I'd ask you to turn in your Bibles this morning to the book of Acts again. And we're going to be looking at the fifth verse this morning. And we spoke last Sunday on the fourth verse, especially on the first part of that fourth verse of being assembled together with them. The saints were assembled here together with the Lord Jesus Christ. It was by appointment that they were gathered there. Jesus had given them a direction or an appointment to meet them with him there at Jerusalem. And every time that we meet together in the presence of the Lord, for he has told us that for two or three are gathered in his name, there is he in the midst And every time we meet, we meet by the appointment of the Lord. And I made the observation that if Jesus came to you and told you that he wanted you to be at a certain place at a certain time, would you try to be there? I think most of us would. Well, he has given us an appointment to meet with him, with his people on the Lord's day. And we have met together here today to worship him and enjoy the blessings that he has promised us. So he met with the disciples there and he told them to tarry at Jerusalem waiting for the promise of the Father. And I made the observation that Jerusalem was probably not the place they wanted to be right then because that was where Jesus was crucified. Most of the Jews in Jerusalem were opposed to Jesus Christ. They were opposed to his disciples. And they probably had rather been some other place as far as the flesh was concerned, but they obeyed him. He told them to meet there and to tarry there and wait for the promise. And we're going to get into that promise a little bit later on, but I want to speak today on the first part of that fifth verse for John truly baptized with water. And I want to spend some time this morning speaking about and looking in the scriptures about John the Baptist. I had three points In my outline that I want to bring out about John the Baptist this morning, and I'll go ahead and give you those points, I want to talk first of all about the man, the man, John the Baptist. Then I want to talk about his message or his mission. And then I want to finally also talk about his method or his mode of administering baptism. So those are the three points I want to try to cover this morning. We're going to have several scriptures that we're going to be looking at, most of them in the New Testament, a few in the old. But I think it's very important that we understand something about John the Baptist. I believe John the Baptist, I've made this statement before, I believe if John the Baptist were alive today, I believe John the Baptist was going to be in a primitive Baptist church. I don't say that, I'm going to look at some other scriptures that I think will prove that, but there was a reason that he was called a Baptist, because he was a baptizer. And that was not the only reason that he would be in a primitive Baptist church, because the message that he preached is the same message that we preach. Talk about the man, John the Baptist, first of all, he was prophesied or foretold in the Old Testament. In the book of Isaiah, chapter 40, and verse three, we are told about John the Baptist, and this was hundreds of years before John the Baptist was ever born. He says, the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God, and we're going, and I can point out to you, and we may see them today, scriptures that are very similar to that in the New Testament, showing that John fulfilled that prophecy that was made of him in the Old Testament. Then we have in the book of Malachi, which is the last book of the Old Testament, and Malachi lived about After the book of Malachi was written, it says there was about 400 years before the New Testament era. In Malachi chapter three and verse one, behold, I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom you delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But John was the messenger that was preparing the way. And then in the fourth chapter, and the last two verses of the fourth chapter, it says, behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and deadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. was also scriptures that we read in the New Testament that John fulfilled. John had a miraculous beginning in his earthly life. We turn to the book of Luke chapter one to learn about the beginning of the life of John the Baptist. We'll start reading or start looking first of all in the fifth verse. There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias of the order of Abai, and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless, and they had no child. Because that Elizabeth was buried, and they were both and they both were now well stricken in years. The office of the priesthood, as far as a priest that served as a high priest, when he got to be 50 years old, he was too old to fulfill that office, but he still did minister in the temple, but he could not be a high priest. And Zacharias was a priest. He was an old man. Some say that he was in his 60s or at least 60 year old. That's what some scholars say. And some say that he was much as in his 80s. And we would have to assume that his wife was near the same age. Now, we know in our time that we live, that when a woman gets to a certain age and a man gets to a certain age, they're not able to produce children. So they were well past the age of producing children, having children. So this angel, but there was an angel that came and visited Zacharias. And it says in the 13th verse that The angel said unto him, fear not, Zacharias, for thy prayer is heard, and thy wife, Elizabeth, shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. Now you can probably imagine about how he felt, about like I would feel at being 78 years old if I was told that I was going to father a child, and also his wife being probably around the same age. But he went on and told about this man and this child, and his name was going to be John. And he said, and thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. We won't read all of these verses, but let's skip down to verse 18. And Zechariah said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years. And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God, and am sent to speak unto thee, and to show thee these glad tidings. And behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season. So from that time forward, Zacharias was not able to speak a word. He was struck dumb. And we all know that when it came time for the child to be born, that they were talking about what they were going to name the child. And they had picked out another name. I think they were going to name him after his father. And John called for a tablet to ride on. And he wrote on that tablet that his name shall be John because that is what the angel had told him to name the child. And at that time, his tongue was loosened and he was able to speak. But this was John the Baptist. His beginning was a very miraculous beginning. And then when we get down in verse 41, it says, and it came to pass when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, who was the mother of Jesus, Mary was a cousin to Elizabeth. She was with child with the Lord Jesus Christ. Probably Elizabeth at this time was some three to six months with child. But when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe, John the Baptist, leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. And she spake with a loud voice. and said, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. And when Elizabeth came to visit, he leaped, now you women, know very well, those of you that have children, you know what it is for that babe to leap in your womb. I know sometimes when my children, before they were born, my wife would tell me to put your hand on my stomach and you could just, I mean, it seemed like he was turning somersaults in there. And you women know about that. But this babe, Elizabeth knew that when he leaped, it was not just an ordinary movement of a child in the womb, but he was leaping for joy. because he was in the presence of his Savior. He was no ordinary man in many ways, and he was no ordinary man in the way he dressed. If we would look in the third chapter of the book of Matthew, it would tell us how that John the Baptist dressed. in the fourth verse, and John had his raiment of camel's hair and a leather girdle about his loins, and his meat was locust and wild honey. We probably, and he had long hair. He was a Nazirite, and the Nazarenes and Nazirites were not allowed to cut their hair, so John had long hair. And we probably, if we'd have run up on John out somewhere in the wilderness, we might even have been a little bit frightened of him. He would have been a kind of a, maybe an odd looking sort of person. And it wasn't because John was just trying to be different in a, he was not rebellious, but you see his message was different than the message that all the other so-called religious people were preaching. And they were in the temple and in places around the temple and in the synagogues. But they were preaching a message that really was, it did not include for the most part Jesus Christ. And they were preaching a message of law and they were, their message was totally different. So when John came on the scene, not only was his message going to be different, but his manner and his dress was even going to be different because he was different. He was something quite different from what the people were used to. So that was the kind of a thumbnail sketch of who John the Baptist was, the man, John the Baptist. Now let's get to the message of John the Baptist. I always like and appreciate the way that Mark starts off his gospel in Mark chapter one, in verse one. He starts it off this way. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As it is written in the prophets, remember we've talked about, he's been prophesied. Behold, I send my messenger before thy face which shall prepare thy way before thee The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord, make his path straight. John the Baptist came preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. This was the beginning of the gospel age, what we would call the gospel age. We had the Old Testament age. We had the, I guess we could call it the mosaic dispensation. And Moses had given the law, and had given the way that the Jews were to worship and so forth. And that was good, that was well, that was what God had intended for that period of time. But there was something new that was about to happen. Something great that was about to happen. And so when John came, he came preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now we had the gospel in the Old Testament. I'm not saying the gospel was not there. But it was not in the way that it was when John the Baptist came preaching the gospel. I want to emphasize this also about John's ministry and his message, that John the Baptist was a New Testament preacher. He was a New Testament preacher. There are some people, really a lot of several denominations that don't know what to do with John the Baptist. Some of them try to put John the Baptist in the Old Testament dispensation. And some of them tried to say that there was an intermediate dispensation between the Old Testament and the New Testament. John the Baptist was in that dispensation. And then the New Testament actually didn't begin until the day of Pentecost that we're going to be getting into in a few weeks. Maybe not that long. But John was a New Testament preacher. He came preaching. The New Testament doctrine. He was part of the New Testament. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And John preached repentance. His message was he came forth telling people that they need to repent. Repent. Not just to repent from their sins and to repent from their old ways. and even to repent the way that they had worshipped because there was something new that was coming on the scene. John was a forerunner of course of Jesus Christ. He came preaching the kingdom. He told them that the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God is at hand. Now if you understood about the Old Testament that all through the Old Testament The Messiah had been promised. We looked at it in our Wednesday night Bible study in the third chapter of the book of Genesis. All the way back then, the Messiah had been promised from that third chapter in the 15th verse. But then the promise became more clearly as we got further along in Abraham and then in Moses and all of the Old Testament prophets. They wrote and preached about the Messiah that was to come. Well, this had been preached for about 4,000 years. And from the time of Abraham, about 2,000 years, it had been preached and prophesied that the Messiah would come and the Jews knew this. They knew that he would come through the seed of Abraham. And then they knew that he would come through the tribe of Judah. And later on they knew that he would come through the seed of David. David the first king that set upon the earthly king that set upon the throne in Israel. And it was promised that through the seed of David that the Messiah would come. And you notice that at different times in the gospel when people would encounter Jesus Christ they would call him the son of David because they knew that the son of David would someday set upon the throne. So what John came preaching that was so different from what everybody else had preached and what the Old Testament prophets had preached, they had preached that he would come. John said he's here. John said he's about to come on the scene. You don't have to wait anymore. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. That was the message of John the Baptist. He preached about Jesus Christ. Every Baptist preacher needs to preach about Jesus Christ, and that's what John did. In Mark chapter one, again in verse seven, it said John preaching, he said, preach saying, there cometh one mightier than I after me, but like you to whose shoes I'm not worthy to stoop down and unloose. He said, I have baptized you with water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. He preached to them about Jesus Christ. In the book of Luke chapter three and verse 16, he said this. Again, what I just said, he said, almost repeat word for word. He said, I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier than I, but one mightier than I cometh, the light of whose shoes I'm not worthy to unloose, and 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 will gather the weed into his garner, but the shaft he will burn with fire unquenchable." He preached to them about Jesus Christ. He also preached to them, as you have noticed, he preached to them about the Holy Ghost. We're gonna find when we get over there in the 19th chapter of Acts, that there were some men that said they had been baptized by John. And Paul asked them if they had received the Holy Ghost, and they said, we haven't even heard of the Holy Ghost. Well, if you heard John's preaching, his message was about Jesus Christ and also about the Holy Ghost. He said in John chapter one and verse 19, Ferris, the Jews, sent some people to ask John about who he was. And this is what he told them. He said, he confessed and denied not, but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they said, what then? Are you Elias or Elijah or are you that prophet, the prophet that Moses had prophesied to them about and told them about back in Deuteronomy? And he said, no. They said, who are you then? Who art thou? And he said, I'm the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord, said the prophet Isaiah. He preached about Jesus Christ. He did not preach to bring any attention to himself, but his message was all not about him, but about the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope, and it's my desire, that when I preach, that that's my message. I don't want or ever want to bring attention to me. I heard a sermon one time over, probably close to 50 years ago. Matter of fact, it was about 50 years ago. They had that particular church, had gone to the, beginning, I guess what you'd call a constitution of a church. And they had special service and they celebrated their 50th anniversary this year. And I heard some good preaching that day and I heard a wonderful sermon. I can still remember many points of that sermon. And I've tried to find out, even the pastor can't tell me, I've tried to find out who was the preacher that preached that sermon. And nobody knows his name. I tell you, to me, that's good. I would hope if I preached anything good that people would say, well, you know, I heard a good sermon by so-and-so and so-and-so, but I don't know his name. We don't want to bring attention to ourself, and that's not what John the Baptist did. He wanted to bring, his attention was all on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, he preached Jesus Christ, he preached baptism, he preached repentance, he preached that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, but John, knew a lot more about Jesus Christ, I think, than most people give him credit for. I used to, I used to think, well, he was just a guy that dressed kind of weird, he went around and preached that people need to repent, and he was baptizing people, and tell them that Jesus was about to come, about to be on the scene. But in the third chapter of the book of John, in the latter part of that chapter, We learn a lot more about the theology, if you want to use that word, about the theology of John the Baptist. It says, and I'll just start reading in verse 25, and there arose a question between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying. And they came unto John and said unto him, Rabbi, He that was with thee beyond Jordan to whom thou bearest witness, behold, the same baptizeth that all men come to him. They were trying to cause a division between Jesus' disciples and John's disciples. But notice what John said to them. John answered and said, a man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. Does he not sound a whole lot like an old Baptist? A man can receive nothing. We don't have nothing of our own. Jesus couldn't receive nothing. Nobody can receive nothing except to be given him from heaven. But he goes on. He said, you yourselves bear me witness that I said I'm not the Christ, but I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom which standeth and heareth him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice, this my joy therefore is fulfilled." Now, there's a lot of ceremony type stuff that John was referring to that the people there were familiar with, the Jewish people. I think we would call the friend of the bridegroom, what we would call him nowadays would be the best man normally. You know, when a man gets married, he has the best man. The bride has a maid of honor. And when you're the best man at a wedding, I have been the best man. I was the best man when I was a very young man at my sister's wedding. Her husband had asked me to be his best man. Well, the best man is there to minister and to help the groom. He's not the groom. He's not there to marry the bride, but he's there to help the groomsman, or the man, yes, the groomsman, or the man, the intended husband. And there was a lot more ceremony involved in it back in those days than we have in our day. But John said, I'm not the one that is getting married. I'm not the main one that's in view here. I'm just there to help. And he said, I'm glad to do that. I rejoice. that he has what he needs, that he can succeed, and that he has married his wife. I rejoice in that, but I'm not the bridegroom. And he said, he must increase, but I must decrease. And then he goes on. He said, he that cometh from above is above all. Now Jesus Christ had been born a few months after John. John knew about his earthly birth, but John knew that he didn't start when he was born of Mary. He had come from above. He was the promised, he was the son of God. He said, he that comes from above is above all. He that is of the earth is earthly and speaketh of the earth. He that cometh from heaven is above all. And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth, and no man receiveth his testimony. And you know, we would think that someone, especially that had had a lot of experience on earth, maybe someone that was older, that they would have a lot of things that they could tell us. But if somebody had come from heaven, somebody that if they came from heaven, they had always existed. And if somebody came from heaven, surely their message would be greater than any message that a man on earth could have. And this is what John's testimony of John the Baptist, Jesus Christ. He said, nobody received his testimony. He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true. For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God. For God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him." This man, he was telling Jesus Christ was sent from God. He said, the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hand. You see what he was saying about Jesus Christ? He knew who he was, that he was sent from heaven, that he was the son of God, and that God had given all things into the hand of his son. And then he said, he that believeth on the son hath everlasting life. Is that not what we preach today? And he said that he that believeth not the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. This was the message that John the Baptist preached. He preached about Jesus Christ. He knew who he was. He knew that he was the eternal, only begotten son of God that God had sent, and that it was only through by believing in him that we have any hope of eternal life. Now let's look for a few moments at the method of John the Baptist, or his mode, or of how that he went about, we've already talked about how that he preached, but let's see now how that he baptized. In the book of John, again just a page back on John chapter three and verse 23, it says, Well, let's read verse 22. I'm gonna refer back to this later. It's the only reason I'm gonna read it now. It says, after these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judea, and there he tarried with them and baptized. Just kind of remember that. I'm gonna talk about that a little later. But John, it says, was also baptizing in Enon, near to Salem, because there was much water there, and they came and were baptized. baptized at a place where there was much water. Now, I know I'm preaching to the choir here, so to speak. I know I'm not preaching to people that don't believe it, but these are things that we need to not just know, we need to be established in. Especially some of you younger people. There may come a time that you, maybe when you go to college or later on you might meet somebody, it's a young boy, young girl, and someone that you're interested in maybe getting married to, and they may tell you that baptism can either be by sprinkling or by pouring or by immersion, it doesn't really matter. And I see and I'm thankful, Sister Clare, that you're shaking your head no, because you know the difference. And I'm glad, and you need to remember that, because it is different. You see, we want to follow and we want to do the things the way Jesus taught us to do. We want to follow the teachings of the Bible. But he baptized because there was much water there. I have read in some people who believe in sprinkling, some of the commentaries, and this is the reason that some of them give as to why he was baptizing where there was much water. You know why they say that? They say, well, the people that came out They came out of the cities into the country to John's baptism and they had animals, they had camels, they had donkeys and so forth. And so they had to have enough, John had to be at a place where there was enough water to water their animals. Now, I'm sure that it was necessary that people didn't have water for their animals. But that was not the reason John picked this place. He could have picked other places that didn't have all that much water, but enough for the cattle to get a drink and so forth. But John was there because there was much water there. It was necessary for him to baptize that they be in a place where they had plenty of water. I wonder, you know that this word here, he said he would baptize them in Enon. It's spelled a little bit different than the way we spell ole-enon. And it sometimes makes me wonder, I don't know the case, and I don't know if I'll ever know, but maybe when Old England was first constituted, they may have been somewhere near a river or something. And that's why they named it Old England, because the church was located at a place where there was a lot of water. And maybe after they had been constituted for a while, they moved over here where there wasn't all that much water. I don't know that. I know a lot of the churches back in those days, or in America, that they would try to be in a place where there was a lot of water, a place where they would have water to baptize because they didn't have baptisteries. I visited two or three times. Some of you have heard, maybe have heard of the book by Wilson Thompson, who was an old Baptist preacher that came to the Boothill of Missouri well, near the Boot Hill of Missouri back in the early 1800s. He was there when the New Madrid earthquake occurred, which was between, I think they had several of them between 1812 and 1814. And he came there and there was a church there, the church was called Old Bethel. And it's located near Jackson, Missouri, which is clear near to of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. And I visited the site of where that church was, and there was a creek that ran right by the church. Matter of fact, nowadays they have what's called a low water bridge that you'd have to go across that bridge to get up to where the church was. And I remember one of the stories that Wilson Thompson told in his book about a man that attended services there who was a slave, a Negro slave. And I'm trying right now to think of his name. I'll probably think of it sometime or another, but he wanted to be baptized. But the man that owned him, his master, had put out the word that he didn't want anybody baptizing his slave. And he said if anybody did baptize, they would have to answer to him. So because of that, for some time, they put off baptizing this man. It was not because Wilson Thompson didn't want to baptize him, but some of the members of the church were afraid, and they thought, we better not do that. Well, one morning, one Sunday morning when they were having services, he looked out the window, and he saw this old Negro slave out there, and he looked like he had a bottle of clothes with him. And he asked him, he called him in, he said, did you come here today to be baptized? And he said, yes sir, I did. And they, he took him down to the creek down there, and I've been there and I've seen it, took him down to the creek there, just below the church house, and he baptized this Negro slave. This man's daughters were there present. He had, matter of fact, he was the one that had brought them to church that day. But they didn't tell their father that this man had been baptized. I wish I could think of his name. I'll think of it after a while. Well, later on, the man that owned the slaves, one day they were eating and he told his daughters, he said, you know, Sidney, call the man by name. I wish I could think of it. He said, he's always been a good servant. but it says it seems here lately that he's just gotten to be a better servant, that he's just so happy and he goes about his chores with a happy countenance. He said he just seemed like he's just better than he ever was. And his daughters told him, said, well, Father, the reason that he is such much better is because that he is a believer in Jesus Christ and he has been baptized. He's a member of the church. And the old man was so, pleased because of the testimony that this slave had given him that he said this. He said, well, if that made him such a good servant, a good slave, he said, I wish all my slaves were baptized. But that's kind of getting us apart from a little bit. But the point I was trying to make that you want to be where there's plenty of water. That was why John was baptizing there. Going back to the third chapter of the book of Matthew, I want to point this out about, also about baptism and the mode of baptism. In the third chapter, in verse six, speaking here of the ministry of John the Baptist, and it says, Verse five, I'll read verse five. Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region round about Jordan and were baptized of him in Jordan. I want that little word in. I want you to focus on that little word in because it's very important. Baptized in Jordan. We find the same terminology used in the first chapter of the book of Acts. that it talks about John baptizing in Jordan, or in the river Jordan. Now, let's come down, follow this on down to the 11th verse of Matthew chapter three. And we find this phrase used a lot. As a matter of fact, we find it used in our text in Acts chapter one, verse five. John said, I indeed baptize you with water. Now that word with, the Greek word there, with, is the same Greek word that is translated in, in verse six. And also in Mark, it's translated in. Now I want you to think about that. I'm not criticizing our translators because it's clear enough, first of all, if you understand the Greek word for baptism always means to immerse, always. But how would verse six, Matthew chapter three and verse six, if we read it this way, and were baptized of him with Jordan. Now that wouldn't make sense, would it? You couldn't baptize with Jordan. You could baptize in it. And you could baptize what is in Jordan with water. But you can't baptize with the river. That kind of language would not work. So when the Bible and Bible scholars agree on this that when it says baptized with water it should be or could very well be and probably should be translated in water. Baptized in water. That's what John did. He baptized in the water. It was He baptized in the river. He baptized in water. You could say that he baptized also with water, but you couldn't say that he baptized with the river. He baptized in the river and he baptized with water or in water. And that is how we still do today. That was the example that was set in by John the Baptist. And by the way, I want you to understand this, that John the Baptist, This was something new that occurred in the New Testament. Before this, baptism, as John administered it, had never been practiced. That's why it was something new. But he baptized, and he baptized in water, and we still today, and all through the New Testament, and today, they still baptize in water. In the book of Acts, chapter eight, of Acts, the account of the Ethiopian eunuch. And, you know, he was writing in that they were in the chariot. Philip had got up in the chariot with him and preached to him. And he came to a certain water and he asked Philip, what does it mean to be baptized? And Philip told him, And I'll refer to this again, but he said, if you believe with all your heart, thou mayest. Well, in verse 38, it says, and he commanded the chariot to stand still and they went down both into the water. They went into the water. Well, if they were just going to, if it didn't make any difference where you sprinkled or poured, he probably had water, at least water to drink with him and the chariot going across that desert. He could have just stopped the chariot and he could have gotten some on his finger to sprinkle or he could have poured a little bit on his head if that was all that was needed. But they went down into the water, both Philip and the youth. And he baptized him, he immersed him. And when they would come up out of the water, if they went into it, they had to come out of it. This was baptism by immersion, the same way that we baptize today. And when Jesus was baptized in the, several accounts were given of it, but in the third chapter of Matthew, it says in verse 16, and Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water. Baptism is by immersion, it's in water. that baptism takes place. And that's why we baptize that way today. And it was only believers that John baptized. He didn't baptize anyone except people who believed his message and believed in Jesus Christ. In that third chapter of Matthew, where my page is right now, in the seventh verse, but when he that's John, saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from a wrath to come. Bring forth therefore fruits, meat for repentance. And think not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father, for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. They thought because they were Abraham's children, his natural children, that that gave them a right to baptism. But John would not baptize them because they had shown no fruit of repentance. They were not willing to change anything in their life. They just wanted to go on just like they were. And John said no. Some of you, or all of you, if you have, may not remember the name, but you've heard me talk about one of the men over in Russia, one of the preachers over there named Brother Veal. Brother Veal, now this was before he actually became a primitive Baptist. He was in a so-called Baptist church, and later on he came to join us. But he had enough knowledge and enough wisdom from the scriptures to know some things and they had a custom in that church that if a man had a son, if he was a member of the church and he had a son, that when that son got to be a certain age that they would just baptize him. It didn't matter if he was a believer or not, just when he got to a certain age, they'd baptize him. So they had a man that had gotten to a certain age, a young man, But he was not a believer, and as a matter of fact, was a wicked person. And they expected Brother Veal to baptize him, and Brother Veal said he wouldn't do it. He refused to do it. And that place, they became so incensed in the congregation, as they met together, that they tried, they physically beat him. His wife thought they were gonna kill him. because he would not do that. But he knew that baptism, even though it was not really a good scriptural church, he had enough knowledge to know that baptism was only for believers. No babies, no people just because they're of a certain age. It's only believers that are baptized. And we still believe that today, don't we? That's what I made reference to Acts chapter 8. That was what Philip required of that eunuch. He said, if you believe with all your heart, you may be baptized. And he said, I believe. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he baptized him. Other scriptures, I won't take time Well, I'm going to look at one more. Let's turn to Acts chapter 16 because this is one of the chapters, one of the verses in the Bible that those who deny believers baptism and think that it's alright to baptize infants and they think that if you are a believer that your infants have a right to baptism. In the 16th chapter of Acts where Paul and Silas had been freed from the prison and where the jailer was about to kill himself and they told him in verse 31 and they said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house and that's what they'll focus on that. Well he could save and all of his children but also were subject for baptism because that their father was a believer. It says in They spake, that's Paul and Silas, spake unto him the word of the Lord and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes and was baptized he and all his straight way. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them and rejoiced, believing in God with who? With all his house. It was only to those in his house who believed that were baptized. And we still practice that today. So let me ask you in closing, are you a believer in Jesus Christ? You know, baptism is more than just a formality. It's more than something we just go through. It's something, first of all, that's commanded of the Lord. Repent and be baptized is what John preached. that Jesus preached the same thing, the disciples and the apostles preached the same thing, repent and be baptized. Because baptism is a picture, first of all, of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Do you believe that Jesus died for you? Do you believe that he was buried and that he rose again the third day? And are you trusting in him and nothing else for your salvation? If that's so, then you need to be baptized. If it's not, you don't need to be baptized. And we know that if he died for us, that our sins are put away. One of the greatest joys that the child of God has is that his sins have been put away. That I no longer am under the condemnation, but I know that my sins have been forgiven. And I want everybody else to know what Jesus has done for me. I want to tell, I want to confess what he's done for me. And one of the ways that we confess is by following the Lord in baptism. Brother Ronnie, do you have a song for us?