Believers Baptism - An Important Issue

Our text tonight is Mark chapter
16, verse 15 and 16. Our Lord Jesus Christ is speaking,
and he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach
the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned." After a service in this church
several years ago, in which the speaker brought an inspirational
message on baptism, I was standing at the door shaking hands. We
had some guests, some visitors, who are not Baptists, but who
have been my friends for many years. And on the way out, the
lady angrily shook my hand and said to me, you'll never make
a Baptist out of me. Well, I assure you and I assure
her that that is not my intention. I have no desire to make a Baptist
out of anybody. Being baptized scripturally does
not make you a Baptist. A person can be baptized scripturally
and be a Catholic. A person can be baptized scripturally
and be a Congregationalist or a Methodist or a Presbyterian,
whatever he wants to. In fact, I'm going to use tonight
in my message a Bible which was translated by the Episcopalians. Now, if you'll take your King
James Bible and open it to the dedication in the front of the
Bible. This Bible was translated, the
King James Version. You've got it here right in front
of your Bible. It says, to the most high and mighty Prince James,
by the grace of God. King James commanded this scripture
to be translated out of the original language into the English tongue. King James was the head of the
Episcopalian, or Church of England. And all the men who translated
this Bible in the year of about 1611 or 1616 or 1620 were men
who did not practice immersion. They were men who practiced the
sprinkling of infants, who immersed nobody, the men who translated
this Bible. You'll see that in the latter
part of paragraph 1, 2, 3, 4. You have the dedication here
It starts off, for when your highness, and these are the men
writing to the king, King James, dedicating this translation,
this work to him, they said, when your highness had once out
of deep judgment apprehended how convenient it was that out
of the original sacred tongues, the Hebrew and the Greek, together
with comparing of the labors, both in our own and other foreign
languages, of many worthy men who went before us, There should
be one more exact translation of the Holy Scriptures into the
English tongue. Your Majesty did never desist
to urge and to excite those to whom it was commended that the
work might be hastened and that the business might be expedited
in so decent a manner as a matter of such importance might justly
require." Now watch this next paragraph. And now at last, by
the mercy of God and the continuance of our labors, it being brought
under such a conclusion, they finished the work, as that we
have great hopes that the Church of England shall reap good fruit,
thereby we hold it our duty to offer it to your Majesty, not
only as to our King and Sovereign, but as to the principal mover
and author of the work. humbly craving of your most sacred
majesty that since things of this quality have ever been subject
to the censures of the ill-meaning and discontented persons, it
may receive approbation and patronage from so learned and judicious
a prince as your Highness is, etc., etc. We pray that through
this translation the Church of England might reap good fruit,
thereby the men who translated this King James Bible did not
believe in All right, I want to watch how they had to translate
it fairly from the Hebrew and the Greek into the English tongue. And we're taking a Bible translated
by members of the Church of England and preaching believers' baptism
by immersion. Now, I want to show it to you.
Now, the longer I study the Word of God and preach the gospel,
the more impressed I am with the importance the significance
and the beauty of believers' baptism. Turn with me to Matthew
3, and I want you to use your Bibles tonight, and I want you
to use them on every scripture, if you will. I'll try to give
you time to find each one. Matthew 3. Now, first of all,
our Lord Jesus Christ was baptized by immersion. Now here are these
Church of England professors and pastors and preachers translating
from the original tongue. They were scholars and therefore
they did it fairly. I give them credit for that.
They translated it fairly. And in Matthew 3 verse 13, Then
cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized
of him. But John forbade him. Now Christ
was thirty years old when this took place, thirty years of age. John forbade him, saying, I have
need to be baptized of thee, comest thou to me? And Jesus
answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now, for thus it
becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And Jesus,
when he was baptized, 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." Now, if there's
no other reason for a believer's baptism than this one example,
it's sufficient for every believer to be baptized. Our Lord, when
he was thirty years of age, came to the river Jordan, where John
was baptizing. And he requested John to baptize
him, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, our great Redeemer. And he has left us the example
that we should follow his steps. But not only did our Lord submit
the believer's baptism to the baptism of John by immersion,
But He commanded us to be baptized. Now turn to Matthew 28, beginning
with verse 16. Matthew 28, verse 16. Now this is after His resurrection. Our Lord was about to ascend
to the Father, and He left these instructions for His disciples. These are the marching orders
given to the Church, and we're not at liberty to change them.
These are our marching orders. Christ, in Matthew 28, beginning
with verse 16, as follows, Then the eleven disciples went away
into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.
And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus
came and spake unto them, saying, All authority, power, is given
unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit. Now in your Bible, you'll probably
have a little figure with the word teach. Go ye therefore and
teach. That means make disciples. Go
ye and make disciples of all nations. What do you do first? You make disciples. What do you
do second? You baptize them. What do you
do third? Verse 20, you teach them. teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you. What are
the marching orders for the New Testament church? Go ye into
all the world and preach the gospel. And the gospel, in the
power of the Holy Spirit, will make disciples. And what do you
do with disciples? You baptize them. And then you
teach them. You don't go baptize them and
then preach to them, baptize them, and then make disciples. You make disciples and then you
baptize them, then you teach them. Turn to Mark 16, the text which
I read a moment ago. I read it twice already tonight.
Mark 16, verse 15. Christ our Lord said to them,
Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth
not shall be damned. What do you do? You go preach
the gospel. To whom do you preach? Every
creature. And he that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved. Now, our Lord left us an example
that we should follow Him in believer's baptism. That ought
to be enough. Then our Lord very plainly commands
His disciples to baptize believers. And that should be enough. But
in the Bible we have examples of the apostles baptizing believers. Now turn to Acts 2. We're going
to go to several verses here now. Acts 2 verse 41. The apostles baptized everybody
who believed their message. Everybody who believed their
message followed the Lord in baptism. Acts 2 verse 41. Listen. Then they that gladly
received his word were baptized, and the same day They were added
unto them about 3,000 souls. Everybody who believed the Word
did what? They were baptized. This is in
Jerusalem. Now turn to Acts chapter 8. Acts
8, verse 4. Listen to this, Acts 8, verse
4. Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching
the Word. Philip went down to the city
of Samaria and preached Christ to them. Now look at verse 12.
And when they believed Philip preaching the things, what did
he preach? He preached Christ. And when
they believed the things that Philip preached concerning the
kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, what did they do?
What did it say there? They were baptized. Philip went
down to Samaria and preached. And when they believed what Philip
preached, he preached Christ. That's what it says in verse
5, he preached Christ. And when they believed Philip's
message, they were baptized. Now Acts 8 verse 36, let's look
at this. Philip went on down and preached
to an Ethiopian eunuch in a chariot. Verse 35, Then Philip, Acts 8,
35, opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached
unto him, Jesus. And as they went on their way,
they came to a certain water, and the eunuch said, Here is
water. Now if he wanted to sprinkle him, I'm sure the eunuch had
a canteen of water in his chariot. A man wouldn't travel all the
way from Jerusalem to Ethiopia without carrying a bucket of
water along. But the eunuch knew that baptism was not by sprinkling,
it was by immersion, and so he waited until he came to a lake.
And he said, here is water. Now what does hinder me from
being baptized, Philip? You have no reason not to baptize
me because here is a place where I can be baptized. And Philip said, if you believe
with all your hearts, you may. 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. Now remember, I'm reading a Bible
translated by people who sprinkle. At least they're fair. They both
went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he
baptized him. And when they were come up out
of the water, The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, the
eunuch saw him no more. Acts chapter 10, turn over here,
here's the household of Cornelius, Acts 10 verse 47. And it says in Acts 10, 47, Peter
went down there and preached to the people at Cornelius' house,
his servants, his family. He said, 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. Then Acts 16.33, turn to Acts
16.33. And here the Apostle Paul preached
to the Philippian jailer, to Lydia, to the woman who was possessed
of demons, Acts 16.33. You know, the man in jail said,
Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And Paul said, Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, verse 31, and thou shalt be saved. And
they spake unto him the word of the Lord, they preached the
gospel to him, and all that were in his house. And he took them
the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes, and was
baptized. Look back at Acts 16, verse 14.
Then a woman, a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple,
city of Thyatira, worshipped God, heard us, whose heart the
Lord opened. She attended unto the things
which were spoken of Paul. What did she do the first thing?
She was baptized. Now if we have no other argument
from the Scripture than the example and practice of these early disciples,
wouldn't this be enough? We follow their leadership in
Sunday worship. Here we are on Sunday morning,
and every church in this town but one meets on Sunday morning.
By what authority? By the authority of these apostles.
By the example of these apostles, the early church met on Sunday,
on the first day of the week. Let every one of you lay by and
store as God's prospered them. On the first day of the week,
Paul said, when we met to break bread, I preached to them. We
follow their example in the Lord's table. Why do we take bread and
wine? These apostles taught it. Paul
said, what I received of the Lord I deliver to you. In governing
the church, how do we govern a church? A pastor, deacons,
elders. Why? The apostles taught it.
By example and by teaching. Our moral practice, the apostles.
Why not baptism? What is there about believers'
baptism that men reject? What is it that's offensive about
baptism? We take all these other things
the apostles taught and then we ditch baptism. And there is
not one single example in this Bible from Genesis to Revelation
in a Bible translated by the Church of England professors
and pastors. There's not one text, not one
scripture, not one verse, not one example, not one illustration
of a single person baptizing an infant. Not a one sprinkling
an infant. There are plenty of examples
of them baptizing believers. And I'll show you something else
from this scripture. Only believers were baptized.
You say, why do you object to sprinkling infants? The biggest
objection is there. They're not believers. Christ
said, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel, he that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved. Christ requires faith
before baptism. The Bible does not talk about
adult baptism. I hear people talk about adult
baptism. It never mentions adult baptism,
it mentions believer's baptism. I don't care if a believer is
5 years old, if he's 50 years old, if he's 8 years old or 80
years old, he's a believer. But an infant is not and cannot
be a believer. And Christ said, you go make
disciples and then you baptize them. You go preach the gospel
and you baptize them. And we can go throughout the
Bible. Look at Acts chapter 8 again. What was it that Philip asked
this eunuch when the eunuch asked for baptism? What was the one
thing he asked him? The eunuch, in verse 36, they
came on their way and they came to a certain water and the eunuch
said, why can't I be baptized? What does keep me or hinder me
from being baptized? And Philip said, if you believe
with all your heart you may. You couldn't get one of these
disciples to baptize an unbeliever. You couldn't pay him to baptize
one. No way. You couldn't bribe him
to baptize one. Philip said, I refuse to baptize
you until you tell me one thing. Do you believe that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God? And he said, I believe that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God. And Philip said, let's have a
baptismal service. Turn to Acts 19. I want you to
look at this very carefully here. I want you to look very carefully
here. If you've left me, come back for a few moments and then
you can leave again. Acts 19, 1 through 5. Now listen
to this. And it came to pass that while
Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper
coast, came to Ephesus. And finding certain disciples,
he said to them, Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?
And they said to him, We have not so much as heard whether
there be any holy ghost. We don't know anything about
that. And he said unto them, Unto what then were you baptized? They had been immersed. They
had been baptized. And they said, Unto John's baptism. And Paul said, Why now? They
didn't say John baptized them. They said they'd been baptized
unto John's baptism. I don't know who baptized them. I don't know who put them beneath
the water. But they had gone through a ceremony of baptism,
immersion. They had been immersed. But they
were not believers. Now what's the next verse? Then
Paul said, John baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying
unto the people, who were baptized of him, that they should believe
on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.
You see what I'm saying? Paul came down here and found
some people who were religious, who were going through ceremonies
and so forth of religion, and they had been baptized. He said,
well, have you received the Holy Spirit? They said, we don't know
anything about those things. He said, well, unto what were
you baptized? They said, unto John's baptism. Well, Paul said, you must not
understand John's baptism. John baptized people who confessed
their sin and believed on Christ. John baptized people who said
they believed on Christ, who should come, the Messiah who
should put away sin. Now what's the next verse? When
they heard this, when they heard the message of Christ, when they
heard what baptism really signified, They were baptized in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, what I'm saying
is this. If you, as a child or as an adult, if you've gone through
the ceremony of baptism back years ago, and you went through
a form and a ceremony of baptism but didn't know the gospel, you
weren't baptized. You've got to be a believer to
be scripturally baptized. If you went through a form, for
example, say some preacher came along and baptized you, and you
did it just so you could go to heaven when you die, or just
so you could miss hell, or just so you could be a member of a
church, and then later on you heard the gospel or read the
Word of God and found out that salvation is in Christ, and through
Christ, and by Christ, and because of what He did on the cross for
us. Well, at the time you were confessing the Lord in baptism.
Because these people were not saved, but when they came to
hear the gospel, then they followed the Lord in baptism. And that
destroys this idea that it's unimportant. Paul could have
said, well, you folks already gone through a ceremony, that'll
be sufficient. Paul could have said, well, you
folks back yonder, you didn't know anything, and you were baptized
unto John's baptism, not unto Christ, not as a picture of his
death, burial, and resurrection, not as a confession of your faith
in him. You didn't even know him. You
didn't believe on him. You didn't trust him. But we'll
count that. No, he didn't. He preached the
gospel to them, and when they heard the gospel and believed
it, they were baptized. Well, we could go on through
the scriptures. Only believers are baptized. Turn to Acts chapter
8. Acts chapter 8, verse 12 and
13. Now watch this. Acts 8, verse 12. When they believed
Philip, preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God
in the name of Christ, they were baptized both men and women. There is a denomination which
teaches that the man is baptized for the woman. She finds her
way into the kingdom of God through her husband. She's saved because
she's married to a saved man. This scripture here says everybody
who believed, male and female, followed the Lord in baptism. And then in Acts 18 verse 8,
and of course I read about the jailer, I read about Lydia, I
read about the eunuch, and now in Acts 18 verse 8, and Crispus,
The chief ruler of the synagogue believed on the Lord with all
his house, and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and then they
were baptized. What I'm teaching is this. Baptism
is for believers, and it's for no one else. And the one question
that I would put to anyone requesting baptism is this, do you believe? Do you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ? Now turn to Romans 6. Now here's
another very important scripture. Romans chapter 6. The sixth chapter
of Romans. Now then, the mode of baptism. I hear people arguing about the
unimportance of the mode of baptism. It doesn't matter how much water.
It does. It does matter. I'm going to
show you this from God's Word. The mode of baptism, to be scriptural,
must be the immersion or burial of the whole body beneath the
water. Now, Romans 6, look at it. Romans
6, 1. 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. Therefore we are buried with
him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised 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
in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness
of his resurrection. What are we saying? The whole
point of this scripture is this, that the waters of baptism are
a figurative grave. They are a grave. Baptism is
a burial. The baptized one is dead with
Christ, he is buried in the likeness of Christ's death, and he is
raised from the water in the likeness of Christ's resurrection. In immersion, this picture is
complete. In sprinkling a few drops of
water in the face, there's no resemblance, not the faintest
resemblance, of a death, of a burial, or a resurrection. When a man
is baptized, he is what? He is confessing his sin. He
is confessing that the way of forgiveness is by Christ. When
a man is baptized, he is confessing, secondly, that he is a disciple
of Christ. Baptism does not mean that I
am a Baptist. It means that I am a believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ. When a man is baptized, thirdly,
he is saying this, that he has made a break with the old life
and he has begun a new life, the life of the resurrection,
a resurrected life. Our Lord's burial broke or divided
his earthly life into two parts. He was different on this side
of the grave. Over here, physical weakness. Over here, a resurrected life. Over here, dishonor, shame, humiliation. Over here, glory. Over here,
a natural body. Over here, a spiritual body.
over here covered with our sins, over here delivered from our
sins. And something like this happens
when a man is saved. In Christ he dies to the world. He dies to self. He dies to sin. He dies to his own ambitions.
And this old man, this old life, is dead and buried, and he rises
in the strength of Christ into a new and glorious life. And
baptism is an outward expression of this great inward work. I am dead with Christ, I am buried
with Christ, I am resurrected to walk in newness of life. As we set forth his death in
the Lord's Supper, we set forth our death in baptism. That's
what this scripture is teaching. then believers should be baptized
for baptism by immersion is a profession of their faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ." Now you can look through this Bible, all the way through
this Bible, and you can't find anywhere an example of people
confessing Christ by walking down a church aisle. by coming
to the front and giving a picture to hand. Now you check. Let the Bible be our only rule
of faith and practice. I'm not discouraging this. I'm
not saying that it can't be done this way. I'm simply saying that
the scriptural way of publicly confessing Christ was what? Baptism. It's all the way through the
Word of God. Every time a believer came to knowledge of the gospel,
what did he do? He was baptized. He was baptized. The apostle Paul, when Ananias
came to him and preached the gospel to him and gave the message
of God to him, he said, Saul, why do you tarry? Arise and be
baptized. And Paul, that very moment, was
baptized and confessed his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It
is a confession of my faith in Christ. What do I think people
ought to do? I'll be perfectly honest with
you. I believe preachers ought to preach the gospel as clearly
as they can in a bold and courageous manner. Preach the gospel. We
ought to witness the gospel. And when a man hears it, like
Lydia heard it, or the jailer, or the eunuch, or Cornelius,
or Simon, or any of these other people, when a man hears it,
he ought to present himself to the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ and say, the Lord has saved me, I am a believer, I
want to confess my Lord, I want to publicly tell the world that
Christ is my hope, Christ is my anchor, Christ is my refuge,
Christ is my redeemer. I want to follow my Lord in baptism. And when we are baptized, we
profess to the world our belief in these distinct truths, that
Christ Jesus, the King of glory, came into this world in human
flesh. And he lived on this earth as our representative, obeying
perfectly God's holy law. That he went to the cross as
our substitute, bearing our sins, and died according to the Scripture.
That his dead body was taken down from the tree and placed
in a tomb. And on the third day he arose
again according to the Scripture, and he is living today at the
right hand of God. And that's my hope. And when
Christ died, I died. When he was buried, I was buried.
When he arose, I arose. And I'm putting the old life
behind, and I'm dying to the old life. I'm being buried, and
I'm rising again to walk in newness of life." Well, if somebody says, Brother
Mayhem, do you think that baptism is essential to salvation? No,
sir. You believe a man can be saved
without being baptized? Yes, sir. Do you have a scriptural
example? Yes, sir. Abraham. David. You say, they weren't
saved by the blood of Christ. Oh, yes, they were. Now, but
one way of saving sinners, and that's by the cross. Well, what
about in the New Testament? Was anybody saved without being
baptized? The thief on the cross. Baptism is not essential to salvation,
not the water that puts away the guilt, it's the blood. It's
the blood that maketh atonement for the soul. Without the shedding
of blood, there's no remission of sin. Well, then if baptism
is not essential to salvation, why preach it? Why make an issue
of it? There are many commandments of
Christ which are not essential to our redemption. Giving your offering is not essential
either, but I notice these preachers preach it all the time. There are a lot of things that
are not essential to my salvation. Reading the Word of God is not
essential to my salvation now that I know Christ. There are a lot of laws of God
that are not essential to my salvation. But you know something? True love knows no distinction
between the essential and non-essential. If it's the Word of God, it's
my commandment. If it's the Word of my Lord,
it's important. Whether it's essential to my
life, whether it's essential to my redemption, whether it's
essential to my going to heaven or not, if my Lord commanded
it, it's essential. It's important because true love
doesn't sit around and try to decide how much it can get away
with or how much it can leave off or how much it can keep from
doing. True love says, Lord, what will
you have me do? And whatever you'll have me do,
that's what I'll do. He that believeth and is baptized.
That's public confession. And I think the church ought
to go back to the old days when men preached the gospel And then
they cried out there when Peter finished his sermon at Pentecost.
Men and brethren, what shall we do? Peter said, repent and
be baptized. That's what he said. Repent and
be baptized. He was doing what his Lord told
him to do. He was going to all the world
making disciples and baptizing them. And then after he baptized
them, he set about to teach them the ways of the Lord. Let's bow
for prayer. Our Father, we love this Word,
but our chief desire is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us
not make an idol of the Word. Let us not make an idol of doctrine.
Let us not make an idol even of the Lord's table and baptism
and these things which Thou hast commanded us. Let us not be sidetracked
on these issues we preach Christ in whom crucified. But thou hast
told us to go and make disciples, and baptize them, and teach them
all things, to observe all things whatsoever thou hast commanded.
And thou hast commanded thy people to be baptized. And we ask thee
tonight to make clear these scriptures. Let us obey our Lord Let us set
forth his death, burial, and resurrection, and our own death,
burial, and resurrection, to walk in newness of life. And
let us move on to other things which thou wouldst have us to
learn, growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ. In his name we pray and for his
glory. Amen. Let's sing number 388.

Believers Baptism - An Important Issue

Sermon Transcript

About Henry Mahan

Comments

Joshua

Articles

Featured Authors

Podcast

Sermons

Featured Preachers

Books

Browse by Format

Music

Recent Comments

About

Legal

Subscribe

Account

Articles

Featured Authors

Podcast

Recent Comments

Sermons

Featured Preachers

Books

Browse by Format

Collections

Music

About

Legal

Subscribe

Believers Baptism - An Important Issue

Sermon Transcript

About Henry Mahan

Comments

More from Henry Mahan

Related Sermons

Same Scripture

Articles by Henry Mahan

Books by Henry Mahan

Joshua

Where this book stands in the tradition

Plato

Augustine

The Western Christian Tradition

This Book