Alright, good morning brethren.
I hope you're joining us from home, or listening in your car,
or any way that the Lord's brought you to hear this today. Last
year we were together on this date, on Easter Sunday, and looked
at the Passover briefly. And today I have a different
subject for you. It's going to be Believer's Baptism.
Now today, around the world, many people are gathering Normally,
maybe not this year, normally every year people gather and
they have customs that they observe. They gather with their family
and eat dinner. They have a meal. They attend some kind of church
service. They may color eggs, but most of them have no clue
what this date is for, what it means, what it represents. This
holiday represents the resurrection of Christ from the grave. Now
in baptism we confess that we died when Christ died. We rose
when He rose. We deserve to die. We confess
that. We repent. And He took our place
as our substitute. We were buried with Him. We were
raised with Him from the death and from the grave as well. We
declare that Christ was victorious whenever He accomplished this
work. He was sent to do a work, sent to preserve a people, and
we believe that He's done that. That's what we're declaring when
we're baptized. At the top of my message is Believer's
Baptism. Last week we observed the Lord's
Table, and the Lord's Table and Believer's Baptism are the two
ordinances in the New Testament that Christ gave us, but they
go hand in hand. They go hand in hand together.
I'm not trying to convince anyone to be baptized. I never want
to push anyone or encourage someone wrongly to observe the Lord's
baptism. But I also don't want to restrict
anyone. I don't want to hinder anyone that has a desire in them
to follow the Lord's guidance to be baptized. But believer's
baptism is the same with the Lord's table. We confess that
we are Christ. But in the act of going into
the water, when we actually enter that baptismal pool, it does
not make us a child of God. If you're a child of God, you
get into the water. But getting into that pool doesn't
make you a child of God. I hope I'm clear on that. We'll
see that again here in a little bit. But these two ordinances,
the Lord's Table and Believer's Baptism, go together. They go
hand in hand. Turn to Matthew chapter 20. We'll
take a look at it. We'll be turning quite a bit
today, but it'll just be in a few different books, so we won't
have far to turn. Matthew chapter 20 and verse
20. Then came to him the mother of
Zebedee's children with her sons, worshiping him and desiring a
certain thing of him. And he said unto her, What wilt
thou? She saith unto him, Grant that
these my two sons may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other
on thy left, in the kingdom. But Jesus answered and said,
Ye know not what ye ask. Are you able to drink of the
cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism
that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able.
And he saith unto them, ye shall drink indeed of my cup. We will
partake of his cup. We will partake of his blood,
his suffering. And be baptized with the baptism
that I am baptized with. But to sit on my right hand and
on my left is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them
of whom it is prepared of my Father. Every blood-brought child
of Christ will partake in the body of Christ. We will partake
in his blood. We will partake in that burial
and resurrection that is believer's baptism because we're in Him. We're one with Christ. But we're
looking at that baptism today. Why do we practice baptism? Why do we practice baptism? We've
got three points on this. The first one is our Lord commands
it. He commands us to be baptized.
Turn over to Matthew chapter 28. A few pages to you right there,
Matthew 28 verse 19. Go ye therefore and teach, make
disciples. We'll look at this in a second.
Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching,
instructing them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
you, and lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the world.
Amen. There's two different Greek words
there for teach. That first one we see, go ye
therefore and teach all nations. That means to make pupils, to
instruct. I'm sorry, to make pupils, to
make disciples. There's a work happening there.
Now the second one there where it says in verse 20, teaching
them to observe all things. That's to instruct. That's an
instruction. This will be important with us.
God Almighty here is speaking to His preachers that He's sending
out. He's giving them a pattern. He gives us an order for all
things. We come to have a worship service.
This isn't a hectic place. It's orderly, out of respect
and out of guidance. The Scriptures guide us in these
things. But here's the pattern the Lord lays out. First, it
originates with the Lord. The Lord sends His Word. He's
the originator. That's where it comes from. Second,
disciples were made. When a gospel is preached, the
gospel itself and the power of the Holy Spirit come into the
Lord's people and He makes disciples out of them. He makes followers
out of them. Then those that hear that, those that the Lord
sent it, the Lord made it effectual, they're baptized. After they're
baptized, they are continually taught. They're instructed after
that. We don't receive the knowledge
of Christ and we're not baptized with baptism we're instructed
to have and then we go on about our lives. We don't ignore that.
We continue to learn. We have desire to learn those
things. In Mark 16, 15 it says, He said then unto them, Go ye
into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth
not shall be damned. And we're to go into the world
and preach this, preach Christ to all the world, to every creature.
Now we don't preach to dogs and cats. We don't preach to birds.
We preach to every creature, every man of every mankind, the
rich and poor, Jew and Greek, educated and uneducated. It doesn't
make a difference. And those that believe, that
message is made effectual, will be baptized. And those that believe
not shall be damned. So why do we practice baptism?
First, the Lord commanded it. We've seen that. Go into the
world and preach this and have them baptized. Second, our Lord
was baptized. Turn over to Matthew chapter
3. Matthew chapter 3. Verse 13. Then cometh Jesus from Galilee
to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him. But John forbade him,
saying, I have need to be baptized of thee. And thou comest to me. Why are you coming to me? You
need to be the one baptizing me, Lord. And Jesus answered
and said unto him, Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh
us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered them. And Jesus,
when he was baptized, went straightway out of the water. And, lo, the
heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God
descending like a dove and lighting upon him. And lo, a voice from
heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
Now we have seen so often that Christ fulfilled all the law. Did we grasp that though? Do
we understand that when we say that Christ has fulfilled all
the law? We saw before the law was the Mosaic law, it's the
Levitical law, and it's the precepts and promises, guidance in these
scriptures. The law is sometimes used as
the Bible itself. But Christ fulfilled all of that.
He fulfilled all the ordinances. Our Master was baptized. Our
Master was the first to take of the Lord's table. He took
of His own table. And He was baptized physically and He says
there in verse 15, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. It becometh us. It benefits us. Christ is speaking of himself
and John, yes, that's true. But he's also speaking of that
thief on the cross. He's speaking of Lazarus. He's
speaking of Peter, John Gill, Spurgeon, Barnard, Mahan, Thacker. Curtis, you, for every one of
us, it benefits us, his children, all of his children. Christ's
physical baptism benefited the body of Christ and every member
in it. He is the one that is one with
us and we're one with him. When he was baptized physically,
I was baptized physically. Whenever he was spiritually at
baptism of the Holy Ghost, that's when I received it. But if physically
and spiritually I was baptized with Christ, why should we baptize
people in this day? If it was effectual when Christ
did it, when He performed it, why do I have to do it? So why
do we practice baptism? We see that the Lord commanded
it, we see that the Lord was baptized, and we see the apostles
baptized the early church. We have many examples of this,
but turn over to Acts chapter 10. Cornelius the centurion and
his house had the gospel sent to them. Peter preached to them. They were given hearts to receive
it, and they were baptized. You see that pattern, this order
here again? They heard the preachers were coming, Cornelius did, and
that they were going to have a meeting. And he gathered all
his people, everyone he could. His kinsmen and his friends is
how it's worded. And when they were all together
they had a worship service and Peter was sent there to them
and he preached Christ to them. Look here in Acts chapter 10
verse 46. For they heard them speak with
tongues and magnified God. Now when Peter first showed up,
Cornelius fell at his feet and Peter said, you get up. There
in verse 25, he said, get up, I'm just a man just like you
are. You don't worship me, you worship the Lord. And so here
Peter's performing a miracle. He's spoken a language that wasn't
his native tongue. They understood him and they
magnified God. Now they praised God. Then answered
Peter, verse 47, can any man forbid water that these should
not be baptized which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?
And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Remember
Lydia? Lydia was that certain woman
selling purple in the city of Thyreta, and she worshipped God. It says there in Acts 16-14,
a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple in the city
of Thyreta, which worshipped God and heard us. She heard. whose heart the Lord
opened. Who opened it? Did she open her
own heart? No, the Lord opened her heart. That she attended
unto the things which were spoken of Paul. Paul came and preached.
The Lord did a work in her and she attended. That teaching,
that instructing, that's what she wanted. And when she was
baptized in her household, she besought us saying, if ye have
judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and
abide there. And she constrained us. That
word was sent. The spirit made her defectual.
She was baptized and she constrained those men. Lydia constrained
them to stay with her. She wanted to keep hearing about
this. I've heard, I've heard a little bit. I've heard of this
Christ. I want to hear more of it. Stay here in my house. Tell
me more. Paul and Silas preached to the
Philippian jailer after that earthquake came, tore that jail
down. And it said, and they spake unto
him the word of the Lord. and to all that were in his house,
and he took them the same hour of the night and washed their
stripes and was baptized, he and all his straightway." So
why do we baptize? The Lord commanded it, the Lord
set the example because he was baptized and the apostles set
the example. That is, they obeyed the Lord,
his commandment to go out and baptize. They baptized the early
church. So we see why we do this, but
what is it? What is baptism? Baptism is repenting. Turn to the left a little bit
there to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2 and verse 36.
Acts 2 and verse 36. Therefore, let
all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made
that same Jesus, whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ."
Now, when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart and
said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren,
what shall we do? And Peter said unto them, Repent,
you repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift
of the Holy Ghost." True baptism is repentance. It's a turning
from religion, returning from myself, returning from this world. I turn from those things and
I turn to Christ. We put everything that we cling
to down. Everything I thought before of God, who He was, who
He is, what I thought of myself, how good I was, all those things
are gone away. I turned from them. I repented
from those and I turned solely to Christ. Mark 1, we'll look
at this more here in a minute, John did baptize in the wilderness
and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Baptism
is repentance. Here, repentance, we've looked
at this before, there's five meanings of repentance in the
scriptures. And this word here where repentance is used, it
means a change of mind. Our mind has been changed. The
Lord's sovereign, almighty providence, He comes in our lives in a way
that puts us under the sound of the gospel. He puts it over
us or He draws us underneath it. But it's His providence.
Whenever we're there, we hear that message, that good news.
The Spirit enters us, gives us a new heart to understand, gives
us ears to hear with, and convicts us of what we are. And then we
see Christ. We see Him of really truly what
He is, how He is, and not what we used to imagine that He was.
We see Him truly as He is, as He's holy, righteous, and victorious. That's how we see Him. But we
turn from everything we knew to be true and we turn to Him.
Our minds are changed from loving ourselves and hating God to hating
ourselves and loving God. That's the true change. But we
repent, we turn from ourselves to Christ. Now who are these
people that turn? Who are these people that repent
truly? Who's the ones the Lord make?
Who are those people? Is that me? Is that you? Do I
have an option to do that? Look here in verse 39, Acts 2,
39. even as many as the Lord our
God shall call." That's who it will be, as many as the Lord
our God shall call. Have you been called? Has providence
brought you under the sound of this gospel? Has the Holy Spirit
got a hold of you, grasped you, given you a new heart, regenerated
you? Have you been turned as He turned
you? He might be the one the Lord's
called. Look here in verse 40, And with many other words did
he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward
generation. Peter kept preaching the same
message over and over. He kept telling them about Christ.
And what was the result of it? What was the result of him preaching
that same message? What did the Holy Spirit move
these men and women to do? The Lord sent it. He ordained
it. They taught them, they made disciples out of them. What happened? Look here in verse 41. Those
people heard. In this day and age, if I saw one person, a true
sinner, Rejoice in what Christ has done.
Declare Christ as all. Declare themselves as nothing.
And they said, I want to be baptized. I want to represent what my Lord
did. I want to obey Him. That would be a miracle. Oh,
it says the heavens rejoice over one. We saw this morning in the
Bible study, our Lord, our Savior rejoices when those that hear
the gospel for the first time, when they hear it, and the Lord
shows us who we are and what He is. Turn there to Mark chapter
1. Believers confess their sins.
We repent from thinking what we are is right and good and
we confess that Christ is all. And He had to be our surety. To repent, confess that to saying,
I'm nothing. In Mark 1 verse 4, John did baptize
in the wilderness and preach the baptism of repentance. For,
the marginal reference there in my Bible says unto. the remission
of sins, or because of the remission of sins, my sins have been forgiven,
I repent. Verse five, and there went out unto him all the land
of Judea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him
in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Baptism to a believer is declaring
that I'm nothing but sin. I deserve to die, but Christ
died in my place. I deserve to die, I was nothing.
He died in my place and He was raised from that tomb. And because
He's risen from that tomb, I'm risen from that tomb. That's
what it's declared. Let's look over in Acts chapter
19. I'm having you turn a lot this morning, but it's important
to see these things. Acts 19. Getting in that water does nothing. Getting in the baptismal pool
does absolutely nothing. It only declares that something's
already been done. Many people have been baptized.
Many people. But they didn't know Christ when
it happened. And they did not have the Word
sent to them. They didn't hear Christ preaching truth effectually. And they didn't have a heart
work done whenever they got into the pool. They only went through
the motions. So let's look here at Acts chapter
19 verse 1. And it came to pass that while
Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper
coast, came to Ephesus and certain of the disciples. And he said
unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?
And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether
there be any Holy Ghost. We were baptized, but we have
no clue what you're talking about. What Holy Ghost? I've never heard
these things. I haven't been taught these things.
Verse 3, And he said unto them, Unto what then were you baptized? If you got baptized, where did
you get baptized to? And they said unto him, Unto
John's baptism. We just did what John did. This guy was going
through some motions. That's the motions that we did.
Verse 4, Then said Paul, John barely baptized with the baptism
of repentance, saying unto people that they should believe on him
which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. Paul's preaching Christ to them
here, isn't he? They heard this. Something happened. They heard
this when they heard Christ preaching for the first time ever. This
is the first time they've heard it. It was effectual in them. and
they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Many people
have made a false profession of faith and they didn't know
the difference when they had done it because they weren't
taught of God. He hadn't taught them anything yet. He hadn't
sent his preacher to them. That spirit hadn't come into
them to know Christ, hadn't given them a new heart to know Him.
But when they hear it, In truth, they submit to Christ. They don't
submit to John and what John did. They don't submit to a man
and what a man does. They submit to the one that originated
it. The one that ordained this ordinance. Not to the man, but to Christ. So we see there a false confession
of faith and baptism, but the Lord saved those people. Now
let's see one from the beginning. Look here at Acts chapter 8.
Acts chapter 8, 26. We've heard a lot about this
Ethiopian eunuch. We'll see this from his point of view with this
pattern. Turn to Acts 8, 26. And the angel of the Lord spake
unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the
way that goeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza. which is desert. And he rose and went, and behold,
a man of Ethiopia, and eunuch of great authority, under Candace,
queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure,
and he had come to Jerusalem for to worship." Now here's the
secretary of the treasury for Ethiopia. It's a powerful man. Verse 28, when he was returning
and setting in his chariot, reading Isaiah the prophet, and the spirit
said unto Philip, go near and join thyself to his chariot.
Verse 30, and Philip ran thither. I wish I could run. I wish the
Lord would send me and I could run to you to teach you these
things. A man ran to me one time and
Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah
and said, understandest thou what you're reading? You're reading
this out loud. Do you understand what's coming
out of your mouth? And he said, How can I except
some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he
would come up and sit with him. The place of the scripture where
he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter,
and like a lamb done before his shearers, so opened he not his
mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away, and
who shall declare his generation? For his life was taken from the
earth. And the eunuch answered Philip and said, I pray thee,
of whom speaketh the prophet this? Of himself or of some other
man? Tell me what this means. Who
is this speaking of? Then Philip opened his mouth
and began at the same scripture, and he preached unto him Jesus.
Christ was preached. This man was sent and Christ
was preached. Verse 36, And as they went on
their way, they came into a certain water. And the eunuch said, See,
here is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized?
Apparently baptism had been preached to him as well. The eunuch knew
about it. He said, I want to follow my
Lord. I believe this man. What hinders me? What keeps me
from being baptized? Verse 37, and Philip said, If
thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the
chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water,
both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized them. Now there was
enough water there for Philip and the eunuch to go down into.
When our Lord was baptized, He came up out of the water. It's
not a sprinkling, it's an immersion. That's what baptismo is. The
word's not translated, it's transliterated. They went letter for letter.
It means immersion. Verse 39, And when they were
come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away
Philip, and that the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his
way rejoicing. Rejoicing. So what are these
requirements? What's the requirement to be
baptized? What leads up to baptism? The Lord must ordain it. He must
send His prophet to a person, but send His preacher with the
message. Make disciples of them. Like John the Baptist crying
in the wilderness, make straight the way. Then the Holy Spirit
pierces their heart. They're pricked in their heart,
they're given a new heart. To believe gives you life. made
a disciple, and then you don't just believe in Him. That eunuch
didn't say, I believe in Jesus. He said, I believe with all my
heart. He believed Christ, didn't he? So how does it perform? Turn over to Romans chapter 6.
How do we perform this baptism? Romans 6 and verse 1. The Bible
I'm using this morning, and the Bible I recommend you using,
is a King James Bible. And I want to give credit to
these translators for keeping the original text. They were
true to the translation. Now, in the instances of baptism,
wherever it speaks of water, it speaks about immersion. It
says that there's enough water they went into. Sometimes a couple
of them went in, a couple of them come out, or several did.
But the translators were part of the Church of England. That's
what we call Episcopalians in this day. They believed in sprinkling.
But they were honest and they were fair in this translation.
They stuck to the text. I'll give them that. Now Romans
6 and verse 1 says, What shall we say then? Shall we continue
in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that
are dead to sin live any longer therein? Know ye not that so
many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into
His death? We're dead to sin because Christ
made us that way. Therefore we are buried with
Him by baptism into death. That like as Christ was raised
up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should
walk in newness of life. For we have been planted buried
together in the likeness of His death that we shall also be also
in the likeness of His resurrection. We go under that water completely
showing that we died completely in Christ. We're buried with
Him and we come out of that water completely showing He's completely
risen and because of Him I'm completely risen. He's the cause. He's the effect. We declare that
He's able to raise us from the dead physically and that He's
able to raise us from our spiritual death. That's what's happened.
We give Him the glory for that. He has done it. We go from that
deadness to our old nature to that new life and our new nature
that He's given, He's provided. So is baptism required for salvation? This may raise some eyebrows.
Is baptism required salvation? It's an ordinance in this Bible,
isn't it? If you put yourself under the law, if man's still
under the law, yes, it's required. You have to do it. But we can't
complete that law, can we? We can't keep any of it. We've
seen that repeatedly recently. All throughout the scriptures,
we're unable. We can't keep it. We can physically go in that
baptism right there, that baptismal pool, and we do this, there's
a reason we do it, but it does nothing for us. It's not us keeping
the law. We're honoring it. The cross
has already performed it. However, we follow and obey out
of love and appreciation. That's why we do it. It's not
something I gain. It's not a sacrament. I don't
receive grace because I do that. I have received grace, therefore
I do it. But are there any believers that
were not baptized? The thief on the cross comes
to everyone's mind, doesn't it? He was on the cross. He wasn't
baptized. He was the Lord's. He said, to
this day you'll be with me in glory. But don't forget, there
were many other believers that were not baptized physically.
Abraham wasn't. David wasn't. Moses wasn't. Those
Old Testament believers, they were saved by the same Christ
that saves people today. They were saved by the same gospel
that saves us. If it's not essential, if it's
not essential for salvation, why preach it? Many things are
not essential to salvation, but we do them. We give an offering. It's not required for our salvation,
but we do that because we have a heart that's giving, don't
we? We read our scriptures. You get up and you read the Bible.
That's not required for salvation, but we do it. Why? Because we've
had that new heart put in us, we've been baptized, and we want
to continue that teaching. We want to keep that instruction
coming. I want to learn more about this.
Brother Henry Mahan once said, true love knows no distinction
between the essential and the non-essential. If it is the Word
of God, it is my commandment. If it is His Word, it is important. Is that right? That's right,
isn't it? True love doesn't sit around and say, how much can
I get away with? It honors God by saying, Lord, what will you
have me to do? I believe you. I believe in you
and I believe you. What will you have me to do,
Lord? Baptism is the public confession of a believer. My Lord told me
to do that and I'm going to do it because I believe Him. That's why we do it. I hope that
was clear this morning. Let's pray together. Heavenly
Father, we're so thankful for This time together, you've given
us the means to meet, and we look forward to that day we're
able to meet in person again. What a symbol it is that the
day we look forward to meeting you face to face. What a privilege,
Lord. How thankful we are you raised
your son. We don't have a tomb full of
bones, Lord. We have an empty tomb. What proof,
what declares that Christ is God. He is all of our hope and
all of our comfort. Lord, come to us. Send your message
to us. Give us a heart to receive it.
Give us a heart that declares it. And keep us wanting more. Keep us always wanting to know
of Christ. Learn more of Him. Learn more of what He's commanded
us. Be with our brethren everywhere, Lord, as they meet. They meet
online and in their homes. Comfort them, Lord. Give them
patience through this trial that you've sent. And be with our
government, Lord. Be with our president and this
nation. They're in your hand. The government
sits on one shoulder of yours. We know you keep them always,
but Lord, if it be your will, use them as you see fit. Call
out your sheep and move your providences as it glorifies
you. Keep us always looking to Christ,
Lord, and it's in His name that we ask it. Amen.