Matthew chapter 3. Hey babe,
does that, I've noticed some of the videos, the light kind
of glares behind them. Does that make the video look
better? Not change much? Make it a little
worse? Okay. Matthew chapter 3. We are continuing our study of Christ's
Church, the Ecclesia. And we've been looking at several
different subsections. And for those who are listening
and watching today, if you haven't been following along over the
course of the last few months in our series, I'd encourage
you to go back and particularly look at the very beginning where
we define what the word church is, how the Bible defines, I
should say, what the church is. There are dictionary definitions
and there are lexicon definitions that men give, but our concern
isn't what lexicons and dictionaries say, it's what the word God says.
And how does God use those words? God's the one who give us language.
God's the one who give us the languages that the scriptures
were written in. And those languages that God
give for us to know things, we have written down for us and
kept and preserved for us in the word of God, translated into
English. And I believe that the King James
Bible that we use here is a faithful translation to the Word of God,
and thus is the Word of God. And although the words in here
sometimes have meanings that we have to kind of hunt and look
to understand those meanings, because, and here's the thing,
Brett, and I'm trying not to get sidetracked here, but you
realize that the Bible was written in Hebrew, and the Bible was
written in Korde Greek, and that those languages are dead languages. They don't exist anymore. God
sovereignly chose two languages that would cease to exist, and
I think the reason for that is because they can't be tampered
with. I guess they can be tampered
with if you start telling stories about what they mean, You know,
language is a living thing. The English language is a living
thing. You know, it changes from year to year, from decade to
decade, from generation to generation. Words, meaning, has different
meanings to them today than they had back when. Back in the early
days, if someone said, matter of fact, I believe it was at
the Flintstones, on the song on the Flintstones, at the end
of that, we'll have a gay old time. Well, that has a totally
different meaning today, doesn't it? The word gay then meant jovial,
happy, celebratory. It meant having a good time,
joyous. Now it doesn't mean that. It
means that somebody lives a sodomite lifestyle. Okay? Language is
a living language. And that being a living language,
it can have different meanings. And so we have to do our due
diligence in our studies to make sure that we're not applying
our common day knowledge of what words mean, or what the secular
world says they mean, to the word of God. The word of God
must define itself. And so that's why there is importance
for us to look and to see what God's word says. I believe that
with the English Bible, that the child of grace taught by
the Holy Spirit of God doesn't have to necessarily rely on the
Hebrew and the Greek, that they can be led in that as they study
that. But they must meditate on that.
The Holy Spirit must bring them to that revelation of that. But thank goodness we still have
tools that can take us to the Hebrew and the Greek, that can
make our study time and meditation on some of these things a lot
easier and quicker to see what these things mean. And especially
whenever we have the word of God that we can go to and find
every place that that word, that Greek word or that Hebrew word
is found and look up all those verses where that word is used
and see in the context and how it's used and see how God defines
or uses that word himself. And thus we bow to that definition
instead of man's definition that is found in man's dictionaries
and lexicons and secular use, okay? Now, whenever the secular
use and the use the way scripture does lines up, hey, that's wonderful.
But we take what God's word says above everything else. Now, with
that being said, we have the scriptures that is written, and
these words that are behind that sometimes has a hard way of being
translated into English to get the full meaning of the word. And so sometimes alliterations
must take place. Sometimes another word has to
be substituted so that we can kind of get the idea of what
words mean. But today we are looking at the
ordinances of the church and we're going to start with baptism. And brethren, this surely, surely
is one of the most heated, controversial, and debated issues in all of
history. Yeah, the doctrines of grace
is a pretty heated issue, but there has not been any more issue
throughout history that the church of Jesus Christ has been persecuted
over than that of baptism, the ordinance of baptism. All through
the dark ages, all through the early colonial ages here in America,
all through the times from the early church, men and women,
churches have been persecuted because of their stand on the
ordinance of baptism. And we'll find that many, many,
many throughout history, and even in the United States, were
killed, persecuted in some way or another, given hardships,
imprisoned, beat. There were times in the United
States where children of Baptist churches weren't allowed to go
to school unless they submitted to the baptism that was taught
by the Anglicans and those who were Paedo-Baptists. They weren't
allowed to go. They had to submit to those things,
and the Baptists wouldn't do that. And so a lot of the children
were not being educated because of that. Anyway, there's a lot
of history behind this ordinance of baptism and the Baptist and
how they have stood for these things for all years. And I'll
just say at the onset of this thing, I know there are many
brethren that's probably watching and listening that deem that
this thing is not a very important topic, that it shouldn't be something
that we ought to really make much of a fuss over. And I don't
think that I should deem somebody unsaved because they don't view
this the same way that we believe the scriptures are teaching here.
And I definitely wouldn't break a loving brotherly relationship
with any Christian who truly believes the gospel, but yet
sees things different than this. But brethren, whenever it comes
to church fellowship, whenever it comes to what we believe in
the churches that we fellowship with and everything, that I do
believe that this is a place where we do have to stand. That
the New Testament churches follow what Christ taught and what Christ
instituted. And I believe that that is a
true mark of a New Testament church are those who are following
the commands of Christ. If you remember before we get
to our passage, I'll just read again, you don't have to flip
over there. But if you'll remember the commission that Jesus Christ
give to the first church and every subsequent churches that
come throughout the history, because every church is made
the same way as that first church. If you remember, Jesus give the
command to that church and said, go ye therefore and teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost. So in the commission, we are
taught to baptize and if baptism was not an important thing, then
why did Jesus put it in the very commission that he give to the
church? As he was leaving and giving
authority to the local church to carry out the service and
ministry of the gospel in his absence, the very thing that
he gave the charge, the call, the instructions of what was to be
to encapsulate The beginning of the very ministry of the gospel
was this, go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. If baptism,
water baptism, is not important, then Jesus should not have put
that in the commission to that first church telling them, here
you go, I'm leaving, here's what I want you to do and how I want
you to do it. And of the most utmost important,
the first thing he said was teach, The second thing he said was
baptized. The second thing he said was
baptized. Now, baptism began before the church even was gathered. Baptism started before the church
even gathered. Why? Why did that? I mean, wait
a minute, why is that? I thought you said that baptism
is a church ordinance and that it should be done by the church,
in the church, by the church. Well, brother, there had to be
a time of this transition from the old ways under the old covenant
and to the New Testament. And the church is something totally
different than what was in the Old Testament. The church is
not all the elect of God, as we learned in our study, is not
all the elect of God. The church is a gathered assembly
of people who already have repented and believed and have been baptized. And if you remember, John the
Baptist was one who was sent by God to prepare a people for
the Lord, and that's what he did. And so baptism, before you're
ever brought into the church, you have to be baptized. According to the scripture, there
is no member of the Lord's church that's not scripturally baptized.
So again, if baptism is not important, then church isn't important.
And if church isn't important, then we need to take a lot of
the teachings of Jesus and the epistles and throw them away.
Because the instruction was epistles, the letters were to the churches.
All the epistles were letters to the churches. Jesus wrote
to the churches in Revelation. He gathered his church and he
said, on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell
shall not prevail. So he was instituting and building
a church, and that was his purpose before leaving. John's purpose
was to prepare the people, Jesus's was to gather and institute those
people as a church, and then he left that church the authority,
delegated authority, with instructions and commands, to carry out that
ministry of teaching, baptizing, and indoctrinating, and spreading
the gospel in every generation. Baptism, water baptism is extremely
important because it is one of the things that Christ has commanded
for us to do as the church, and we'll see later here what that
represents and what it shows and all those things, but I want
you to see that this whole thing of just thinking that water baptism,
the mode of baptism, baptism in general, is not an important
thing, I believe you missed the mark. And I believe those who
say that, well, we need to center on Christ, just like we talked
about a few weeks ago. You know, going off on all these
secondary issues, we should be preaching Christ and Him crucified,
the gospel, the gospel, the gospel, the gospel, the gospel. Brethren,
whenever you teach about baptism, and especially whenever the church
in the ordinance of baptism performs that ordinance, it is preaching
and teaching the gospel. The gospel is in the baptism. The gospel is in the Lord's Supper. And those are two ordinances
or memorials that Christ has given to the church to carry
out, to be a visible testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so, we must take those ordinances
and those symbols that he has given for us as memorials, and
those things must identify with those metaphors or those symbols
or those, you know, all those things has to find its substance
in the literal real thing. Okay, the reason that the symbol
is given is to point towards the substance. The symbol of
baptism is to point to the real thing. The symbol of the Lord's
Supper is to point to the real thing. It's to remind us, it's
to show forth the gospel of Jesus Christ and those ordinances that
were given for that very specific reason. And to say that it's
not important, brethren, is to say that what Jesus has commanded
is not important. And it is part of the gospel.
The ordinances of Jesus Christ pour forth the ordinance of,
or excuse me, the gospel itself. And so we should not shrink back
in preaching and teaching baptism, instructing and admonishing and
encouraging people who come to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
to be baptized. I've heard some people preachers
preach and say, you know, I don't think that we ought to hound
people about being baptized, you know. Well, I don't think
that we ought to just keep on and on and on and on on them.
But I know one thing, they shouldn't be included into the membership
of the church if they're not baptized, for one. Okay. Second of all, we should encourage
them to be baptized. What does the Bible say? Go ye
therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father. So we ought to be teaching them the gospel to begin
with, then baptizing them. But what if they say, well, I
don't know if I want to be baptized. Well, we teach them that the
word of God says you should be baptized. If they haven't been
taught that, if they haven't been taught the gospel, and what
the first step in obedience and in coming into the Lord's church
is all about, then we haven't rightfully done what the first
part of the commission says, teach them. We haven't made them disciples.
If you remember back when we had our discussion on the commission,
that word teach, all nations means to, it means to make disciples. We've seen that in Mark, account
of the commission. to go with the gospel and make
disciples? Well, a disciple is a follower.
Remember we talked about that? A disciple is someone who follows. Well, if this person hears what
you're teaching and what you're saying, but doesn't follow after
what Christ says, then they're not a disciple. And if they're
not a disciple, then they are not a candidate to be baptized. Because here it says that the
people that you baptize are the them that have been made disciples.
Okay, so baptism is for disciples, is for believers, not for infants. Baptism is not for infants. Infants
do not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. So baptism is not for
that, and we'll get into all that as well. I'm gonna cover
paedo-baptism, I'm gonna cover what the symbolism is and how
it pertains to the Old Testament, or does it pertain to the Old
Testament. We're gonna talk about all those things our study on
baptism. But today, I want us to see a
few things in that, number one, baptism by water as an ordinance
is important. Now, we're starting a sub-series
on the ordinance of the church. There's two ordinances that we
believe in the New Testament church, and that is that of baptism
and that of the Lord's Supper. Baptism and the Lord's Supper.
Baptism was instituted in the church before the Lord's Supper
was instituted into the Lord's Church. John began to baptize,
and as Jesus came, as we're fixing to read, was baptized, and then
as he began to gather those first men and gather the church, he
then began to baptize, not him himself, but his apostles, began
to baptize as that church began to grow. As they gathered people
in, they baptized them and added them to the number that accompanied
with them throughout the ministry of Jesus Christ. That was a prerequisite
to be a part of that company, is to be baptized. John preached
it, Jesus preached it, the disciples preached it, the apostles preached
it, the first church preached it, and the deacons and those
who were scattered throughout the area preached it. Paul preached
it. Even though Paul said, I am not
sent to baptize, that doesn't mean that they didn't baptize.
Paul said, I didn't baptize. I wasn't sent to baptize. And
everyone says, well, there you go. Paul didn't baptize. Well,
that's not true. If you read your Bibles a little closer, Paul
did baptize some people. What he's saying is the issue
of baptism isn't the main thing I'm going. The main deal I'm
going is to the Gentile to preach the gospel. Baptism is a thing
that happens after you preach the gospel, they're brought back
to the church, and the church baptizes those people. Paul wasn't
the pastors of the church. Okay, so Paul, yes, his ministry
wasn't given to baptize, although he had that right to, because
he was given authority by that church, and by Christ, by the
way. Remember, the apostles had an
authority that isn't given to any of us today. Okay, they had
an apostolic authority given directly by Christ in this time
period of setting up the church. And as the institution of the
church was set and the scriptures were set, the apostles were no
longer needed. We didn't need that anymore.
Okay, so the ordinance of baptism, very important thing. And you
know, I hope that my brothers and sisters that believe differently
than that, that are watching and listening, I hope that we
still can be friends, but I'm sorry, that is something that
I have to stand on because I believe that the word of God is very
clear about that. And I think that that is the
one baptism that the scriptures talk about, not Holy Spirit baptism,
which we also will cover in this study on baptism. Now, turn with
me to Matthew chapter one, if you're not already there, or
excuse me, chapter three. And just a reference of this,
while I'm not gonna read the, we're not gonna read from this
passage, but I want to remind you that this man that we're
about to talk about, in John chapter one, the Bible says that,
in John chapter one verse six, that there was a man sent from
God whose name was John. One thing we have to understand
is John was specifically sent by God. That's who commissioned
John. Some people say John's baptism
is not New Testament baptism. It's Old Testament ritual bathing. That's not true. Some people
say that John's baptism was not Old Testament bathing, but it's
not Christian baptism. It's something in between. That's
not true either. John's baptism is the same as
Jesus's baptism, as the first church's baptism, Christian baptism,
began with John. There was a man sent by God,
his name was John. Now look in Matthew chapter three. In those days came John the Baptist. Who gave him that name? Was it
his mother and father? That wasn't the name that was
given by his mother and father. Did John just pick that out and
say, yeah? No, this was the name that was
given to him by God. God gave him this name. John,
and by the way, that's not his last name, okay? His name ain't
John the Baptist, okay? I used to think that as a little
kid. I didn't know much, I thought
his last name was the Baptist. His name isn't John the Baptist,
it's John the Baptist. That word Baptist we
know means to immerse, to submerge, to dunk, to dip, fully immerse,
okay? That's what that word means.
The word behind that is baptizo. It's found multiple times throughout
the New Testament. It's also found in the Old Testament,
in the Septuagint. We find that this word, as defined
by the scriptures, and as understood by those who heard this word,
is understood to mean immersion. to submerge. Now, I'll probably
do this later in our study on baptism, but I will also show
you that even the very prominent, of course, again, we don't care
what theologians say, we don't care what creeds and confessions
say, but for the sake of showing how the mindset today has become
weakened and watered down and distorted that today, Paedo-Baptists
are even claiming, a lot of the Paedo-Baptists are even claiming
that that word baptizo understood even by Jesus and all them, that
it wasn't immersion, that Jesus wasn't even immersed. They poured
water on him, or they sprinkled water on him, okay? There are
some of the prominent Paedo-Baptists today that are going against
what even their forefathers in the Protestant denominations
even said. And so I'm gonna take some time
to go and historically show you what some of these Protestant,
Pado-Baptist even understood this word to mean. And so we'll
do that. I decided not to start off with
that this time, but to do that afterwards, let's stick with
what the Bible says first, and then we'll look at other stuff.
I did it kind of backwards whenever we did it on the church, but
this time I'm gonna just start with the Bible. Matthew chapter three, verse
one. In those days came John the Baptist,
John the Immerser, John the Submerger, John the Dipper, John the Dunker,
okay? Preaching in the wilderness of
Judea and saying, repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Okay, so John preached repentance, right? For this is he that was spoken
of by the prophet Isaiah saying, the voice of one crying into
the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord, make his path
straight. And the same John had his raiment
of camel's hair and a leather girdle about his loins, and his
meat was locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem,
and all Judea and all the region round about Jordan and were baptized
of him in Jordan." So they were baptized in Jordan, not at Jordan. While they were at Jordan, they
were in Jordan. They were down in the water being
baptized. Confessing their sins. All right, so John is preaching
repentance. and he is baptizing. Okay, is
that not what the Christian church does? Preach repentance and baptize? And what are these people doing?
The ones who are being baptized, they're confessing their sins.
Those who confess their sins are those who have repented,
right? They realize whenever they confess
their sin, they have come to the realization that this is
sin, I have been sinning. And that is wrong, that is against
God. And they confess those sins as
to say, I have been wrong in my thinking about what I've been
doing, and I confess that I've been doing these, and I'm guilty
of these. Who has that capability to do
that? Well, only those who have been
born from above have been given an eye to see those things, and
a heart to confess those things. And were baptized of him in Jordan,
confessing their sins. But when he saw of the Pharisees
and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation
of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Bring forth therefore fruits, meat for repentance, and think
not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham as our father.
For I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise
up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid
unto the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree which bringeth
not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.
I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. But he that
cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy
to bear. He shall baptize you with the
Holy Ghost and with fire, whose fan is in his hand and he will
thoroughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into the garner,
but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Now
let's just stop right there. Notice there that John is preaching
repentance Those who are coming, confessing their sins, showing
forth fruit of repentance, John is baptizing. But listen, there's also others
that were there that has shown not fruit of repentance, and
John forbade them to be baptized. Look what it says there. But
he saw the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism and said
unto them, O generation of vipers, Who hath warned you to flee from
the wrath? Bring forth fruits of, fruits, meat for repentance. And so John did not baptize them. So this tells me also that, and
here again, this is a rub with many people. Well, who are you
church to say who could be baptized and who could not be baptized?
That's a personal thing. Well, here John says that there
must be fruits of repentance. before baptism should be administered
to anyone. And he told these guys, hey,
I'm not having, you're not there, brother. You're not there. Bring
forth fruits of repentance and then come back for baptism. But
see, today's society, we're so quick to dunk anybody into the
water that just raises their hand and says, I love Jesus and
I want to accept him into my heart. There needs to be fruits
of repentance. Now, we're gonna see later in
some other verses, especially in Acts, that that fruit of repentance
is turning from self-righteousness, it's turning to Christ, believing
upon him, receiving the word of the Lord. Well, the first
and foremost thing of repentance is believing the gospel, the
true gospel. That's the first thing of repentance.
See, brethren, this is what, you know what the number one
sin is of us? Some people say, well, it's unbelief.
That's kind of true. I mean, that's a closely knit
part of the main sin. But you know what our main sin
is? Our main sin is unrighteousness. See, we're unrighteous. Therefore,
we sin because we are unrighteous. We're not righteous. And the
biggest sin that comes from unrighteousness is self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is that innate
thing that's in our nature. You've seen it with Adam and
Eve right at the very beginning. That innate thing that is built
into our nature that says that there is something that we can
do to either be like God or to make us acceptable to God. Now, Adam and Eve, what did they
do? Lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, pride of life. What
did they do? They saw that they could be like
God. Self-righteousness. What was
the first act that they did after their minds being opened to good
and evil? What was the first thing they did? They went and
made fig leaves for themselves. They thought that that would
be good enough to please God. Was it? Whenever Christ come
strolling through the garden, asking where they were, they
showed forth themselves in those fig leaves. What was the first
thing that Christ did? Took those fig leaves off and
said, that's not good enough. See, self-righteousness is the
first sin and the overarching sin of all sins. That is the
most grievous sin, actually, according to the scripture. to say that we can gain favor
with God by something that we as unrighteous people can do. The works of the flesh profit
nothing. The flesh cannot please God. And to try to gain God's favor
by that which he has already deemed unprofitable to him, unworthy
of him, as something that he will not accept, then that is
a slap in the face of Jesus Christ who came so that his righteousness
might be made the righteousness that God accepts. See, it is
only by Christ's righteousness that we are saved. And to say
that our righteousness is put up as something that God would
accept means that our righteousness is on par with Christ's righteousness.
You see the blasphemy of that? And so here, whenever someone
comes and they have not repented of that, their self-righteousness. And brethren, listen, Arminian
preaching, their gospel, at the foundation of it is the hinge
pin of someone laying their own self-righteousness, their decision,
their understanding, their, you know, whatever, accepting Jesus,
deciding for Jesus, willing to come, Believing all that stuff
is something that is done of the flesh. Now truly, those who
have been born again, they believe from the heart out of a new life. But to say that you got to do
that to get born again, then that is blasphemy because the
only thing that the bad tree can produce is bad fruit. That's what John is saying here.
All you're producing is bad fruit, you're a bad tree. He says, bring
forth fruits, meet for repentance. The only fruits that you're bringing
forth is fruits of self-righteousness. So baptism, first and foremost,
requires a new birth. Baptism, secondly, requires repentance. Belief of the truth and a turning
from the untrue. That's why here we don't baptize
anybody who doesn't believe in the gospel of sovereign grace. If they still believe in the
Arminian gospel, that we have a decision or the free will to
make that decision, that God doesn't make the decision, that
he hasn't predestinated these things, that the child of grace
isn't elected before the foundation of the world. If they do not
believe that part of the gospel, then they still have to be taught
and made disciples. See, we're still in that disciple-making
phase with these people. And in that disciple-making phase,
guess what happens? Sometimes disciples go away.
Remember where Jesus taught the doctrines of grace in John chapter
six, and it says, after that, many of his disciples went away
and never more walked with him. So they actually never became
disciples. They quit following Jesus. So
thus they were never disciples. That's why Peter says that they,
although they were among us, they never were of us because
if they were of us, they wouldn't have went out from us. Paraphrasing that. So see, we
see here that to make one a disciple, which is a prerequisite to baptism
according to Jesus, to make one a disciple, one must be following
what Jesus has said about the gospel. What the word of God
says about the gospel. So if someone comes and says,
hey, I've accepted Jesus into my heart, and I'd like to be
baptized, and we start to ask them about, well, tell us about
your salvation. Tell us about what the gospel.
I ask. One of the things, matter of fact, in our closed church
group that we have on Facebook, I have some questions on there. And for anyone to be accepted
into that closed group, the private group, they have to answer these
three questions, and one of them is, you know, explain the gospel. And if, you know, if they don't
explain it, I think, well, no, they probably ought not be in
here, okay? Then I point them to our public
page, where all of our sermons are, where all of our teaching
is, and I post a few things here and there, and let them do that,
because at that point, we don't need anybody in the private part,
bringing dissension, bringing discord, all that kind of stuff,
we don't need that. Same thing like here at the church.
You know, someone is free to come and attend, but they don't
become members of the church and have the full rights and
membership of the church, the Lord's Supper and the decision
making of the church and being part of that, if they have not
yet believed the gospel. So we teach them making them
disciples, and that's what John is doing right here too. The
same of what happened after with the first church. John is doing
nothing that what the new church did with a fuller expression
of understanding that Jesus gave them, but John did the same thing.
He preached Christ, he preached repentance, he baptized, and
there was confession of sin. Same thing that we do now. Same
thing that we do now. And then there was rejection
of those who did not have that. So brethren, do we have the right
as a church, if somebody does not believe the gospel, to reject
that baptism? Well, absolutely we do. That's
why we don't accept into membership and don't accept baptism from
those who have been baptized in Arminian Gospels. Because
those churches do not have, and I'll get into this also in the
study, but they do not have the authority to baptize because
they're not a New Testament church. And it's funny to me the inconsistency
that we see among a lot of sovereign grace people, especially in this
area of baptism. A lot of people, they will be
quick to say that the Arminian gospel is a false gospel. They'll
claim that that's a false gospel. And I'll say, well, what about
the pastor that's preaching that? They're a false teacher. Strongman,
that's a false gospel. That's a false teacher. Well, what about that church?
Some may kind of quibble about this, but a lot of them will
probably say, yes, that's a false church. It's got a false gospel,
false pastor, false church. Okay, but what about somebody
who's been baptized in there? Is that baptism false? Well, that's a personal thing. That's an answer to, that baptism
is an answer to the conscience, you know. That's a personal thing. That person believed whenever
they were baptized, it didn't matter where it was at. Well,
brethren, I believe that that's wrong. And here's the other thing. A lot of the men that I've discussed
this with that hold that position, that don't matter. I'll ask them,
I'll say, well, what about a Mormon? My grandparents or my grandmother
has Mormons in her family. You know, these Mormons, they
believe that Jesus is the Christ. They believe that Jesus is God. They believe that baptism is
by immersion. Now, isn't that what we believe? Does that make them orthodox?
No, because they have some weird ideas about Jesus as well, but
they do believe those things. Now, would you accept the baptism
of someone from the Mormon Church? And almost 100% of everybody
that I've asked that in these discussions has said no. And
then I asked them why. Because that's a cult. Well,
what makes them a cult? Well, because they hold to this
and to that. I said, okay, well, what is that? It's doctrine.
They're preaching the wrong doctrine, right? That's what it all comes
down to. Those people who have been baptized
in that Mormon church under that Mormon doctrine, believing the
Mormon gospel is identifying with that gospel and saying,
I'm being baptized to show for that gospel that has been preached
to me that has made me this disciple. So is not doctrine connected
with baptism? Absolutely it is. It's not just
that Christ died, was buried and resurrected. It's that Christ
died according to the scriptures, was buried and resurrected according
to the scriptures. And Christ dying according to
the scriptures, there's a lot behind that. And the gospel that's
behind that, And if they don't believe that gospel according
to the scriptures, then that baptism that they were baptized
as a disciple saying I'm following that is invalid because not only
did the administrator who administrated their baptism not have the right
to because they were not a gospel church, they in their profession
professed the wrong doctrine, professed the wrong gospel in
that even though it may have been a full immersion. Even though
it may have been saying that I've died with Christ, was buried
and resurrected, it's according to what it, but in the back of
your mind, what was the gospel that was picturing? And this is what, this is what
John was doing. He's saying, you're not showing
forth fruits of repentance. See, repentance is turning from
the false way of thinking about the gospel and looking at it
the way the Bible teaches the gospel. And until you do that,
you have not repented. You might have repented of, you
know, stealing. You might have repented of cheating
on your wife. You might have repented of being
a drunkard. But you haven't repented of the
wrong gospel. You've not repented of works,
dead works. You're trying to work your way
to acceptance with God. And so because you're still think
that salvation is a choice or a decision or a act of belief
that you do, you've not repented. So you're not worthy to be baptized. See, this is why people don't
think baptism is so important because they don't see the connection
that baptism has with the gospel. Baptism has a close relationship
with the gospel and it's from the very inception with John
All the way through the rest of the New Testament, we see
the importance it's laid and how it is tied to the gospel. But we say, or excuse me, it
says, verse 13. Then come with Jesus
from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him. So Jesus
came from Galilee all the way to Jordan to be baptized
with John. Couldn't Jesus just have went
to somebody in Galilee and said, hey, would you, woo-hoo, dump
me in water? No, he went from Galilee to Jordan. I'm not for sure exactly how
many miles that is. I've heard preachers talk about
that. I think it was like several, a lot of miles. from Galilee
to Jordan. You can look in the back of your
Bibles at your maps if you want to and see how far it is. But
anyway, he walked from Galilee to Jordan. Why? Because there
was a man sent from God to baptize. You know, I've heard of people
that have been saved and seen that they need to be baptized,
but have not found any churches in their area. And they have
sought out other churches that they believe are New Testament
churches and have traveled there so that they could be baptized.
Now, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that. They're
going to be baptized. They need to be baptized in a
true New Testament church. But I'll say this. The Bible
also teaches that once they are baptized, that they are to be
indoctrinated by the church. The encouragement would be, well,
yeah, come get baptized, but hey, won't you move out this
way? Join our church. Nowhere in scripture, and I know
that there's one example that somebody's going to bring up
about the Ethiopian eunuch, but I think I have a thought on that. There's no place in scripture
where someone was just baptized and released to go do their own
thing. And if the Ethiopian eunuch is
the only place, that is the only place. Everywhere else in scripture,
those who were baptized, but you know, it really doesn't matter
what we see in all that. The scripture that Jesus gives
us throws enough weight that those who are made disciples
are to be baptized and then to be taught all things whatsoever.
There is a responsibility on the local church to those who
have been made disciples by the ministers, by the people in that
local church preaching the gospel wherever they're at, to bring
that person back to be baptized and to be indoctrinated in Christ. Jesus came from Galilee to John
because John was authorized by God to perform this new ordinance of baptism. And he
was the only one that was authorized to do that. Look with me in Acts
chapter two. I'm sorry, Acts chapter one. John's baptism, besides those
of the apostles, the disciples during the time that Jesus had
gathered the people. John's baptism was the only authorized
baptism. Look, if you would, this is where they were. Again,
we've read this many times, and I know you guys are well aware
of this, but I want people listening and watching to take note of
this. Acts chapter one, verse 20, this is where they are replacing
Judas Says, for it is written in the
book of Psalms, let his habitation be desolate and let no man dwell
therein, and his bishopric let another take. Wherefore of these
men, men, not women, okay? The apostles were men, and the
offices in the church are men, not women. That's nothing saying
bad about women, that's just how God has set that up. Says,
wherefore these men which have accompanied with us all the time
that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us. Church, let's talk
about the church, the 120, okay? Beginning from the baptism of
John. So anything that happened before
John, that wasn't Christian baptism. Anything that happened before
that time wasn't Christian baptism. But here, the apostles, under
the direction of the Holy Spirit, is saying that John's baptism
is Christian baptism because they recognize that as the prerequisite
for this man to take the place of apostle. And they also identify
that those who are accompanied with them also had the baptism
of John. Matter of fact, many of them,
were baptized by John. And so we see that the baptism
of John is nothing to just slough off. The baptism of John was something
that was very important. Number one, Jesus came to John
to be baptized. Number two, after Jesus' ascension,
the local church looked back to John as the beginning of what
they did as far as baptism is concerned. And they considered
that valid baptism because those who were baptized with the baptism
of John were those who were able to be considered for this role
of apostle. And that everyone that accompanied
with them, it began with John. In fact, I think it's in the
book of Mark, chapter one, it says, the beginning of the gospel
of Jesus Christ the Son of God, behold, I send my messenger before
thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The beginning
of the gospel of Jesus Christ as it began to be unfolded, you
know, in the Old Testament, the gospel was veiled, but it began
to be unveiled in the New Testament, right? Well, here we see that
the Holy Spirit brings Mark to right that the beginning of the
gospel or the unfolding of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, began with, prepare ye the way, the work and ministry
of John the Baptist. Let's not discount that. John
was a man sent of God, and now the Lord's churches are the ones
who are sent by God. It's important that we continue
to exercise baptism. and command and to absorb baptism.
Look at verse 14. But John forbade him, saying,
I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? So what was John saying? He said,
whoa, wait a minute. You know, you're the Lord, you
know, I ought to be baptized by you. Now, look what Jesus says here,
because this is very important, and a lot of people just throw
this off. And Jesus answering said unto him, suffer it to be
so now. What does that mean, suffer it
to be so now? It doesn't mean that the baptism
hurt, okay? It doesn't mean that it was hurting
John to do the baptism. Although I've baptized a few
big guys like me and it's tough. Matter of fact, Brother Howard,
he had a pretty good time getting me up out of the water. I kind
of had to halfway baptize myself and pull myself up. Brother Howard
couldn't quite get me all the way up. Probably should have
had another guy up there in there with me. Not to mention the water
was cold and both of us were freezing to death when I already
did that. Suffer it to be so now. What
does he say? He says, allow it to be so. Let
it be so. He said, let it be so now for
thus it becometh us. It didn't say him. Us it becometh
me to fulfill all righteousness. Do you see that? That's something
that I kind of picked up on in my studies this week. For some reason in the back of
my mind, I kept thinking that it was saying, that thus it becometh
me to fulfill all righteousness." Because it's Jesus' righteousness
that counts, right? But what did he say? He says,
for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. See, Christ
being baptized was part of the command of God that he should
take. You know, he said, all that the
Father has given me to do, I've done it. I've done everything
that the Father has told me to do. Well, this is obviously something
that the Father has told him to do because it is part of fulfilling
righteousness. But yet for him to do it and
include John means that somehow, some way, that the tie between
the administrator of the baptism and the one being baptized, that
that created all righteousness. See, John, the administrator
of baptism, and Jesus, the candidate for baptism, both of them doing
that together was the purpose of God and how God had designed
baptism to be done. Thus it fulfilled all righteousness. So that was part of all the righteousness
that Christ was to come and fulfill. Well, part of that was to be
baptized and not baptized by just anybody, that he had to
be baptized by the man that John sent, or that God sent. Now,
brethren, we see in the commission that Jesus only sent one thing,
one group, or one institution to baptize, and that was his
church that holds to his gospel, his teachings, his doctrine,
his ordinances. If they don't do that, they cannot
fulfill all righteousness. so to speak. They are not following
what Christ has laid down for us. Christ said there has to
be the right person to fulfill all righteousness, and I've come
to that right person. That's why he told John, suffer
to be so because this is what the Father has ordained. You're
the man that was sent to baptize, to institute this ordinance of
baptism and to baptize those who have believed and repented
and shown forth fruits of repentance, confessing their sins, you're
the man that God has ordained to do this. He didn't ordain
the Pharisees, the Sadducees. He didn't ordain the priests
and Levites to do that. John's own father, Zacharias,
wasn't ordained to do that. Who was? John. Who is the Lord
now giving that command to? The church. And they do that in connection
with the gospel of Jesus Christ. The baptism is the first sign
and symbol and showing forth visibly of the gospel that has
not only taken place historically and internally. There is an importance
in that baptism and that baptism The sign of it, the out forth
showing of it, must be commensurate with the reality of what it was,
if it's to show forth that picture or to be an example of it. And
I tell you what, the death, the burial, and the resurrection
of Jesus Christ is not pictured in sprinkling and pouring. Jesus said, suffer it to be so
now for thus it becometh us, to fulfill all righteousness.
Then he suffered him. John followed along and said,
okay, well, that's what it is. And okay, he suffered him. And
Jesus, when he was baptized, immersed, look what it says,
went up 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. There's only
a couple of times throughout scripture that you hear from
heaven God proclaiming, this is my beloved son in whom I am
well pleased. And you know where the first
time was? Right here after he got baptized. Why? Because he did something that
was part of fulfilling all righteousness. He's done something that is fulfilling
all righteousness. All right, so baptism is important,
correct? You think that? I hope so. The Bible put a lot of emphasis
on it. All right, let's take a break there. Use the bathroom,
get a drink. It's 10 after 11, and we'll meet
back here in about 10 minutes. 11.20, we'll say 11.20, and we'll
pick back up. with our study here and continue
on till next time.