Teach me thy way is one of my
favorite hymns. That is such a beautiful hymn.
The words and the music are just perfect. Let's open our Bibles
to Romans chapter 10. Romans 10. We'll begin reading
in verse 8. Speaking of the word of faith
which we preach, Paul said, What saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in
thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith which
we preach. That if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. For the Scripture saith, whosoever
believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Now today we'll be baptizing
Kimberly Thacker. Lord willing, next weekend we'll
be baptizing John Keller. And Lord willing, at the end
of August, we'll baptize Ben Moyer. Now each of these came
to me and confessed their desire to be baptized, confessing that
Christ the Lord is all their hope of salvation. That they
entirely trust Christ alone to save them. This is their confession. And today, when we baptize Kimberly
and when we baptize these other two, They will be publicly confessing
by baptism. They will be publicly confessing
before God and the church that Christ is all to them. That is what they will be doing.
In everything we are going to look at this hour, we will see
that baptism is the outward public expression of inward faith in
Christ. It's the outward baptism, it's
the outward public expression of heart faith in Christ. The
water baptism is not an option. Christ commanded all who believe
on Him to be baptized. But only those who believe on
Him. Turn over to Mark 16, just a
moment. The person that believes on Christ,
in his heart, he is commanded by Christ to confess his faith
in Christ in believer's baptism. Mark 16, verse 15. But only the
believer is commanded to be baptized. Christ said unto his church,
He said, Go ye into all the world. Mark 16, verse 15. Go ye into
all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. And he that believeth not shall
be damned. Now why is a public confession
of faith in Christ, this public confession that I believe in
Christ, this confession by baptism, why is that connected with heart
faith? Why does He connect that with
heart faith? Well, there's a lot of reasons.
Let me give you two. First of all, if there was no
public confession of Christ, there would be no preachers,
no preaching, there would be no singing, no worship, no ordinances,
because there wouldn't be an assembled body of believers.
Everybody would be secret believers and nobody would know who was
a believer and who wasn't, so there wouldn't be any assembly
of believers. We wouldn't have a church, we
wouldn't have the gospel preached. That's one reason. Another reason
is Christ is getting glory by this. God's getting glory to
Himself by baptism. What He's doing is He's taking
a sinner who was a God-hating rebel And He's given him a heart
now to submit to Christ and to confess it before men that he
believes on Christ. For the Scripture says, he that
believeth shall not be ashamed. You and I don't just come to
not be ashamed by our own doing. That's to the glory and praise
of God who makes us no longer to be ashamed of Christ. So those
two reasons are enough why He says be baptized, all you who
believe. So that's something I want you
to get now. It's only for believers. Only
for believers. Nowhere in this book are you
going to find where God says for infants to be baptized. You won't find that anywhere
in the Scripture. Nowhere. When the Scripture talks about
a man believing in his house, and all his house being baptized,
he being baptized in all his house is because God preached
the gospel to all in his house and God gave all in his house
faith to believe. That's why they were baptized.
Without faith, it's impossible to please God. So Christ did
say here, all who will be baptized shall be saved. He said all who
believe and are baptized. Faith is the prerequisite to
baptism. So first of all, I want to show
you now the confession of faith. This is what our subject is,
the confession in baptism. The confession in baptism. Last
time we saw the picture in baptism. This is the confession in baptism. What are they confessing when
they are baptized? First of all, by baptism the
believer is publicly justifying God. Publicly justifying God. in declaring him a sinner in
need of Christ to do all the saving. That's what true baptism
is. When a person really believes
God and is really baptized, confessing Christ, he's justifying God. Confessing God is just in saying
he is a helpless sinner, totally in need of Christ to do all the
saving. Let me show you that in Luke
7. Go to Luke chapter 7. And look
at verse 27. Christ here is describing John
the Baptist, and He's describing the two responses to John's preaching. And listen to what He says here.
Luke 7, 27. He said, speaking of John, He said, This is He
whom it is written, Behold, I send My messenger. before thy face
which shall prepare thy way before thee." And this is what God always
does. He is going to send His messenger
before Christ comes. He is going to send His messenger
to prepare the way for Christ's entry into the heart. He does
it through the preaching of the Word. Look at verse 28. For I
say unto you, among those that are born of women, there is not
a greater prophet than John the Baptist, but he that is least
in the kingdom of God is greater than he. Now Christ is still
speaking in this next verse. He said all the common people
that heard John and the publicans, those are the chief sinners,
they justified God. How so? Being baptized with the
baptism of John. See that? They justified God.
Look at verse 30. But the Pharisees and lawyers,
the outwardly whitewashed freewill works religionists, the Pharisees
and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves. They
rejected, they would not say they were sinners. God declared
in His word, there is none righteous, no not one. They said, that doesn't
include us. They wouldn't justify God. How
did they not justify God? Being not baptized of John. Being not baptized of John. And Christ goes on to say they
rejected His counsel as well. They called John, said John had
a devil and then they heard Christ come and they went out and listened
to Him and they said He was a wine-bibber and a gluttonous man. But He
said there down in verse 35, but wisdom is justified of all
her children. And that's true, brethren. God
is justified by those who publicly confess Christ in believers'
baptism. God's justified. We declare God
is right in declaring me a helpless sinner. We declare God is right
in saying I need Christ to save me from all my sins. That's what
baptism declares. That's why baptism is the open
separation of the believer from the rest of the religious world.
Because baptism is saying, we believe Christ does it all. God's
right. So that's the case where we must
acknowledge our transgression before we can ever appreciate
and rejoice in the full, complete salvation of Christ. You think,
I've said this before, salvation, the need for salvation is not
that you just need some salvation, you need something to be done
for you. That's not salvation. When you need to be saved, you
need it all to be done from beginning to end. Salvation is of the Lord. So we have to come confessing
we can't save ourselves, we're sinners. We need Christ to do
it. God said, ìI will not cause my
anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and
I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity,
that thou hast transgressed against the Lord.î Now everybody thatís
not being baptized, they will not believe on Christ, you know
what theyíre doing? Theyíre calling God a liar. Thatís what Scripture
says, calling God a liar. But those that are baptized,
Look at Matthew 3.6. I'll show you what they're doing.
Matthew 3.6. Everybody that's baptized, by
baptism, here's what they're doing. Matthew 3.6. They went out to John and were
baptized of him in the Jordan, confessing their sins. You see that? They weren't confessing
their sins audibly. God doesn't require us to confess
our sins audibly before men. By baptism, by the act of baptism,
they were justifying God's counsel against them saying, we are sinners
by the act of baptism. See, we didn't hold over anything
from Catholicism. To make men stand up and confess
to men their sins, that's a hold over from Roman Catholicism. In Roman Catholicism, you have
to go and confess your sins to a man. We confess our sins to
God. Your sins are between you and
God. Personally, I don't want to hear about them. And I don't
want you to hear about mine. They're between you and God.
Now secondly, by baptism we confess that God has already regenerated
us to faith in Christ by whom we're saved. We're confessing
faith in Christ. We're confessing that we've already
been regenerated and given faith in Christ. That's what we're
confessing by baptism. Ephesians 1.23. I want you to
go there and look at this. Ephesians 1.23. I want you to
make this connection. Ephesians 1.23. We tend to just
read to the end of a chapter, but the chapter divisions were
put there by men. There were no chapter divisions
in the Scriptures. Let's read this together. Look
at verse 23. The church, verse 23, is Christ's
body. The fullness of Christ. And Christ
is He that filleth all in all. And you hath He quickened who
were dead in trespasses and in sins. Do you see that? Christ
fills all in all. And you who believe, you believe
because Christ has quickened you. You were before dead in
trespasses and sin. You believe when Christ quickens
you. Sinners are not regenerated by
baptism. We're not regenerated by baptism.
I'm not sure where that came from. You know, those that call
themselves the Church of Christ, followers of Alexander Campbell,
They teach baptismal regeneration. And some others do too, but they
teach baptismal regeneration. You're regenerated when you're
baptized. Maybe they got it from the fact that when Christ was
baptized, the Spirit came down upon Christ in the form of a
dove. But you don't find that anywhere
else in Scripture. God also spoke from heaven and said, this is
my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. And He ain't going to
do that today when we baptize Kimberly. We are not regenerated by baptism.
We are regenerated by the Holy Spirit through the preaching
of the Word, by the incorruptible Word, begotten again by the Word
of God. And that happens when Christ
speaks into our hearts effectually and quickens us. He fills all
in all. He said, now listen to this,
He said in John 6.63, It is the Spirit that quickeneth. The flesh
profits nothing. Your and my flesh is not involved
in this. It's the spirit that quickeneth. And then he tells us what that
little s spirit is that he's talking about. He says, the words
that I speak unto you, they are spirit. The words I speak unto
you are the spirit that quickeneth. They're spirit and they're life,
he says. were begotten again by the Word
of God. Now, as long as you just hear
me preaching up here, you're not going to be quickened by
that. But when Christ, through that Word, preaches that Word
into your heart and makes you alive by that Word, you just
find yourself all of a sudden believing God, whereas before
you didn't. Christ has spoken and quickened
you by that Word. So by baptism we're declaring
that's already taken place. We've already been quickened.
We've already been regenerated by the Holy Spirit through the
Gospel by Christ the Lord. That's what we're confessing.
Nor does baptism wash away our sins. Baptism doesn't wash away
our sins. Our sins are washed away by the
blood of Christ. What can wash away our sins?
Nothing but the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ washes
our sins away. When Ananias told Paul to arise
and wash away thy sins, arise and be baptized and wash away
thy sins, he was saying arise and be baptized and do what baptism
pictures. Remember we saw it this morning,
how baptism pictures that old man being put away and that new
man being raised? He was saying, Arise and be baptized
and do that which pictures the putting away of your sin. See,
we are confessing in baptism that Christ put away our sin.
That Christ put away our sin. We are confessing that when He
died, we died. When He died, our old man of
sin died. When He died and was buried,
we died and were buried. And when He arose, we arose.
to newness of life. And now, because He liveth, He's
come to us and quickened us in our heart and made us partake
of that first resurrection so that now we can actually worship
and believe God. That's what we're confessing.
That's what these people will be confessing in believers' baptism. So by baptism, we're saying,
blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no God. Both those works are
the work of Christ. God gave those works to Christ,
our head, and those works are the works of Christ. God will
not impute iniquity. Why? What do we see this morning? There is no iniquity to impute.
Imputation is accounting what is fact. Imputation is an accountant
term dealing with legal things. If I had ten dollars in my wallet
and I account, I would account there's ten dollars in my wallet.
I would impute ten dollars to my wallet because there's ten
dollars there. But if there was not ten dollars
there, I wouldn't impute ten dollars to it. God will not impute
sin to His people because Christ put sin away. And not only that,
But by Christ, through the Holy Spirit of God, through the Word
of God, a new spirit has been created in us in which is no
guile. Created in righteousness and
true holiness, without sin, no guile. The old flesh, the old
man is just what it always was, nothing but sin. And will be
that way until it goes to the dust. The new man is without
guile. So we're confessing in baptism, blessed is the man unto
whom the Lord will not impute sin and in whose spirit there
is no guile. That's a blessing from God. Now
thirdly, by baptism, the believer confesses that he's now walking
in newness of life. Go back to Romans 6 with me.
The reason Paul began speaking on this subject in Romans 6 is
that he had spoken all the way up to this point about how we
are justified by Christ, not by our works, not by keeping
the law, not by putting away certain things and doing other
things. We are justified and made righteous
by Christ only. And so he made the statement
that where sin abounded, Grace did much more abound. And so
then he asked this question. What shall we say then? Shall
we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. When we are confessing Christ
in believer's baptism, we are not confessing now that we are
free and we can sin, sin, sin and nothing, it won't matter
at all. That's not what we are saying.
Believers don't want to sin. We don't like sin, we hate sin,
we don't want to sin at all. When we, by God's grace, mortify
the flesh, we are doing what we want to do. We want the flesh
to be mortified. He is doing for us what we want
done. We want the flesh to be mortified.
We don't want to sin. So God forbid that we continue
in sin. Now look at what He says here.
How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Do you see dead men doing anything? Do you see dead men doing anything?
Dead men don't do anything. Brethren, before God we're dead. Our old man of sin, that sinful
part of you that you see, that sinful thoughts that you think
and that you know are very real to you, are gone before God, before the
judgment seat, meaning they'll never be charged to you again.
He will not impute that sin to you because Christ has put it
away. It does not exist before God. It's dead. So it's impossible
for a dead man to live in sin before God. And that's what matters. What God sees, what God said.
It's impossible for you and I to live in sin. You and I who are
born of God, it's impossible for us to live in sin because
our old man is dead. Now I'm saying before God, it's
impossible. Now listen, go down to verse
6. We saw this morning in those other verses how we were justified
by Christ. Our old man died by Christ. Verse
6, Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that
the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not
serve sin. For he that is dead is freed
from sin. Justified, made righteous. from
sin by Christ on the cross. Verse 8, Now if we be dead with
Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that
Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath
no more dominion over Him. Look at verse 11, Likewise reckon
ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto
God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Look at verse 14, Because
of that, sin shall not have dominion over you. Sin will not have dominion
over Christ. Death will not have dominion
over Christ. And because we were rose with Christ, sin shall not
have dominion over you. For you are not under the law,
but under God's grace. Verse 17, But God, be thanked,
you were the servants of sin, you were the slaves of sin, but
you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine, that gospel
which was delivered you, being then made free from sin. You became the servants of righteousness. Look at verse 22. But now being
made free from sin and become servants to God, you have your
fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. Now you remember
earlier when I said we are going to see later that the word free
means something else. It was translated from another
word. Well, those last two places there where we read that you've
been made free from sin, the word there doesn't mean justified.
The word there means to be set at liberty. To be set at liberty. Before free meant justified,
here it means to be set at liberty. At liberty from what? From the
dominion of sin. Before Christ comes and regenerates
us and resurrects us to newness of life in our heart, we are
the slaves of sin. That means you cannot help but
not believe on God. You cannot believe Him and you
can't do otherwise. What did Pabal say in 1 Corinthians
chapter 2? The flesh does not receive the
things of the Spirit. Neither can he know them because
they are spiritually discerned. You cannot. What did he say in
Romans 8? The carnal heart, the natural
heart that we are born with is enmity against God for it is
not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. You
are not subject to any word of God until Christ comes and creates
a new man within you. And when He does that, He frees
you, He liberates you from being the slave of sin. So what can
I do now when Christ has come and He's taken me out, He's broken
the chains and He's taken me out of the bondage of being a
slave to sin? And now because of what He's
done in the new man, what can I do now? Now I'm free so that
I can obey that gospel which was preached to me. That's what
I can do. And fact of the matter is, I
became so much the servant of righteousness by what Christ
has done, now I cannot not believe on Christ. In the new man, I
cannot not believe on Christ. That's what he's talking about
here. Christ our resurrection, He not only justified us, He
sanctified us. We are washed in regeneration
through the Holy Spirit which is shed on us through the abundant
grace of God, through the blood of Christ. Titus 3 says. Through the blood of Christ,
the Holy Spirit is given to us and we are made new. And we are
made no longer the servants of sin, but now we are made the
servants of righteousness. See, when the love of God is
shed abroad in your heart, you know what you are going to do?
You are going to love. You're going to love those begotten
of God. That's what John said. We're
begotten of God. He that believes, believes because
he's begotten of God. And those begotten of God love
their brethren. That's the whole sum and substance. The essence of righteousness. The essence of the law is believing
God and loving your brethren. And we only... can do that when
Christ has created a new man within. We do it by His strength,
by His power, by His grace. That's the only way we can do
that within. So, when we're baptized now,
what are we confessing? What will you be confessing when
you're baptized? Here's what you're going to be
saying. You're going to be saying that you were the servants of
sin, but from here on, You are the servant of righteousness. You're going to be saying, verse
13, that before you yielded your members as instruments of unrighteousness
unto sin, but now you yield yourself unto God as those that are alive
from the dead, and your members shall be used as instruments
of righteousness unto God. That's what we're confessing.
We're walking in newness of life. We were under the law, and I'll
tell you what our chief sin was when we were under the law. When
we were dead in sins, we were under the law, and I'll tell
you what our chief sin is. If you'll read Romans, let me give
you something that will help you. If you read Romans, what
you will find that Paul is talking about when he's talking about
our sin is not only immoral sin. He's talking about our self-righteous
religion. That is, every one of us, before
God called us, we thought that we were not that bad. We thought
we were pretty good. We thought we were better than
some. We thought we hadn't quite kept the law perfectly, but we
were doing pretty good at it. That's what Paul said his chief
sin was. When he said the law worked in
me all manner of sin and lasciviousness, Paul wasn't talking about he
was a wild whoremonger. That wasn't what he was talking
about. He said in Philippians 3, as touching the law, if you'd
have looked at me outwardly, I was blameless. But when Christ
came, he said, I thought I was alive without the law. When I
didn't hear the law, what it said, I thought I was alive.
He said, but when the commandment came, when Christ spoke into
my heart, sin revived and I died. All my supposed righteousness
went out the window. I saw I'm a wretch. See, this
is what the religious world is missing. It's not simply your
lewd, immoral sin that you need to be saved from. Number one,
chiefly, you need to be saved from your righteousnesses. From
thinking we've done something to commend us to God. That's
what we have to be saved from. And we're confessing here that
when we were under the law, our chief sin was our self-righteousness. We were trying to please God
by something we had done by the letter of the law. But now, from
today on, we're serving God in newness of spirit. What is that?
That's walking by faith in Christ, knowing we're complete in Christ,
and being constrained and motivated by the love of Christ for us. Not legal motives, not trying
to get a leg up with God and be accepted of God and get a
reward with God. simply because we are constrained
by the love of Christ for us. Look at Romans 7, 5. I am going
to show you everything I said here in Romans 7, 5. And you
can read the rest of Romans 7 and see Paul is talking about that
legalism he was in. Romans 7, 5. When we were in
the flesh, the motions of sins which were by the law did work
in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. Now again,
what kind of fruit was it Paul is talking about? He wasn't talking
about evil and wickedness and whoremonging. He was talking
about his religion. Read Philippians 3. All the things
I thought were gain to me, now I count them loss. I count them
but dung, that I might win Christ, be found in Him, not having mine
own righteousness which is of the law, but the righteousness
which is by the faithfulness of Christ my Lord. Look here. But now we're delivered from
the law. that law being dead wherein we
were held. Before he said we are dead to
the law, here he says that being dead wherein we were held. That
old man is dead and the law is dead to us. And we are dead to
the law. That we should serve in newness
of spirit, not in the oldness of the letter. I say this again
to you, brethren. I am not supposed to stand here
and tell you that the way that You can please God in the way
that you can be accepted of God, in the way that you can be holy
with God, is for you to go to the Ten Commandments and keep
the Ten Commandments. You read through Scripture, the
Ten Commandments were given to declare us guilty. The law was
not made for a righteous man. And everybody Christ has made
righteous is a righteous man. The law was made for sinners.
The law was made, Paul said in Romans 3, to shut every mouth
and declare the whole world guilty before God. That's why the law
was given. And the law was given to show
when you behold Christ, you see the righteousness of the law.
You see the righteousness of God. You see Him who did no sin,
who is the very righteousness of the law, who loved God the
Father and His people as Himself. That's what he did, so much that
he was willing to be forsaken by God and His people, that God
might be declared just and justified, and His people might be justified
and made righteous from all our sin. That's the fulfillment of
the law. God's showing us by Christ that
He's the one who fulfilled the law. Romans 10 says, But Paul
said of his countrymen, the Israelites, he said, but they are going about
to establish their own righteousness and they have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God. Because Christ is the end of
the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. That's
what he says here. Sin shall not have dominion over
you. You know what that means? That
doesn't mean it ought not or maybe it won't if you work real
hard to keep it from happening. It means it is a sure and certain
promise. It shall not reign over you.
It shall not have dominion over you. Why? Because you're not
under the law anymore. If you're not under the law,
there's nothing to say you're sinful. Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justified. Who's
going to charge us with sin? It's Christ that justified us.
Yea, rather they died and yea, rather they're risen again. No,
no. If you're not under the law,
sin can't have dominion over you. But we are under grace. So you know who does have dominion
over you? Christ. Christ. In the heart, you are
that of the Spirit. You follow Christ. You look to
Christ. You follow in the steps of Christ.
He is the one wherein we learn everything. Christ. And through
baptism we are publicly confessing that we are committed to Christ
as Lord to have dominion over us in our heart and our spirit
to lead us and that we are delighting to follow Him. That is what you
confess. Now fourthly, in baptism the
believer is confessing that I am now committed to Christ's people
for the furtherance of his gospel. Go to Acts 2.42. Acts 2.42. This is after God worked faith
in that great multitude at Pentecost and they confessed Christ in
baptism. It says in Acts 2.42, And they continued steadfastly
in the apostles' doctrine, and fellowship, and in breaking of
bread, and in prayers. Verse 44, And all that believed
were together, and had all things common. and sold their possessions
and goods and parted them to all as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with
one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to
house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart."
What's that singleness of heart mean? Praising God with their
hearts set on Christ who saved them. and having favor with all
the people, and the Lord added to the church daily such as should
be said." In baptism, we publicly commit ourselves. Publicly or
committing ourselves. This is what we are confessing.
We are publicly committing ourselves to continue steadfastly in the
Apostles' doctrine. He was saying the Gospel that
declares that God the Father chose His people, Christ the
Son redeemed His people, God the Holy Spirit regenerates His
people, and God brings every one of His people to glory with
Him. In other words, salvation is of the Lord. Alpha, He's the
author and finisher of our faith. He's the Alpha and the Omega
of our salvation. We're confessing that, that we'll
continue in the doctrine that gives God all the glory and the
sinner none. That's what we're confessing.
And we're confessing that we're going to continue steadfastly
in fellowship, assembling together with the saints in one accord,
with one mind to glorify Christ. Fellowship, continuing steadfastly
in fellowship, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.
and in breaking of bread at the Lord's table, from church to
church, from local assembly to local assembly, from house to
house, you know what's happening? God's people are continuing steadfastly
in the Apostles' doctrine, they're continuing assembling together
in a fellowship with one another, and they're continuing to observe
the Lord's table, the other ordinance besides baptism, the observance
of the Lord's table. continue in prayers. That means
they worship God, they praise God, they depend upon God, they
glorify God in everything in their worship. And the believer
is confessing this too. He is confessing that both himself
and everything that God has given him is committed to the furtherance
of the gospel of Christ. Now let me see if I can illustrate
this. Christ gave the church our charge. This is our charge. Go into all the world and preach
the gospel. That's our charge. Our charge
is not to reform the world. Our charge is not to feed the
world. Our charge is not to to rescue
the world out of poverty. Those things are fine if you
want to do those things. It may be nice to do those things,
but God will do all that when He saves His people and brings
them out through the gospel. Our charge, the remedy for this
world, is the church of God preaching the gospel of Christ and Him
crucified. You know, we've got ten billion remedies for everything. We ought to do this, we ought
to do that. There's one thing that needs to be done. The gospel
needs to be preached. I'll tell you why our country
is in the shape it's in today. Let me tell you why. Billy Graham. You say, how can you support
that with Scripture? Read Romans 1. They worshipped and served
the creature more than the Creator. For this cause, God gave them
over to a reprobate mind. Women loving women, men loving
men, children hating parents, everything you see now. Legal
preaching that tells you you're good, basically good. will lead
people to think that they can do no wrong and they're right
and everybody else is wrong. And that's what you have. Bunch
of self-centered, self-serving religious hypocrites. What's
the remedy? Preach the gospel of Christ.
Take it all out of the sinner's hand and declare it's all in
God's hand to save whom He will and pass by whom He will. Well,
that offends me. We need offended. We need offended. We need to have our stony heart
busted. We need to have our pride brought
down. We need to be told we are nothing but worms in need of
God's salvation. We need that. Because we think
too highly of ourselves by nature. The vain promise that the devil
made is you should be as gods, knowing good and evil. Well,
we don't know good and evil, but we think we are gods. That's
it. That's it. By nature. He gives you this charge, go
and preach the gospel. Those that believe and are baptized
shall be saved, those that believe not shall be damned. Now listen
to what happened. Therefore, now listen to this,
I'm trying to illustrate what it means to be committed to the
furtherance of the gospel. Because this was the charge,
God saved you three, new believers. He saved you. using His church,
who He had already saved. Through them, the gospel was
brought to you. And they gave sacrificially,
all the church that God had saved, they gave by God's grace, they
gave sacrificially of themselves, of their talents, of their sweat,
of their time, of their money. They gave of everything sacrificially
to make certain that gospel was going forth not only in the place
where they were, but throughout the whole world. And so by baptism,
we're confessing that we owe a deep debt of gratitude to the
Church of God that God used to preach the Gospel to us. And
through that, God shows the sinner that He sanctified how valuable
the Gospel really is. See, I don't have to beg you
who believe. I don't have to beg you to stay
here. Christ turned to His apostles when all the rest walked away
and He said, will you go away also? And they said, how can
we go? To whom shall we go? You have
the words. You have the words that quicken
us in our heart. You have the gospel. And we believe you. We trust
you. To whom shall we go? They see
the value of the preaching of the gospel. For the preaching
of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. Those that
can walk away from the Gospel and treat it like it's foolishness,
to them it is foolishness. But to you who are saved, it
is the power of God. It's the power of God by which
He justified us and by which He sanctified us. And so you
know the value of the Gospel. So now Christ gives you three
the same charge that He gave to the church before you. Go
into all the world and preach the Gospel. And so by His grace
you are to give yourselves and all you have to make certain
that this Gospel continues in this place and throughout the
world. And if you move from here to another gospel church, you
need to make sure it goes forth in that place and throughout
the world. That's the only reason you and I are still here. In
fact, the only reason the world is still here is God's not finished
calling out His elect. When He does, He's going to wind
it up. God's not willing that any should
perish, but that all should come to repentance. And because he
is long-suffering, Peter said, you account that the long-suffering
of God is salvation. It shall terminate in the salvation
of all His people. You can count on that. Christ
said, I shall lose nothing. No man is going to pluck them
out of My hand. So we preach Christ. We preach
Christ. as new believers with Christ's
church, we give sacrificially of ourselves to send forth the
gospel. And not only do we confess Christ today in believers' baptism,
not only did you confess Christ to me when you said you wanted
to be baptized, you are going to confess Christ as you go through
your life before sinners who are seeking, God has opened the
door for them to hear something. And God will make it apparent
to you and you will bear witness to Him. You'll tell them about
Christ. Bear witness to somebody tomorrow.
Go tell somebody tomorrow. We ought to tell somebody about
Christ every day. Well, I don't know if I can preach the gospel. I'm a new believer. Christ regenerated
a man and said to him, go tell what great things God has done
for you. You can do that, can't you? If
the Coast Guard drug you out of the ocean, I bet you could
tell everything about that. We just go tell people what Christ
is doing for you. See, the gates of hell. The gates of hell shall not prevail
against God's church. Gates are not offensive weapons. They are not coming out to get
you. Gates are protecting people and keeping people inside. And
why is a person defensive? Because their stronghold, their
gate is of the devil and he's trying to keep them from believing
the Gospel. But the Gospel tears down the
gates of hell. The Gospel is the Gospel that
pulls down strongholds. So we know, that's what happened
to me, so all I have to do is declare to somebody what Christ
has done for me and watch God do it. Watch God do it. If there
is, that is what He will do. I think we will be much more
surprised to what God will do if we just told the truth on
God to people that are interested. I don't go up to people and try
to force something on them. I hate that when that happens.
That is big in the South, you know. But don't do that. But if God has opened the door
for you to speak the truth to somebody and they will receive
it, do it. Do it. Now lastly, let me give you Well,
I'm out of time. Let me give you these few closing
remarks real quick. Number one, you're still sinners. So remember this, there are going
to come seasons when you're going to look back and you're going
to say, did I really know the Lord when I was baptized? I guarantee
you that's going to happen. And I'll tell you why it's going
to happen. When it happens, you're going to be looking at yourself,
at your sin, and at your knowledge now compared to your knowledge
then. Don't do that. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. Baptism is to be done one time
when it's done in faith correctly. Look to Christ. And here's the
second thing now. And I say this to everybody.
If you were baptized under a false gospel, they weren't preaching
Christ in truth, you didn't hear Christ in truth, you didn't know
Christ in truth, and you were baptized, and now God's given
you faith in Christ, you should be baptized. Because you weren't
baptized before. You did a religious work before.
You need to be baptized if He's given you faith to believe. That's
certain. And I say this to all. If you
don't believe on Christ, wait on the Lord. Wait on the Lord. Don't be baptized because somebody
else is being baptized or because you feel like you ought to be
baptized or because you've learned some doctrine. Salvation is not
what we know. Salvation is who we know. I know
whom I have believed and I am persuaded that He is able to
keep that which I have committed to Him. It is all about Him,
you see. So don't be baptized just because. Don't ever, whatever you do,
avoid a false profession of faith at all costs. Because that will
make you think you are saved when you are not saved. And a
man that thinks that is twice lost. Now, let me see here. How do I know if I'm saved or
not? I can tell you this, if it grieves you to be baptized,
God hasn't saved you. Because He said, my yoke is easy
and my burden is light. And those that have been called
by Him to light to do His will. And lastly, if God has given
you faith to believe that all your salvation is the resurrected
Lord Jesus Christ, then confess Him and believe His baptism.
There's no point in waiting. You know, when that Ethiopian
eunuch, when they got to that water, he was ready. He wanted
to be baptized. He had heard the Gospel of Christ
and he believed on Christ. And he said, here's water. What
hinders me from being baptized right now? Philip said, nothing. If you believe with all your
heart, you shall. You can. He said, I believe Christ is
the Son of God. That means He's everything God
says He is and did everything God said He did. And when Ananias
came to Paul, he said, why tarriest thou? Arise and be baptized. So if God's given you faith,
obey Him and be baptized. I hope that helps you see what
we're doing today. Alright, brethren. Let's stand
together. I'll give a closing prayer and then
Brother Eric will lead us in a closing hymn. Father, we thank You for these
three new believers. We thank You for doing all the
work, choosing them in Christ before the world began. Thank
You for Christ who redeemed them by His blood. Thank You for the
Holy Spirit who gave them faith and life in Christ. Lord, we
pray that You would pour out Your Spirit upon them and truly
make them to walk in newness of life, make them to always
labor to do that which is pleasing to You because they want to,
because You're constraining them by Your love. Make them true
servants of righteousness. Make them committed to Your church
and to Your gospel. Lord, we pray that you would
cause them to know when they stumble, when they fall, cause
them to see Christ and cause them to see that their sins are
put away in Him. Lord, we pray now that in those
you're working in, those that you're right now working in that
we don't know, we thank you, we wait on you, we trust you'll
bring that work to completion in your time. Father, we thank
you for Christ our Lord who we are confessing today. Let each
believer here see one more time in this picture of baptism. Let
us see. Make us to see Christ and what
He accomplished for us. Lord, forgive us our sins. Thank
you for this place. Thank you for the brethren who
helped us to get it. In Christ's precious name we
pray. Amen.