirs and ours. That's who he's writing to. He says, moreover, brethren,
in this tenth chapter, I would not that ye should be ignorant.
You ought to know something, and that's a terrible blight
that's seemingly on those that are representative of religion. and what is known as Christianity.
If they're ignorant, they don't know who God is. Most important
personage in the history of the human race, most important being of all beings,
is God Almighty. God who just, in the words of
His lips, He's fake. All this came into being. Who's full of mercy, is full
of love, kindness, generous. The all-major. And folks are
ignorant of Him. They know all about President
Clinton. They know he has a girlfriend.
They know his wife is. They know he's involved in the
Whitewater scandal. They know all about him. But most people don't know one
scantilla of truth concerning God. Ignorant. Ignorant. Ignorant of who God is. Well,
I'm here to tell you that a man's got to know who
he is. Now, I'll read one verse in light of what I've said in order to establish this. In John chapter 17, listen to
this verse, John chapter 17, verse 1. These words speak Jesus, the
Lord Jesus Christ, God and man in one person. His name shall
be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.
That's his business. It's his chief business to come
to this world to accomplish redemption. For who? For his people. Who
are his people? Every Tom, Dick, and Harry, that's
a member of Adam's race. No! No, God made a choice. He chose unto himself before
time ever was a people unto himself and sanctified him, separated
unto himself. And our Lord Jesus Christ said,
I'll do whatever is required in order to save these people. Words speak, Jesus lifted up
his eyes unto heaven and said, Father of the hours, come, glorify
thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify him. Now listen to this,
As thou hast given him power over all flesh, given the Lord
Jesus Christ power over everything that moves, rise, and wiggles,
that he should give eternal life. to as many as thou hast given
him." Now, these are the words in the prayer of the Son of God
whom we revere and cherish and worship and call Him our Lord
and our Master. And He said in this intimate
prayer unto God, He said, as thou hast given him power over
all flesh, that he, the Lord Jesus, should give eternal life. That's what we're talking about,
isn't it? To as many as thou hast given him. Now listen to
this. It has to do with the ignorance that I'm talking about. And this
is life eternal. This is what life eternal is.
That they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom thou sent. Moreover, brethren, I would not
that ye should be ignorant." I say that's the blight that prevails upon the majority. There's a veil over the people
of this world, over their eyes. There's a veil over their eyes
they can't see. They can't hear. They can't understand. Ignorant of who God is. Ignorant
of what God has purpose to do. What He's doing. Why He's doing
it. How is He doing it. Ignorant
of all that. And their response to a conversation
like mine this evening would be, well, that's your opinion.
You take your God and go with him, we'll take our God and go
with us. But there's only one God, and he hath revealed himself
in the face of Jesus Christ, who is the Word of God. And these
66 books that have been preserved down through the years without
mistake or error tells us who he is. I don't want you to be
ignorant. Now listen to this. In this, of course, I've kind
of taken it out of context here, but the context here, the case,
the matter before us is concerning the baptism that I've been talking
about. See? How that all our fathers
were under the cloud. and all passed through the sea.
You remember that? They got to the Red Sea. They got down there at the Red
Sea, and they was hemmed up. A mountain on this side, a mountain
on that side, and a powerful Egyptian army behind them, and
the Red Sea in front of them. And there was nowhere to go.
And God spake unto Moses, and he said, Moses, tell the people,
to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. How that all our fathers were
under the cloud and all passed through the sea, verse 2, and
were all, and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in
the sea. All right? What was this baptism
that these people were baptized unto Moses? Well, first off,
it was a sign of Jehovah God's presence with this nation Israel. That's one thing that it means.
It means that it was a sign of the presence of God with them.
He was there for what? For their protection. So when
they were bottled in, mountains on this side, mountains on this
side, Israelites behind them, Red Sea in front of them, there
was a tremendous cloud overhead. This cloud completely engulfed
them. It was like a great and glorious
tent. Well, this cloud was for their
protection. During the day, it served as
a pillar of the cloud to screen them from the hot, scorching
sun of that desert heat. And at the nighttime, this pillar
of cloud turned into a pillar of fire. Now, you remember there
in there, bottled in, both sides. It's going to show forth a picture
of a barrier, of a barrier, shut in on both sides, walled and
this cloud hovering over them. It was a sign that God was with
them. It was for their protection.
It protected them from the heat of the desert sun, and it preserved
them at night while it was a pillar of fire from the wild beasts
that roamed in that area. It was there not only for their
protection, but as well to guide and to direct them in their way. That cloud followed them, you
remember. Forty years in the wilderness. Forty years it followed them.
And they couldn't move. They couldn't move until the
cloud moved. When they went to a place and
set up camp, six Hundred thousand people. Am I right there? Huh? Six hundred thousand men, not
counting the women and children, over a million of them, over
a million of them. And when they went to set up
camp, and they had directions and so forth, and they did it
in an orderly fashion and all that. But here, imagine, a million
people in one camp. little groups here, all in the
right place. And they couldn't move until
that cloud moved. So that cloud was their protection,
was their guide, and was their leader. And when that cloud moved,
then they had them trumpets, and they blowed them trumpets.
When they heard this certain sound, they said, the cloud's
moving. And they began to pack up their
gear and follow that cloud. Now, you see, it was a type of
the Lord Jesus Christ who is a covert from the heat to us,
as well as protection for us against the winds and the storms. Christ Jesus is our protection,
listen, from the vindictive justice and the wrath of God, and from
the rage and fury of the insanity of the people of this world,
who, if God did not constrain them, if God would let men spit
the bit out of their mouths, they'd throw the reins down. and hell would manifest itself
upon the face of the earth. This thing is only held together
because of God's people. The cloud was before them. Now
let's get this straight. The cloud was before them and
behind them and on each side of them and was over them, and
the apostle here says, and were all Baptized unto Moses in the
cloud and in the sea. Picture of baptism. Baptized
unto Moses. That means in or by Moses or
according to the direction of Moses. Now, it means that Moses was
going before them. He was their leader, and they
followed Him as their leader. They followed Him into the sea
and passed through on dry land. That's a resemblance of baptism. You see? Being baptized unto
Him. When the first thing a believer
does, Well, does not the scripture
say, he that believeth and is baptized? The first duty of a
believer, when he comes to know how wretched he is in himself,
and hears the good news of the gospel that Christ died in his
stead, was buried in his stead, rose again in his stead, established
righteousness and bore in his own body the punishment that
was due him for his sins, after he hears that, his responsibility
then is to what? Is to own him as his lord, as
his king, as his ruler. It's to acknowledge that he is
My all in all. He's my Savior. He's my righteousness,
my sanctification, my justification. He's my redemption. He's my wisdom. He's my everything. So the first thing he does is
follow his Lord in baptism. See? Being baptized Unto him, the
apostle says. Now, being baptized unto him
in the case before us simply means that it was an acknowledgment
of their regard to him or concerning him as their guide, as their
governor. As when we too who become believers,
born of the Spirit of God, by the grace of God, we follow Christ
in baptism. Not that baptism saves us, but
it is a picture of how we are saved. That Christ died, Christ
was buried, and He rose again and ever lives, ever lives to
make intercession for us. So we follow Christ in baptism. No one is qualified to be baptized
until they first become a believer. When they first become a believer,
then they're qualified. Baptism is not for unbelievers. Baptism is for those who are
believers, who acknowledge Him as their redemption, as their
salvation, as their hope. Acknowledge Him as their life. Everything else is secondary. You're first. You're number one. That's the believer's attitude.
It's owning him to be your surety, to be your Lord. Someone was
telling me here the other day, he said, well, he said, my wife, He doesn't necessarily
like to hear you preach because you preach on foreign nation
and predestination. He doesn't like that. Well, I
understand that. But really, you see, her argument
is not against me. I didn't write the Bible. And
her argument was not against her husband. But her argument's
against God. And any fool, if he has a mind
to, can argue against God, but He won't come out on top. It's owning Him as our surety, the Savior of
our soul. It's a profession of our faith
in Christ Jesus, a subjection to Him as our Lord, our God. We're saying that our baptism
is a picture of deliverance, and it affords a worse picture
than the deliverance here of the children of Israel who were
delivered from the Egyptian darkness. We were delivered from the penalty
that was due us, the wages of sin, Death, death, death in that
awful place. It's to be separated from the
God of all mercy and the God of all goodness throughout the
dateless ages of forever. That's the penalty that's due
us. But we profess that Christ bore
our penalty, so we own Him. We receive Him. We say, I believe. I trust Him. He's mine. My only
hope of heaven is the Lord Jesus Christ. He gave me life. I was dead in trespasses and
in sins, but He quickened me and gave me life. I trust Him. He's my Lord. Well, remember,
well, I'm going to quit. It says, And they were all baptized
on the Moses in the cloud, walled up over top. Picture of this baptism that
our Lord talks about where you go down in the water. You don't
leave your head up on top, but to be buried, you've got to go
clean under the water. I remember one time I baptized,
oh, years and years ago. It's been 30 years ago or longer.
I baptized this lady up in the creek. up here, and I couldn't
get her under that water. She just must have been stronger
than me, I don't know, but I was trying to put her down, and she
was trying to come back up. And finally I just let her go,
and she still had one leg sticking out of the water. And lo and behold, about six
months after that, I was baptizing some more people up there in
the creek by the bridge. I was on this side of the creek, I
remember. And I was baptized, and she said, hold on. She said,
I want to be baptized. She said, I was never clean under
the water before. I don't think that made any difference,
but it did a little bit destroy the
time. The intent was right, let's put
it that way. But I took her in baptized. Put
her under the water. Make sure she's under. All right. It says, And they did all eat
the same spiritual meat, these people. Well, you know what that
was? That was manna, manna from heaven. And you know what manna is a
type of? It's a type of Christ. You know why it's a type of Christ?
Because it sustained these people for forty years. That's all they
ate when they were in the wilderness. Manna. And they call it, in one
of the Psalms it's referred to as what? Angel's food. And it sustained them for 40
years in the wilderness. The color of it was white. The
color of that manna was white, expressive of the purity of the
nature and the holiness of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was a type of hymn. It was round, like that, round,
a complete circle, expressive of His being from everlasting
to everlasting. It is expressive of the perfection
of both His divine nature and His human nature. As to the quality
and the substance of this manna, it was sweet to taste. All of
this is a picture of Christ. Our manner. And it says, And
they did all eat the same. That's the reason we must have
Christ. Christ is our food. I'm the bread of life. Man's
got to feed upon Christ. All right? They did all eat the
same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual
drink. For they drank of that spiritual
rock that followed them, And that rock was Christ. That rock
was Christ. Water out of the rock. Do you
remember that? They said, We thirst. And God told Moses. He said, Moses, go down there and take your rod, the rod of
Moses, and smite the rock. And when
he smote the rock, The water came out. Now, the water wouldn't
have gushed forth from that rock unless it was smitten. The Lord
Jesus Christ was smitten for our transgressions. It's Christ
crucified that means smitten. It's Christ crucified, and that's
what they did eat. And they did all drink the same
spiritual drink, They did all eat the same spiritual meat,
and that spiritual rock that followed them, that rock was
Christ. But he says, with many of them,
God was not well pleased with a whole lot of that crew. They went through the motions,
for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things
were our examples. That which took place in the
Old Testament, he said, were written for our examples, that
we might profit by them. Now, these things were our examples
to the intent. We should not lust after evil
things, as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as were
some of them, as it is written. the people sat down to eat and
drink and rose up to play, neither let us commit fornication, as
some of them committed, and fell in one day twenty-three thousand
men." I'll read that and quit. Over here in, I think it's the
Book of Numbers, the twentieth chapter. Numbers chapter 20. No, that's
not it. This is about smiting the rock
here. Anyhow, I'll tell you the story real quick. They went whoring
after other guys. God told Moses, He said, those
people that joined themselves to Baal Peor, those men over
there that joined themselves to those women and committed
fornication and adultery with them, He said, I want you to
take their heads and hang them up in the sun to show God's displeasure
against them. And in the time that God was
talking to Moses in the time that this was happening, an Israelite,
a Jew, come out of the crowd with a Moabitish, I think, woman. And Phineas, the son of Aaron
the high priest, rushed in with a spear in his hand, and he run
it through her stomach. and killed her and then turned
around and killed that Jew. And on that day, they took the
heads of 24,000 people and hung them up there
in the sun. And that's what he's talking
about there in 1 Corinthians. Lord bless you. Give you some
understanding of what I'm trying to say.