Well, I'm gonna go ahead and
get started anyway. Somebody want to catch that back door
or the front door? Oh, wait a minute. Somebody's
coming in. It's Jules. Jules without a walker. Look
at her. Hey, Miss Harper. Well, it's good to see you out
this morning. I appreciate everybody showing up. Thank you for that.
Remember those who requested prayers. Sylvester, brother Roland,
was it night before last? Thursday, his brother Roland,
that means it's just him and Mary left out of the Crow kids. His funeral's at Big Wheat's
Church on Monday at 11, Sunday, tonight I guess at 6 p.m. is
the visitation. That's Big Wheat's Baptist. And the burial will
be at Crow Family Cemetery, so remember this family in your
prayers. seek the Lord's help for them. Now today we're going
to serve what I believe to be the three ordinances of the church,
that is, preaching of the gospel, the Lord's table, and then after
the services, we're going to baptize Lindsay over in the creek.
And we're thankful for that. The Lord has blessed her to come
to know Jesus Christ, and there can't be anything better than
that in this world or the next. So we're thankful for that. Other
than that, I can't think of any announcements. I'll repeat this
at the end of the service so you remember it. I'm not rolling. Let's begin our worship service
with a great old hymn, hymn number 222, There is a Fountain Filled
with Blood. There is a fountain And sinners plunge beneath that
flood, lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty
stains. ? Lose all their guilty stains
? ? And sin has plunged beneath that flood ? ? Lose all their
guilty stains ? ? The dying man rejoiced to see that day ? May I go now as ye wash all my
sins away. Wash all my sins away. Wash all my sins away. as he washed all my sins away. Dear dying lamb, thy precious
blood shall never lose its power, dear Lord. Be safe to sin no more. Be safe to sin no more. Be safe to sin no more. And there may I go vile as he. Be safe to sin no more. And since my faith I saw the
stream, thy flowing roots supply. Redeeming love has been my faith,
and shall be till I die. And shall be till I die. And shall be till I die. Redeeming love has been my theme. And shall be till I die. Then in a nobler, sweeter song
I'll sing thy power to save I'll sing thy power to save I'll sing
thy power to save After scripture reading and prayer,
we'll sing hymn number 40, Great is Thy Faithfulness. If you have
your Bibles, turn with me to the Gospel according to Matthew
chapter 28. The last chapter of Matthew. We just
want to read two verses of the scripture. make that three in verse 18 our
Lord says and Jesus came and spake unto them saying all 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 Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you and lo I am with you always even Let us pray. Our Father, gracious,
merciful, wondrous in power, we thank you for your word, which is what we have in this
world when all else is fading away and decaying. Your word
stands sure and endureth forever. We thank you that your word teaches
us about Jesus Christ and what he's done for his people and
the full salvation of his people and the elect. And he has told his disciples
and those who know the truth because all power is invested
in him in heaven and in earth. Therefore, without fear of censure,
go out and preach the gospel to every nation. Those who come to know Christ
baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. We are thankful that we do not
go into this world with a message that will not be heard. We know,
as Paul said in the letter to Corinthians, we are always victorious in preaching
the gospel. It is always a sweet-smelling
savor unto thee. To some we preach it as a savor
of life unto life to others it is a savor of death unto death
but it always does what it is intended to do we thank you father
salvation is of the lord that you did not consider us in aiding
you in any way in the salvation of our souls father we pray today
as we worship you in the manner in which you've given the preaching
of the gospel, the taking of the Lord's table, and the baptizing
of one of your children. We ask, Lord, you'd be with us
in the presence of your Spirit. Take the things of Christ and
show them unto us. Cause us to look to Him in all
things and look away from ourselves, to trust in Him and have no confidence
in the flesh. Help us, we pray, for those who
are sick, We ask your help. We're thankful that Teresa came
through the operation well. We pray for Arlene as she looks
forward to this possible operation on her eye. We pray for the Crow
family because of the loss of Roland. We ask, Lord, you'd be
with us, watch over us, and help those who need you. Well, all
of us need you. So help us all, we pray in Christ's
name. Amen. Hymn number 40, Great is Thy
Faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness, O
God my Father, there is no shadow Thou changest not Thy compassions
they fail not As Thou hast been Thou forever will be Great is
Thy faithfulness Great is Thy faithfulness Morning by morning
new mercies I have needed thy hand hath provided
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me Summer and winter and
springtime and harvest sun, moon, and stars in their courses above,
joined with all nature in manifold witness to thy great faithfulness,
mercy, and love. ? Great is thy faithfulness ? Great
is thy faithfulness ? Morning by morning new mercies I see
? All I have needed thy hand hath provided ? Great is thy
faithfulness Thine own dear presence to cheer
and to guide. Strength for today and bright
hope for tomorrow. Blessings all mine with thee. Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies
I see. All I have needed thy hand hath
provided. Great is thy faithfulness. Let us pray. Father, again we
approach in the name of Jesus Christ, our great and merciful
high priest, who entered into the holy place with his own blood,
the holy place not made with hands, and obtained redemption
for us. We know that you have given us
all things in him, and let us return to thee that which you've
given us with joy and thanksgiving. We pray in Christ's name, amen. so so You. back to matthew chapter 18 chapter
28 verses 18, 19, and 20. The subject this morning is baptism. I talked with a young man who
is a preacher in Ole, Pennsylvania this week. He told me that his
15-year-old daughter came to him last week or the week before
last and told him that she had received the Lord and she wanted
to confess him in a believer's baptism. I talked to Jim Byrd
He's baptizing one of his grandsons. He baptized the other one about
two weeks ago. One was in the army and the other
one's not in the army. The one who's not in the army
is the one who'll be baptized. But he was talking to his brother
and he said, I just don't feel my sin enough. I don't think,
I don't see what I am enough. And his brother says, there are
too many I's in that sentence. That's your problem. Get away
from you and look to Jesus Christ. Good, good, sound advice. another
woman came to Jim and said she was baptized about 50 years ago
but she didn't really understand and believe the true gospel of
Jesus Christ and she wanted to be baptized again and so Jim
is baptizing too today we're thankful for that I was sitting
here I was thinking about Philip in the early church when the
Holy Ghost came to him and said go join yourself to a charity
it's in between Jerusalem and Gaza in the desert there's an
Ethiopian man there a eunuch who's a servant of Candace Queen
of Ethiopia and he's reading a portion of the scripture that
he probably purchased back in Jerusalem and that portion is
Isaiah 53 which tells of the victorious vicarious voluntary,
vicious death of our Lord Jesus Christ and the absolute success
of it. Where it says, after it says
he's borne our sorrows and carried his griefs and with his stripes
we are healed. The Ethiopian eunuch read those
words and looked at Philip and said, are these talking about
himself or somebody else? And from that text, it says in
Acts that he preached to him Jesus Christ. And so Philip joined him to the
chariot and asked that Ethiopian, you know what you're reading?
You understand that? He said, no, not unless somebody
explain it to me. So he explained to him Isaiah
53, which ends this way. It pleased the father to bruise
him. he is put into grief and when he shall be tortured he
shall see his seed and the glory of the Lord shall prosper in
his hand and he shall see of the travail of his soul and be
satisfied to avail his birth pains you mothers know about
those You know, the most unsatisfactory thing that could ever happen
if you would go through all the travail of birth and have a stillborn
child or have a child that didn't make it. That'd be the saddest
thing a mother could go through. Jesus Christ went through the
travail of giving birth to his elect people. And he's never
known a miscarriage, for he shall see of the travail of his soul,
and shall be satisfied, for by his skill my righteous servants
shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities." And after the Ethiopian Union,
her dad, he says, well, what does hinder me from being baptized?
I want to be baptized. I want to confess. Jesus Christ. He said, well you can't if you
believe with all your heart. He said, I believe based on what
you told me about Isaiah 53. I believe Jesus Christ is Son
of God. They stopped and got some water and baptized him. Baptism. Everybody does it it seems. As
to the word itself, it is an English transliteration of the
Greek word baptizo. Transliteration is not a translation. Transliteration has to do with
sound rather than meaning. An example of that, the Cherokee
words for those mountains over yonder, that one gap is called
nadokye li, which means sun in the middle. But it's been transliterated
because of the sound of those two words together, and it's
been called nanta. But the original, the Greek word
baptizo has been changed in the English or transliterated to
the word baptize. There was a design to expand
the scope of the meaning of the original word. They wanted to
change it from what it originally meant to mean a little bit more
than it meant to start with. For the Roman church and most
of the reformed churches that came out of her, the word baptized
means to initiate into the church. It doesn't mean that, but it
does in those churches. It's synonymous with the word
christened, with the word christened, and when it's ministered to infants
in a supposed covenant of induction into the body of Christ, the
church. You take your baby for christening, and he sprinkles
some water on his head, and make a cross with the holy water,
supposedly, and that introduces him into the body of Jesus Christ,
which is the church. This is based on tradition and
not revelation, and where we get the word christened, which
is often erroneously substituted for the word Christianity. The
Roman Church and her Reformed stepchildren hold that salvation
is initiation into the Church. Rather than a personal and vital
relationship with Christ, it's called a traditional salvation
rather than a personal salvation. Traditionally, you are entered
into the body of Christ through baptizing. Thus, baptizing an
infant, in effect, saves the child in that theology saves
the child because it initiates the infant into the church. Now
the mode of baptism at these employ is sprinkling or pouring
water on the head of the baby. In the Anglican Church, invented
by Henry VIII so he could legally divorce Anne Boleyn without any
eternal consequences, the tradition of infant baptism still meant
initiation into the church and thus salvation, but dealt more
specifically with mode. Now, because King James, who
commissioned the authoring of the King James Bible, which we
hold very dear, because King James, who sanctioned the English
version of the scriptures, had been administered infant baptism
in the Anglican Church by sprinkling a literal church, or a literal
translation of the word baptizo, would have left the King James
out of the church. He didn't want to do that. The word baptizo, means to bury
or to immerse. Bury in water. It doesn't mean
anything else. If you were to go to the Greek
Orthodox Church, who still uses the Koine Greek, and ask them
what baptizo means, it means you go under the water completely
with your body. You're buried in the water. It has nothing to do with naming
or initiation into the church or a family covenant or tradition,
nor does it have anything to do with babies. One fellow approached
an old preacher and said, I believe in infant baptism. And the preacher
says, why do you believe that? He said, well, you know, it says
that the Philippian jailer, when Peter preached the gospel to
him, the old house was baptized, and the children were baptized
too. And the old preacher says, well, that boy's son, that Philippian
jailer's son was 19 years old. And the fellow said, where did
you get that? He said, the same place you got infant baptism. same place you got in from baptism. It is everywhere in scripture
seen as a confession of a believer who by definition is one who
has heard the truth of the gospel that is in Jesus Christ and has
been given faith to trust wholly in the merits of Jesus Christ
for the salvation of his soul. Baptism, scriptural baptism is
by immersion and it's for believers and no one else. Several years
ago, a young man attended church twice here, fine young man, lived
in Big Cove. And after the second time, he
says, I wanna be baptized. And I said, why? He says, because
I wanna be saved. And I said, well, you need to
stay in church for about another two years and listen to what I have
to say. Then we'll talk about it. He never came back again.
Baptism is not a sacrament. That means when you're baptized,
you don't get some special unction from heaven, some special blessing
from heaven to be baptized. A sacrament is an invention of
religion which by false men declare that grace is conveyed or channeled
to one who observes this ritual. The ordinances of baptism at
the Lord's table are called sacraments by much of religion, but they
are not. They're not sacraments. Both
are confessions of Christ and neither conveys any spiritual
gift. I'm going to take Lindsay and put her in that water today.
I'm going to put her completely under the water. People have
said I'm too old to do it myself. Loretta said that. So Steve's
going to come out and help me. He'll think I can put you down
and get you up. That's what they think of me. but I'm gonna put
her under the water. I'm gonna put her under the water.
And she'll go in the water and come out exactly the same. She
won't be no different sinner. She won't get no special spiritual
gift from heaven. Grace will not be conveyed upon
her. She'll be wet, but that'll be what she'll get. But what
she's done is what matters. She's confessed the Lord Jesus
Christ. Baptism is administered to and
received by those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ,
made righteous by imputation, and have been given faith to
trust in Christ alone. They are for the children of
God, and as they partake of the ordinances, they are confessing
their sin. In fact, when you show up here, I realized this
some time ago, everything we do in the name of Christ is a
confession of sin. Why are you here today? You could
be Summers Ellis, having a good time, doing something else, going
fishing. You could be doing that. Why are you here today? Whether
you realize it or not, your presence here to hear the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ is you are confessing your sin. You're confessing
your need to be here, to hear the truth of the gospel. Baptism at the Lord's table,
a source of nothing, but rather a declaration of the successful,
completed work of the Lord Jesus Christ for helpless and ruined
sinners. They are public confessions of
the child of God that their salvation was accomplished by Christ alone,
not for remission of sins. Not for remission of sins. Baptism
is saying Jesus Christ, 2,000 years ago, on Calvary's tree,
suffered punishment for my sins, and died the death that I owed
God, and He did it for me, and I want to confess that my hope
in this world, my hope alone, is what He did 2,000 years ago.
That's what I'm doing when I'm being baptized. Baptism is not
regeneration. One does not receive spiritual
life by baptism. Spiritual life comes by the will
of God through the Holy Spirit, by the preached Word of the Gospel.
And like natural birth, the one born is completely passive in
the receiving of life. When you were born, you did nothing. Your mama did everything. You
didn't do nothing. You're totally passive. Not only
that, you didn't consult with your parents to be born. You didn't ask to be born. You
didn't choose to be born. You were born by the power of
your mama and your daddy. You didn't choose that. You were
totally passive in it. You are in the new birth also.
You didn't consult with God to be born again. The reason you
consulted with God was because you was born again. Because you
was born again. Baptism is symbolism. This symbolic
picture is a confession of something that has already been completed.
In Romans 6 and Ephesians 2, baptism is a confession that
the believer was in Christ 2,000 years ago in his life, in his
suffering, in his death, in his resurrection, and his ascension.
Baptism is a declaration that only believers are allowed to
make, and it is a declaration of a thing that already exists.
Over in Colossians, Paul draws a comparison between circumcision
that was required of Abraham and baptism, which was required
by God and administered by the Church. Both circumcision and
baptism are tokens. They don't do anything. Abraham
was already a child of God, chosen of God to be the father of many
nations before God gave him the right of circumcision. He was
God's child before he was circumcised. Abraham was not given circumcision
to establish a relationship with God, but to reveal and distinguish
him as one who had a relationship with God. Likewise, baptism does
not establish a relationship with God, but confesses that
a saving relationship already exists. Indeed, that salvation
has already been fully accomplished from all eternity, and baptism just tells it out.
Baptism is a picture of a willing submission of the believer to
the righteousness of God, which is in Jesus Christ. To be baptized
is to be acted upon. Not to act. To be acted upon. The one who is baptized gives
their life, as it were, into the hands of the one who is baptizing
them. They surrender themselves into
the hand of one who puts them into an environment and an element
in which they cannot breathe and cannot live. They trust that
that person to both put them in the watery grave and bring
them out alive. This pictures faith in Jesus
Christ. The believer gives himself over
to the sovereign will of Christ to live or die at his good pleasure,
trusting that in the end he will be brought forth into everlasting
life. But he died in Christ. and his life is with Christ now. You are dead and your life is
hid with Christ. Baptism is the believer's public
confession that someone else represented him before God. By
being immersed and buried in water, the believer is saying
that he is fully saved by the merits of another, even Jesus
Christ. Romans 6 verse 3 says, So many
as were baptized were baptized unto his death. Just as receiving
the Lord's table, he is showing forth his death until he comes
again. So is baptism. Baptism addresses the conscience
according to 1 Peter 3 and verse 21. Peter says we are saved by
baptism. But they are comparative language.
He's using that in comparison to the like and as and like figure. Peter's comparing baptism to
the flood in the sense of salvation. He's using the flood as a picture
of baptism. In fact, all of Noah's family
were saved, not by water, but being in an
ark on the water. They were saved in that ark.
They were saved while on the water and in the water. They
were saved. They were saved in and by the
ark which pictured Christ. The water represented the judgment
of God that pummeled them. Not them. It pummeled the ark
that they were in. The comparison then is that which
is represented by baptism. It pictures death which is judgment. We are saved when the judgment
of God fell upon Jesus Christ. Noah was saved from judgment
by the ark. But he went through the judgment.
He was in on it. He went through the judgment
in the ark. He was there. He didn't bypass the judgment.
He was right in the middle of it. Forty days and forty nights
of rain. It took over a hundred years
for the water to run off the earth. What saved him? Not avoiding
the judgment. He's right in the middle of it. In baptism you're confessing
that you're right in the middle of Christ on Calvary's tree. Believer believes God and we
know that because in faith he enters into salvation that is
in Christ. In faith. The waters of baptism
do not save us. They are a confession that we're
in the ark. Water didn't save Noah. The art did. Who was in the art? God was in the art. After he
brought in the animals and he says the Lord said come in the
art. He didn't say go in. He said
come in the art because he was already in there with them. Baptism
is to be the answer of a good conscience toward God. People rely a great deal on their
conscience, and the conscience will tell you when you're doing
something wrong. There's no doubt about that. Well, let me tell
you this about your conscience. It operates in the realm of the
law and the realm of sin. Your conscience can never really
help you. What your conscience will tell you to do is go to
your flesh to remedy the problem, and that'll create more. When
Adam sinned against God in the Garden of Eden, When he did eat
of that fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
when he was restricted by God from doing that. He ate of that
fruit. And it doesn't say that Eve tempted
him. Eve was tempted to eat of the
fruit. Adam, all it says of him, and
he did eat. He ate. And when he did that,
his conscience started bothering him. He realized, oh my goodness,
I messed up here. So he went and sewed together
some fig leaf apron and hid from God. Why would he do that? Because
that's what the conscience told him to do. Conscience says, you've got to
cover your sin. You've got to cover your sin.
You've got to cover it. And so he did. And then he heard the
voice of God. And conscience says, oh, God
showed up. You better run and hide. And he did. He ran and ran in the bushes.
Conscience will tell you what to do to straighten out your
life, but let me tell you, after you do what conscience tell you
to do, it'll tell you that ain't enough, and it'll never be enough. The Holy Spirit does not operate
in the realm of the conscience. The law does. The law does. The answer of a clear conscience.
What is the only good answer to a clear conscience? to the conscience's accusation. The only good answer is I am
not guilty. The answer to a good conscience
when it's plundered into just condemnation for sin, death,
picturing waters of baptism, is death has no claim. Death
has no claim on me when we baptize Lindsay today, when she's underneath
that water, it could be her death. She said, you don't have no claim
on me. You don't claim on me. I died with Jesus Christ. I judged
with Him. I was judged in Him. What is
the answer to a good conscience? The only way your conscience
will ever be quiet is there can be no ground upon which it can
accuse you. That's the only way, friend.
So how in the world can you get there? Only by perfect sacrifice. where your sins have been put
away by the blood of Jesus Christ, where God has promised He will
remember your sins no more, where you are justified, sanctified,
made completely righteous before God. You say, well, that's not
me. Yes, it is if you're His. Now, I know what you think of
yourself, and I know what I think of myself. I ain't nothing but
a rotten sinner saved by grace. Not how God sees me. God sees
me robed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, pristine and
holy. I stand before him, welcoming
his presence, the thrice holy God, the God whose eyes are too
pure to behold evil, before whom the sun, moon, and stars are
not pure in his sight, says to me, because of the blood of Christ
coming to my presence, you're welcome. And you're only welcome
there if you're perfect. I said, well, I'm not perfect. But tell me how God sees you,
not how you see yourself. Stop looking at yourself. Ain't
nothing there. Ain't gonna get you nowhere looking
inside. You can look at your navel all you want to. It ain't
gonna get you nowhere. Except sorrow and anguish when
you find out what you really are. The answer to a good conscience
is there's no ground upon which it can ever accuse you. No charge
can be laid to your account. There are people, according to
Romans chapter 4, whom the Lord will not charge with sin. Who
are they? Those for whom Christ died and
paid their sin debt. And when the believer is immersed
into the waters of baptism, he or she is declaring that there
is not and nor ever has been nor ever will be an accusation
that can justly remain against them. That's what you're saying
when you go in there today. Nobody can accuse me. God can't
accuse you because He's forgotten your sin. So if you're troubled
in conscience, realize this. It ain't God doing this. It's
the law. It's your old legalist nature.
The believer is plunged into representative death, and the
judgment that comes up, and judgment that comes up out without a scratch
because he enters into protected by the blood of Jesus Christ,
and the ark pitched within and without. Baptism is a confession
of Jesus Christ. Nothing more, nothing less, and
nothing else. and what a confession it is.
What a thing for an old wretched sinner, for an old wretched sinner
to go into the waters of baptism because he trusts that before
God he's without sin. Those waters of baptism represent
death. What we're going to do next represents
death. Take him to the Lord's table. Stand with you. Now we're going to have a second
portion of John. And this too is for believers,
those who can discern the body and blood of Jesus Christ, not
in these elements, but what these elements represent. Again, this
is great, and this is wonderful, and that's all it is. It is not going to make you better.
It is not going to do anything. It is going to go into your stomach
and pass out the drink like everything else does. But what it does is
saying what you are saying when you take this bread and this
wine. You are saying I am trusting wholly in the merits of Jesus
Christ and His death. I am showing forth His death
until He comes again. That is what He said to His disciples.
He said you take this bread and this wine and take this cup and
when you take this bread and this cup You show forth my death
until I come again for an opportunity to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ
and to take of the Lord's table. If you are a believer, a sinner
saved by grace, you're welcome to this table. If you're not,
don't bother to take it. Nothing will be held against
you, and nobody will know. I certainly won't, but I'll always
keep my head down. So as we take this table, if
you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you're trusting
in his mercy, take this table gladly and thankfully. And with
it, the bread represents his body broken for his people. The
wine represents the blood of the new covenant shed and ratified,
for the new covenant was ratified by his blood. And you're saying,
I'm showing that death that saved me, that death. In the name of Jesus Christ,
because of what He accomplished on Calvary Street, we receive
this table with thanksgiving, knowing that in this simple and
plain way it represents our Lord's body being broken and His blood
being shed for the remission of sins. We thank You, Father,
that You've given us this simple thing, and we're to worship You
in this way. We thank You in Christ's name. You back there, I'll talk to
you soon. on the night our Lord was betrayed.
He took bread of the Passover feast, the unleavened bread.
And he'd break it and hand it over to his disciples. And he
said, take heed, this is my body broken for you. As often as you
do this, I'll do it again for you. And the same night, he took
the cup. And after he blessed it, he said,
this cup is the new testament and new covenant in my blood. do this as a marriage. And they sang a hymn. And his
family sang the first verse. Amazing Grace of Cherokee. ?
Oh, nay, la, na, ee, oo, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee,
ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee,
ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee,
ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, Now, we're going over to
the river. Unfortunately, this curve down
here has been mistaken for the slingshot curve in the Daytona
500. Please, listen very carefully
to what's coming, both ways, before you cross the street.
And Stan's going to kind of help and direct you on that. Watch out as you're going down
the steps. There's a rope and some stops. Don't use the rope to hold you
up. Use it just for balance because
it's just a rope. Okay? God bless you. I'm going
to go change clothes.