Here in Romans 6 verse 3 it says
this, Know ye not that so many of us
as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? 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 also should
walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together,
and how many times do you find this word together about God's
people in Christ? Together. Together. For if we
have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we
shall be also of His resurrection. Now let me, by way of introduction,
tell you that there are some essentials, absolute necessities
to salvation. Absolute necessities. There's
no getting around it. Things must happen. And the first
necessity is the new birth. And that's something that's out
of my hands and out of your hands. That's something that God does
for you. God takes a man and creates him anew, gives him a
new life, gives him a new heart, gives him a new spirit, gives
him a new mind, gives him a new will. Our Lord Jesus says you
must be born again. And that's not your passive in
that. You're passive in that. God comes and through the gospel,
through the preaching of the Word, He takes the seed, plants
it in your heart, and quickens you, and gives you life from
the dead. Gives you new life. Gives you
a mind. There's a day that you didn't
know God, then there's a day you do. There's a day you didn't
understand the Scriptures and didn't love them, there's a day
you do. There's a day you didn't trust Christ, and then there's
a day you do. There's a day you didn't know nothing about sin,
then there's a day you do. There's a day you didn't know
nothing about the hardness of your heart, then there's a day
you do. There's a day you didn't desire the truth, then there's
a day you do. And what takes place between
the time you don't and you do, that's called the new birth.
That's called a new birth. And beloved, then there's repentance.
And when a man is born again, the repentance means that you
have a change of mind, a change of heart. And that new birth
is what we're talking about. It changes your mind, first of
all, about God, about what you think about God, what you think
about Christ. You know, Christ was just somebody
you know that would save you when you would let Him someday.
And God was somebody that you would accept one of these days
when you made a decision to make a change and start going to church.
But repentance is when God gives you that new birth, and you turn.
You actually turn from yourself. You actually turn to Christ. Your mind is changed about what
you view sin to be. Sin used to be something you
done, and when God makes you know sin and what it is, it's
your very nature. It becomes your thoughts. It
becomes your words. It becomes your desires. And
it's just something that you understand that I'm something
that, oh, I never knew what sin was until Christ come and gave
me the new book. And then you want to turn from
that and turn to Christ, because you see, you greatly need that.
And then that's faith. That's faith. Repentance and faith happens
at the same time. You wouldn't be turning if you
didn't believe. You wouldn't be repenting if
you didn't believe. You wouldn't be embracing Christ
if you didn't believe. And then there's your calling.
And you know, that's how you know you've been born again.
That's how you know you've had the new birth and repentance
and faith. God called you. And how do you know you're called?
Because you've responded. You've responded to the gospel.
You've responded to the truth. Now, once there's the new birth,
God gives you that new nature, gives you that new life, gives
you that new heart, that new spirit, that results in repentance
and faith. There's something essential to
obedience. And that essential thing to obedience
is being baptized. One of them is being baptized.
Our Lord Jesus said in Mark 16, He says this, He said, Go ye
into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth, And I want you to understand that believeth
means not just believed, and then you don't believe anymore. Believeth is a faith, is a continual
living principle. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. There's no ifs, ands, or buts
about that. And boy, after men believed, they were baptized.
You know in Acts 2, I preached that a couple of weeks ago, where
it says, you know, they that gladly receive the Word, They
were baptized the same day. Men and brethren, what must we
do? Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And when Philip was preaching
to the Ethiopian eunuch, and he got through preaching Christ
to them out of Isaiah 53, and they came up to some water. They
stopped his chariot. And he said, here's water. What
doeth hinder me from being baptized? He said, if you believe with
all your heart, you may. He said, I believe that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God. And they went down together straightway
into the water, and He baptized him. They didn't say stood on
the bank, poured water on him, sprinkled water on his face.
They both went down into the water. And baptism follows faith,
believeth by faith. We're baptized by one spirit
into the body of Christ. By one spirit, we're all baptized
in mirth and put into the body of Christ. Now, I want to say
this also. It's not possible. Now, I want
you to understand this clearly. It's not possible that there
can be anything saving in baptism itself. Cannot possibly be. You see, water doesn't wash away
sins. You're coming because your sin's
already been washed in the blood. Christ has done put them away.
And under the Old Testament law, the covenant law, and the ceremonial
law, they had all kinds of washings. All kinds of washings under the
law, but not one of them ever put away sin. Not one of them
ever put away sin. And I'll tell you this, the tears
of Christ, Christ weeping. And you find Him weeping twice,
three times in the Scriptures. Three different times. He wept
over Jerusalem, He wept in Lazarus' tomb, and He wept in the garden.
And the Lord Jesus Christ, with His tears flowing from His holy
eyes, His tears would not put away one sin. No. Only His blood. It's without
the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins. And what
baptism is, is the outward expression of an inward faith. If faith
is in here, it's an outward expression of that. And I'll tell you something
about faith. Faith isn't dumb faith. You know,
faith isn't dumb faith. You know, faith can tell, give
a reason for the hope. The old timers, whenever they
take somebody in the church, they say, give us a reason for
the hope that's in you. I want to know why you believe.
Why are you coming to this ordinance for? And faith isn't a cowardly
faith. If you've got faith in Christ,
you're not afraid to come and be identified with Christ. Anybody
that really believes, they're not afraid to be identified with
Christ, be identified with his church, and they're not afraid
to get in the baptismal pool. They don't have a cowardly faith.
Somebody waiting to say, well, I'm waiting to make sure. That's
a cowardly faith. What are you waiting to make
sure of? Huh? What are you waiting to make
sure of? What are you waiting on? You want to make sure the blood
of Christ has the power to cleanse sin? You want to make sure you
know that Christ has the power to save you? You want to make
sure that Christ has the power to keep you? And I'll tell you, it isn't a
sneaking faith. The Scripture tells us, with
the heart, man believeth under righteousness, and with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation. What does that mean? That means
that you confess that Christ is your only righteousness. That
Christ is your only hope. That Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness for you. That Christ is all you need and
Christ is all you want. And that's what you confess with
your mouth. And that's under your salvation.
You're saying, this is my salvation. Christ is my salvation. And that's
from the heart. You believe that. And in your
mouth, you tell that. But it starts in here. And if
it's in here, it's coming out here. Don't you all agree with
that? And then look what Paul said
here in Romans 3 now, Romans 6 and verse 3. He says, No you're
not. No you're not. That's for many
of us. You know you're not. Many don't know the significance
of baptism. Many just don't know it. They
don't know it. They don't understand it. They
think it's just a ritual you go through and it makes everything
alright. But it's not. And then he went
on to say, you're so many of us. So many of us. He is saying that if unbelievers
and hypocrites and deceivers are baptized, that they're baptized
into the Lord's death. No. That's not what he's saying
here. He says so many of us, as we're
baptized into Jesus Christ, we're baptized into his death. There's
people that get baptized that don't know Christ. But so many
of us, as were, as were baptized into His death. And what baptism
does, beloved, is sets forth the death, the burial, the resurrection
of our Lord Jesus Christ, now listen to me, and our part in
Him. Our part in His death. Our part
in His burial. Our part in His resurrection.
And baptism teaches us two things. I've just got two points. Baptism
teaches us two things of our representative union with Christ. Christ, when He was in this world,
He represented us. He was our representative. He'd
come into this world not as a private person, but as a public person.
And everything He did, we did in Him. as our representative. And baptism teaches us of our
representative union with Christ. This is our creed, this is our
doctrine, that we're joined to Christ and everything He did,
we did in Him. And the second point is this,
our realized union with Christ. Now what do I mean by that? We
actually experience our union with Christ in the new birth.
Not just a doctrine, but our experience. of knowing Christ,
our experience of dying and being buried and rising and living
in Christ. And if we haven't experienced
these, then our baptism absolutely means nothing. We've not been
joined to Christ yet. And it's our experience of being
joined to Him. Now, here's my first point. Our
representative union with Christ, as is set forth here in baptism,
and it's a truth that ought to be believed, and it is believed
by us. He is our substitute. Christ
came into this world to be our representative, to be our substitute.
He was not a private person. Now, when we come to Christ,
we come as individuals, but when Christ came into this world,
He didn't come as an individual. He come as a representative of
a multitude that no man can number. For the Father gave Him a people
from all eternity, and He came into this world to represent
those people. And when our Lord Jesus Christ, He acted on the
behalf of His people. That's why it says, you know,
in verse 4, that we're buried with Him by baptism unto death. And what that means is, beloved,
that we realize that what He did, we did with Him. That's
why Paul said, I'm crucified with Christ. When was he crucified
with Christ? When Christ was crucified. Nevertheless
I live, yet it is not I that live. Who lives? Christ in me
lives. Two people? Yes, Him and Christ in the same
person. And, O beloved, and we believe
Him and accept Him as being dead and buried for us. And baptism
means a burial with Christ, and it means that we believe and
accept His death and burial as being for us. And you know, it's
like taking the Lord's table. You do show the Lord's death. Everything about these two orifices
tells us that we're showing them death and identifying with the
death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Huh? He came and became one with
us. He identified with us. He took
upon Himself the nature of a man, He took upon Himself flesh, and
He identified so with us that He was found in fashion as a
man. And beloved, as a man He come
here to identify with us, and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. And I tell you, beloved, what
we believe in this death of our Lord Jesus is that He took our
guilt. He took our sin, you know, wherever
there's sin, there's guilt. And when there's sin taken away,
there's guilt gone with it. And God laid on Him the iniquity
of us all. God thought He would bruise with
our iniquity. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him. He was wounded for our transgressions. It pleased the Lord to bruise
Him. He made His soul an offering for Him. Oh, beloved, and oh,
He bore our sins and suffered death on the body and His body
on the tree to bear our sins away. And oh, do you see Him
as your substitute? Do you see Him as your surety,
the one that took your death, took your responsibility, took
your place? Do you see Him as the one who
satisfied God for you? That's what Paul meant there
in verse 10, he says, excuse me, in verse 14, for sin shall
not have dominion over you, for you're under, not under the law,
but under grace. When a man's under law, trying
to please God by his own works, by his own deeds, trying to please
God by the energy of the flesh, sin always has dominion over
him. He's always upset with somebody, upset with himself, he never
has any peace. He's always upset that somebody's
not doing this thing, somebody's not doing that thing, and you're
always worried, you know, well, have I done enough to please
God? Have I prayed enough? Have I witnessed enough? Have
I done enough? Have I read enough? And, you know, and have I dressed
right and do all these kind of things? And, but he says, you
know, that beloved Christ put away our sins, so we're not under
the dominion of sin anymore. We're not under that law. And
that's what I mean that he satisfied God. You don't have to do it
anymore. And if you tried to do it, you
couldn't do it. What could flesh do to satisfy
God? What could you, a worm in the
earth, a grasshopper, ever do to satisfy God? To get on the
good side of God. In fact, God don't have a good
side or a bad side. He is as He is. He's holy, immutable,
eternally so. And oh, beloved, so you see,
and then not only His death, but being buried in baptism.
What we're saying is that the death of Christ was for us, that
we were in Him. that we died in Him and we confess
by going to the watery grave, we confess that our salvation
lies in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ on our account. That's what I'm saying. I take
His death to be for me. And what baptism is, is acknowledging
our own death in Christ. knowledge in our own death in
Christ. Look what it says there in verse 4 here, Romans 6. Therefore
we are buried with him by baptism into death. Into death. And you know what it says here?
I'm being buried because I'm dead myself. You don't bury living
men. You bury dead men. When Christ
was taken off that cross, when He was dead, they buried Him.
Is that right, not right? And that's what this represents,
that you're dead. That you died with Christ and
now you're going to die up here. You don't bury living men, you
bury dead men. Huh? If He died on my behalf,
then I died in Him. So my death needs to be buried
with Him. If I'm dead, then I need to be
buried. And that's what this baptism
represents, a burial. When you get in the water. In
Adam I sinned. In my first father I sinned.
But in my Lord Jesus Christ I lived. I kept the law. I satisfied justice. I died. Where at? In Christ. And what I'm doing, beloved,
in my baptism, what I do is I confess my oneness with the Lord Jesus
Christ in His death and His burial for me. Ain't that what our Lord
told His disciples? He says, you know, I must. They
remembered this after he was raised from the dead, that he
must go to Jerusalem, that he must suffer, that he must die,
that he must be buried, that he must rise again. And then
they remembered these words. Just suppose a man, he's been
convicted of an incredible crime, great crime. They put him to
death, they put him into electric chair and he dies. Now some great miracle, he's
brought back to life again. Can the law get him again? Can
they execute him again? Can he be buried again? What will be the state of his
mind and heart to regards to his offense? Will he go back
and commit that crime again? A crime he's already died for? And that's the way it is with
us with Christ. We have died with Christ. He
was crucified for the crime of sin, the awfulness of sin. Man must die for sin. Christ
died for sin. And He was buried. But God raised
Him from the dead. Now, if I died with Him, and
my sin died with him, then you reckon I'm going to get punished
and get executed again? No. And oh, beloved, that's what
it means. We're dead to sin. And then we're
buried not only, we take of his death and take of his burial,
but we are buried with him with a view of a resurrection, of
a rising. Ain't that what it says here
in verse 4 and 5? Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism
into death, like as Christ was raised up from the dead, by the
glory of the Father. Even so, we also should walk
in unison of life. For if we've been planted together
in the likeness of his death, what was the likeness of his
death? Whatever is like, that's the
likeness we have. That's the same death we have.
Same identical death. Ain't that right? And what's
His resurrection like? Whatever it is like, that's what
we're going to have to do. Oh, buried with Christ? What
for? To stay dead? No! No, no. To be raised just as Christ was
raised. To get where Christ is, we must
go where Christ goes. He first went to the cross. Then
he went to the grave, then he was raised from the dead, and
then he ascended on high, and he said, now, if we're going
to get there, we've got to go where he did. We've got to go
to death, we've got to go to the grave, we've got to go to
the resurrection, and we've got to go to glory. There ain't but
one way to do that, and that's through Christ. And that's what
all this represents right here. And, oh, beloved, it's by Him
we live, it's by Him, beloved, that we're with Christ, and we're
a living in Christ, and Christ is living in us. We live by Him,
to Him, for Him, and alive in Him. It's Christ in you. That's the hope of glory. And
that's what he talks about, you know, in there in verse 4. It
says, even so we walk in newness of life. We are of the new creation. We're new creation. We have life
from the dead. And that's what he says. We walk
in newness of life. We live in newness of life. Look
what it said down here in verse 17, Romans chapter 6. We live
in newness of life. That's what I was talking about
the new birth. It's God bringing into existence
somebody who wasn't there before. And you start realizing, I see
things, I hear things, I believe things that I never believed.
I'm understanding things I never understood. And you'll start
walking in this newness of life. And he says, but God be thanked. that you were the servants of
sin. There was a time that we were servants of sin, slaves
to sin. Listen to it. But you have obeyed
from the heart that form of doctrine, the gospel, the truth as it is
in Christ that was delivered unto you. Now, what's this? Being
then made free from sin, you become the servants of what?
Of righteousness. We walk in newness of life. As
Christ was raised from the dead, he walked in newness of life,
and so Thomas said, I ain't gonna believe that he's alive until
I put my fingers in his hands and my hand in his side. About that time, Christ appeared
to him and said, Here, reach in there. Touch me. He ate. He walked among them. Touch me. And so, beloved, and he walked
in unison of life. He had a different life when
he came from the grave, a different body. And, beloved, and there's
a glorified body, a new body, and that's what we walk in. We
walk in unison of life. He was raised from the glory
of the Father. God, by His glory, raises us up. And we remember
what it says, even so, in verse 4, last part of it, so we should
walk. Walk in unison of life. Walk in it. That means that you're
active in this business. You're not just sitting around
twiddling your thumbs. A Christian's an active person.
And then let me tell you this. That's our representative union.
Then what about the experience of it? This is what we believe
in our head. This is the doctrine that we
hold to. But what about what we actually
experience ourselves? What do we go through? The true
believer actually experiences death. When I mean when God starts
dealing with you, you know, that's why He says, let... Our Lord
said, except you deny yourself, you cannot be my disciple. What
does that deny yourself mean? That means that you die. You
turn against yourself. And beloved, the true believer
actually experiences death. And ain't that what it says there
in verse 3? That so many of us were baptized
into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death. And I'll tell
you something, beloved, I don't know how many I know from myself,
from my own experience, that when God showed me and taught
me that everything I believed and all that I'd done was actually
sin against Him, that I lied on Him, that I was trying to
make peace with God on my terms, trying to live right, whatever
that means. And when God showed me that I
was lying on Him and that my legalism and my self-righteousness
was the most despicable crime that a man could commit against
God, I thought, I died. It was like somebody dying. My
whole life had to die. And it was like dying. And it
was what it was. It's dying. It's saying, Oh Lord.
Paul says, you know, it says, I count everything but God that
I might win Christ. And so we actually experience
this death. And only dead men are buried.
Those who are still alive have no right. Have no right. Let me tell you something. The
true believer actually experiences it. You know, it's a matter of
experience, not just doctrine. The believers then, first of
all, to the dominion of sin. There was a time we obeyed sin. Sin was our master. Now it calls
us and we refuse to come. Why do we refuse to come? Because
we're dead. We're dead to its authority.
We're dead to its reigning power. Sin shall not reign over you.
You find somebody that sin reigns over and you found somebody that
don't know Christ. Oh beloved, those spiritually
buried with Christ is dead. Now listen, I want you to understand
me. I'm not, I'm deliberately saying these things. Those spiritually
buried with Christ is dead to the desire of the power of sin.
The desire of the power of sin. Now listen to me. Believers have
sinful desires just like anybody else. Their old nature, lust
to evil. But that true man, that new man, that man that's been
identified with Christ, that man who has actually come to
Christ and experienced Christ, that man desires to be purged
of every speck of, every trace of sin and evil. He longs for
the day when he's done with this flesh. And when sin comes calling,
he resists it and says, oh, God save me from this. And I'll show
you that here in Romans chapter 7. Look in verse 14 with me. We would live without sin if
we could. Live as perfect as God if we
could. And one of these days, bless
His holy name, we will. Bruce Pratchett and I was talking
about it the other day. Armenians and free-wheelers, they accuse
us of being antinomians. They say, well, you folks, you
know, because you believe you're saved by grace, and you're going
to be saved eternally, and you're going to be saved forever, that
you folks just, you know, you can just live any way you want
to, sin all you want to, and go to glory. Let me tell you
something. I don't know anybody who preaches
that, but I do know this, that they believe that. You know why
I know they believe that? Because people get saved and
get lost again. And while they're lost, they're
living in sin. That's true antinomianism. without law, and they come back
to Jesus, and they repent, and Jesus accepts them back again,
and they go back to the world, and it's back in and out, in
and out. That's true antinomianism. That's true without law, without
regard to Christ. Beloved, we regard Christ our
Lord to be everything, and God help us, we don't even, we want
to be over the desire of sin. And when it comes and entices
us and draws us, we say, oh God, please don't even let me thank
that, feel that, experience that, save me from it. You ever feel, if you feel envy,
you say, God save me from that. You feel pride, God bring it
down. You feel malice, God save me
from it, give me a tender heart. Oh, that's what I'm talking about.
We're talking about experience now. In Romans 7, 14, for we
know that the law is spiritual. What does that mean? That means
it gets into the innermost thoughts and intents of your heart. But
look at me. I'm carnal. I'm fleshly. I sold
another sin. Sin became a master. Now watch this. For that which
I do, I allow not. For what I would, That do I not. What I want to do, I don't. But
what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would
not, I have to say that the law is good. Why is it good? Because
it shows me my inability. Shows me I can't be justified
by it. Now watch this. Now it's no more I that do it,
but sin dwelleth in me. Now listen now. For I know that
in me, that is in my flesh, in my own nature, dwells no good
thing. Now this is what I'm talking
about right here. But to will is present with me. To will what?
To be without sin. To be without the desire. To
be not under his power, not to have it as our master. To be
holy. To live to honor God. And for
the will is present with me. But listen, but how to perform
that which is good, I find not. For the good that I would, I
don't. But the evil which I would not
undo. Now, if I do that that I would not, it's no more I that
do it, but sin that dwells in me. Would any of you all have
any self-righteousness or pride or envy or malice? Would you
have an evil desire, if you could stop it? Would you be critical? Would
you be angry without a cause? Would you be without sin if you
could? In your own flesh? Now that's what he's saying there.
It's sin that dwells in me that makes me this way. So I find
in the law that when I do good, and here you are. You're here
this morning to do good. You're here to listen to the gospel.
You're here to learn more about Christ. Learn more about yourself.
Learn something from the scriptures you hear. And you know you're
doing good. But I guarantee you, every one of you evils right
here with you. Ain't it? Mine goes here, mine goes under.
Flesh is weak. Get tired, get sleepy. What am
I going to do this afternoon? Oh, and I want to talk about
the laws of Christianity, but watch this. But I see another
law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, bringing
me in captivity to the law of sin. That's in my members. But
O wretched man that I am, that's what we cry out. That's when
you know you've experienced your relationship with Christ. You
never know you as a wretched man before, did you James? You didn't know you as a wretched
man until God does something for you. O wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from this body, this old flesh? of death, I thank God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. So with the mind, I myself, I
serve God. I love His law, I love His Word,
but with the flesh, the law of sin, it works in my members.
It's constantly there. But listen, there's therefore
now no condemnation to them that are in Christ. Oh, beloved, let
me tell you something. Back over here in Romans 6, it
says this. He that's dead, look at that
in verse 7. Romans 6 verse 7. For he that
is dead is freed from sin. Now, if we died with Christ,
and we've actually experienced this death with Christ, we're
freed from sin. Dead men don't feel guilt of sin. Dead men don't
feel the weight of sin. Dead men don't feel the punishment
of sin. Death men don't fear sin. in the sense that they know that
they've already died unto it once. And we're dead to the pursuits
and aims of an ungodly life. We're dead to that. Are any of
you who profess to be God's child living for yourself? Anybody
in here this morning who profess to be God's child, are you living
strictly for you? Are you living for the world?
Living for ambition? Living for money? Living for
fame? Living to to make this world
and all you get yours? Is that what you're doing? Have
any of you professed to live for yourselves? God's people live under God.
This is their new life. The object of their life is the
glory of God and the good of others. And if men and women
run after the pleasures and riches of ease and prize and praise
in this world, you may win the prize. You may win the prize. You go after the ease and riches
and praise of this world, you may win the prize. You may end
up with a pile full of money, big house, great retirement. You may win the prize. Everybody
brag on you, boy, look what he accomplished. You may win the
prize that you won for, but you'll miss Christ. You won't win Christ. He's the prize of our heart calling.
And oh, beloved, we're dead. We're not of this world. We're
dead to the guidance of sin itself. We're not guided by what will
please us most. No, no. what will gratify our
flesh. Our God is the Holy Spirit. Our
desire is what's good and acceptable to God. And let me tell you this,
and I'll hurry. Let me see how much time I've
got. I ain't been very long. Baptism is not only for the dead. Baptism is not only for the dead,
but it's a burial for the dead. You know, the burial is the seal
of death. Only those that are dead are
buried. When somebody's dead, you take them and put them in
a casket, and you take them out, and you bury them. And that's
what this represents. If you're dead with Christ, Christ
was actually put in a tube. And when you get in this baptismal
water, that's what you do. And you say, I'm buried. I'm
buried. That's what you do. And I've
heard of people being buried alive. I've read this, I thought
and I read it, that they'd put people in graves and they'd put
bells in there. So you know, if somebody was
alive after they buried them, they could ring that bell. And
they had what they call wakes in case the person would wake
up. And there have been people that
have been buried alive. And I tell you what, I'm afraid it often
happens in baptism. I'm afraid we bury a lot of people
still alive. You know, they ain't never died.
They ain't dead. When you die with Christ and
you be buried with Christ, you're doing that because you're a different
person. Baptism don't make a difference.
You're doing it because you're already different. You're already
new. You're buried with Christ because
you're dead to the world. You're dead to self. You're dead
to sin. And as a dead man, we become
to stinking to the world. And my message stinks to the
world. Like Lazarus, they say, He's dead! Well, that's all right. And burial is a display of death.
You know what? The funeral is for the rest to
know they're dead. When we go to a funeral, we go
because if I know they're dead. And that's what this is. This
is a funeral! This is a funeral rite by which
death, the sin, is openly set forth before all men. All separated,
huh? That's what Abraham said, bury
the dead out of the sight. And all beloved, the grave is
the place, the finality, the settlements of death. And when
a man is dead and buried, he doesn't go home again. It's irrevocable. And what baptism is, it's a confession
that we're dead to sin, alive unto God, and we're going to
walk in newness of life. Ain't that what it says there
in verse 9? Romans 6. Knowing that Christ being raised
from the dead dieth no more. Death hath no more dominion over
him. And then it also represents a resurrection. And I'll say
this quickly. There in verse four it says,
"...we are buried with by baptism that like Christ was raised up
from the dead by the glory of the Father." Verse five, "...if
we have been planted together in the likeness of his death,
we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." As Christ
was raised by the power of God, raised up by the glory of the
Father, by the power of the Father, that's what we did. That's already
taken place in us. We've already been raised from
the dead, quickened from the depth of sins. We have this new
life. And when we get in here, we're
saying, I'm dead with Christ. I died with Him. I really did. I did. I've experienced it. I'm
going to be buried with Him. And just like He was raised from
the grave and was resurrected, I said, that's what I'm going
to do. That's what I'm going to do.
And it's an unending life. It says there in verse nine that
Christ being raised from the dead, watch what it says, dieth
no more. If you've been raised with Christ, if you've actually
been raised with Christ, if you actually have Christ, dieth no
more. Dieth no more. Oh, no more death. That's why,
you know, really when a believer, actually the Lord calls them
home. That's why we rejoice so much
in it. Because that's not death, that's freedom. That's it, free. Oh my goodness, that's the body,
that's the tent folded up. That's the old house put away.
They got a new house, eternal in the heavens. don't they?