Amen. We are so happy to have our sister Sarah with us, praying for you, Sarah, and trust that the Lord would be gracious to you in this dark hour. And if we can help you, I know I speak for everyone in this church. If we can help you, we do want to do that. And so please let us, call upon us to be, to help you in that. And we'll surely be praying that the Lord would be gracious to you, knowing, I can only imagine, I've not been there, not experienced it, but I can surely imagine. And so we pledge our prayers to you. We are going to answer, I have two questions. And we will try to answer them. The first question. is about the idea of sacrament. Now, Baptists have called, so let's just, let me back up just a little bit and talk to you about the history of these things. The word sacrament, you can hear You can hear the word sacred in that. Now, it comes out of Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism had seven what they called sacraments. When the reformers came out of and criticized the Roman Catholic Church, All the Reformers believed that there were two sacraments. Now this was before Baptist, you see. Reformation happened about a century before there was a recognizable group called Baptists. Though there are some, like if you would go to J.M. Carroll's Trail of Blood, he tries to take Baptists back to what they call the John Jordan Jerusalem theory. that there were Baptists, you know, John the Baptist baptizing in Jordan at Jerusalem, you see. And so, and there may have been, and I'm surely not going to argue that point, there may have been some Baptist distinctives that you could go back and point to, but there was really no identifiable group of Baptists until the 17th century and the 1600s. And, of course, we see that in this confession that we're going through. We're going through the confession, you know, that was written in 1677. And, of course, the Westminster before that, it was modeled after the Westminster. But Baptists have been, you know, and agree with the reformers that there are only two, as they would call them, sacraments. Now, if you read the Westminster, you'll see that they use the word sacraments, that's a Presbyterian document. They use the word, I think Savoy does too, which is a Congregationalist document. They use the word sacrament, but then they call them ordinances also. Okay, what Roman Catholicism taught in this idea of sacraments comes from this. What they taught is when Christ died upon a cross, they do believe that Christ died upon a cross. They do believe that Christ made an atonement. They do believe that we're saved by grace through faith. But they don't believe that that's alone. The difference between the reformers and Roman Catholics is not that we believe that you're saved by grace through faith and they don't. They believe that you're saved by grace through faith. But they don't believe it's a loan. The reformers add the word alone. There's nothing you can add to it, nothing you can get. Now, that you can do to get it to you, I should say. Now, what Roman Catholicism teaches is that when Christ died on a cross and when he purchased this grace for us, that grace was banked. You know, like a bank, like money. was banked in the church, that is, the Roman Catholic Church, and that they are the possessors of this grace. And the way that this grace comes to any individual is through these sacraments. So the sacrament of baptism, you draw grace to you from the church. of confession or the sacrament of confirmation where you're baptized as an infant into Christ in Roman Catholic theology and that you get some grace and you also get grace drawn to you by your confirmation. That is when you become of age and you actually confess Christ's confirmation. Well, then there's the sacrament of confession, of pentance, even marriage was a sacrament, the sacrament of extreme unction, the sacrament of last rites. These allow you as an individual to come to the church and to draw grace to yourself. Well, the Reformers rejected all of that as unbiblical, and it was. It was a cultic kind of thing. And so they rejected that completely as a departure from biblical Christianity. But the Reformers, who continued to baptize infants, They still retain the word sacrament, but they cut them to two. There are only two sacraments. There is the sacrament of baptism and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And again, the Eucharist is a Roman Catholic sacrament, and they do it while giving the wafer and the wine. They don't actually, they do now, but they didn't give wine until I think it was John Paul XXIII, Pope John Paul XXIII and the Second Vatican Council that was in the early 60s, 1960s, opened it up to where that the priest could then give wine. as well as wafer, but most of them continue to give wafer only because they believe that the blood, that is the wine, became the actual blood of Christ, so it would be very sacred. I don't know if you've ever been in a Roman Catholic Eucharist, but you'll notice that the priest, he'll break the host, and ultimately, they give only the host as The parishioners walked down, they put the host on their tongue, and then later they would put it in their hands if they didn't want the priest, they wanted to eat the host touched by the, you know, on the tongue by the priest. But he would give him in their hand and then they would eat it. And they made a lot of argumentation that the wafer included the wine. So I don't, you know, just. I guess if you want to do something, you could make an argument for it, I'm assuming. But the wine that actually becomes the blood of Christ had to be very, very carefully dealt with, you see, because if you spilled that wine on the carpet or on your shirt, that's the blood of Christ. And so it would be sacred and holy. So what they would do is the priest would retain the wine, and if you've ever been there, you'll notice that at the end when he finishes, if there's any wine left in the cup, the priest will drink it down completely. It's not because he's a wino and wants to have the wine. He don't want to waste, but it's the blood of Christ. So he drinks it, the rest of it down, and then he will take the cloth, and stuff it into the cup. So none of that wine, which is now the blood of Christ through transubstantiation, none of that will be wasted, you see. Now, so this idea of sacrament, the reformers maintained that indeed it was grace. Now, they argued over, the Reformers argued over, you know, what was the Lord's Supper? I mean, not many people argued over baptism. Baptism, obviously, in Roman Catholic theology is washing the sin, original sin, away from the baby. That's why they do it. That's why it makes sense in Roman Catholicism. It doesn't make sense in Presbyterianism, in any kind of Reformed understanding, because we surely don't believe baptism washes away original sin, but they do, so it would make sense, right? You want your baby, you want the original sin that the baby was born with to be washed away, and now he starts from ground zero, and now it's his own sin, or her own sin. that she'll have to contend with. Well, surely that's not what we believe. That's what they believe. And then, of course, they believe that the wafer became the body of Christ and the wine became the blood of Christ. Well, Luther did not believe in transubstantiation, but he did believe in a concept called consubstantiation. Trans means it crosses over, right? Con means it's with. So in Luther's thinking, And of course, Luther was medieval in his thinking. I mean, he was educated in medieval Catholicism. It's amazing that he made the strides he made, but he still, that con means with, and so he believed that the body and blood came alongside. It didn't actually become, the wine didn't become the blood, and the wafer didn't become the body, but it came alongside. Well, Zwingli, who's really not a Baptist, but Zwingli believed it was simply, he was a reformer, obviously, in Switzerland, and so he believed that it was purely symbolic. And so there was a great argument between Luther and Zwingli, and Luther, I mean, it's in Latin, Zwingli didn't speak German. Luther didn't speak his language, so it was in Latin. And so Luther, as hot-headed as he was, took a piece of chalk, wrote on the table in Latin, this is my body, right? So, you know, hoc est purpose. This is my body. And so they obviously didn't, get it settled, Baptists have taken and most reformers have taken the view it's symbolic. And so therefore, but they called it sacrament because they continue to follow the language and they believe that there was something sacred in it. The baptism of babies and then the Lord's Supper. Baptists, however, saw it fully symbolic that it wasn't really the blood of Christ, but it symbolized the blood of Christ. It wasn't really the body of Christ, but it symbolized the body of Christ. And of course, baptism was a profession of your faith to the world that you were a Christian. Now, And so it shows your experience of regeneration, it shows the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and it shows the blessed hope of what is coming at the end of time when our bodies are raised. But Baptists eschewed the word sacrament even as they eschewed the word seal. Baptists do not believe that it is, that baptism is a seal. They do believe it is a sign, but they do not believe it is a seal. Now let me just read to you, uh, baptism. Well, here's sacraments. Here's what the Westminster says, sacraments are holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace. Immediately instituted by God to represent Christ and his benefits and to confirm our interest in him, as also to put a visible difference between those that belong unto the church and the rest of the world, and solemnly to engage them to the service of God in Christ according to his word. This is in every sacrament, or there is in every sacrament, a spiritual relation or sacramental union between the sign and the thing signified whence it comes to pass that the names and the effects of the ones are attributed to the other. And then grace which is exhibited in and by the sacraments, rightly used, is not conferred by any power in them, neither doth the efficacy of a sacrament depend upon the piety or the intention of him that doth administer it, but upon the work of the spirit. The word of institution which contains Together with a precept authorizing the use thereof, a promise of benefit to worthy receivers, there are two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper. And the sacraments of the Old Testament in regard to spiritual things thereby signified and exhibited were for substance the same with those of the new. All right, so then here's what they say about baptism. This is the Westminster. This is those who baptize infants, Presbyterians. Baptism is the sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church. They believe the babies were baptized into the visible church. but also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his engrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God through Jesus Christ to walk in the newness of life, which sacrament is by Christ's own appointment to be continued in his church until the end. of the world. So you see, how could a baby, how could a baby be engrafted into Christ? How could it, for a baby, to be a sign of regeneration or remission of sin? Or the giving up unto God through Jesus Christ to walk in newness of life? One other issue that that is troubling in the Westminster is the efficacy that is actually the power of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered. In other words, doesn't come on them at, not necessarily at that time, yet notwithstanding, so that notwithstanding, by the right use, not by the wrong use, but by the right use of this ordinance, you notice that they switch the ordinance The grace promised is not only offered in baptism, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost to such, whether of age or infants, as the grace belongeth unto them according to the counsel of God's own will. Well, that's pretty troubling, that they say that the grace conferred is conferred by the Holy Ghost. That's why they retain the word sacrament. But if you go to the 1689, that is the Second London Confession of Faith, you do not have an article on sacraments. You do have an article on baptism and the Lord's Supper and then of baptism and the Lord. So chapter 28 is of baptism and the Lord's Supper. Chapter 29 is of baptism. Chapter 30 is of the Lord's Supper. Here's what Baptists believe. Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament, not a sacrament, but an ordinance. Ordained by Jesus Christ to be unto the party baptized, a sign of his fellowship with him, and his death and resurrection of his being engrafted into him of remission of sin and of giving up unto God through Jesus Christ to live and walk in newness of life. And so that makes sense if someone's regenerated, right, if someone is a believer and receives it. Those who do actually profess repentance toward God and faith in and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ are the only proper subjects of this ordinance. In other words, it has to be believers. The outward elements, obviously, is water, and wherein the party is to be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Immersion or dipping of the person in water is necessary to the due administration of this ordinance. So back to the question. The question is, I recently heard a Baptist pastor refer to the Lord's Supper as a sacrament. Well, I can tell you that there are many Reformed Baptists, when they first come into Reformed Baptist understanding, that sometimes they would retain the idea of sacrament. They would retain that word. because they're reading a lot of Presbyterians or reading a lot of Presbyterian writers who use that word constantly. And so that got into the vocabulary. And so there's some Reformed Baptists that continue to use the word sacrament. So an ordinance is that thing, ordinance. What do you hear in that word? Ordinance, where there's an order, you see. Sacrament, holiness. The difference is one of them, even as the Westminster says, that there is something of grace attached to them. Now, I can tell you that the Westminster Confession on Baptism is muddled. At one point, they confirm something, and then at another point, they deny it. Well, if it's actually conferred to you, then why is everyone that gets it not having that conferred? Or some have it conferred that don't get baptized. So anyway, it's really muddled. So we use the word ordinance because we don't think that there's any grace attached to any of these things. These things are symbolic. And so that's the difference between ordinance and sacrament. And then, of course, the second question was, who is biblically qualified to baptize believers? Okay, so there are those, I had a woman at this church, actually, some years ago, that said that she wanted, She wanted her husband to baptize her children. He wasn't a pastor. As if it was a family ordinance. Okay, it's a church ordinance, right? And so, who are the ones that should do this, you see? Who are the ones that should administer this ordinance? Well, it's a church ordinance, so therefore it should be the officer of the church, that is, the elder or pastor or bishop, because the overseer, the elder, the pastor. And that's what it says. That's why the 1689 has a different subject or a different chapter on baptism and the Lord's Supper. So here's what they say. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are ordinances of positive and sovereign institution. So God sovereignly instituted it and positively instituted it. appointed by the Lord Jesus Christ, the only lawgiver, to be continued in his church to the end of the world. These holy appointments are to be administered by those only who are qualified and whereunto called according to the commission of Christ. So they give you Matthew 28, 19, and 20. Of course, you know what that one is, but they also give you 1 Corinthians 4. One, this is how one should regard us as servants of God. This is not King James, but as servants of God and stewards of the mystery of God. Okay, well, what does that say in You know, what does that say in the King James Version, all right? And so it's 1 Corinthians 4, 1. It says, let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, that word there is diakonos, and stewards of the mysteries of God. So obviously that's speaking these men who preach this gospel. Go ye therefore and teach." Well, who in the church teaches the nation? Okay, or make disciples of the nation? Teaching them to observe. Okay, so surely those are the appointed leaders of the church. And so who should actually do the baptism? Well, it should be those officers of the church that the church has set aside to the ministry, to the ministry of the word of God. When we do have an axe, it looks like Philip, who was a deacon, was at least one of the seven. One of the seven, MacArthur said, he's a little quirky on that. MacArthur didn't believe that the seven were deacons. He believed that they were something else. I don't know if he was defending the fact or trying to defend the fact that deacons shouldn't be baptizing or why, but we do have an ax. But Philip was also sent by the apostles. So Philip could have been, though he was one of the seven, he's called an evangelist, Philip the evangelist. It seems as if, and I wrote a dissertation on the evangelists, so I guess I'm some kind of expert on that, saying as they accepted my dissertation and gave me a PhD, which I hate that. I mean, I earned a PhD, but they said they gave it to me, but whatever. A deputy to the apostles. So Philip went to Samaria as a deputy or as one who was sent there by the apostles. So he would not be baptizing as a deacon or as one of the seven, which is, again, MacArthur. If you take MacArthur, there's some doubt about exactly. I don't doubt it, but there is some doubt that whether that would be a deacon. I think Philip obviously was one of the first seven deacons, and that that's exactly what Paul is talking about when he's writing of the qualifications in 1 Timothy and in Titus. It should be, not just anybody. I mean, Pat Boone used to baptize people in his swimming pool. Well, first of all, it's a church ordinance. It shouldn't be done at your house. It should be done in the church. And therefore, the pastors should be doing it. All right? I don't think in our day and time that we need less water. I think in our day and time, we need more order. And just let me say this to you, that the older I get, the more I run to the confessions. When I was a young man, I thought I had to rethink all this stuff for them. But I don't. And I was naive and I was foolish. I should have picked up that confession and memorized it. And I should have taught, you know, that confession. Because I do believe I've come to the understanding that this is the greatest explanation of Christianity, of biblical Christianity. And so I would recommend it. And that's why I'm going through it. Because I think that this is what we need. I think this is, This is a confession. It's a thorough confession and a great confession. And I think it is a confession that we surely need. All right, well, that's it. And so we're going to have a benediction. So Brother Norman, if you would come and lead our benediction.