Amen. You may be seated. I'm going to read from Matthew 28. The end of the Gospel of Matthew starting in verse 16. We'll move from there. After the resurrection and the tomb found empty and stories made up about that, you have in verse 16 this, Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." That's for God's Word. Let's pray. Lord, we do thank You for Your Word, for Your commission. It is convicting. We fall so far short of total dedication to making disciples, and yet You are patient with us and gracious with us and merciful to us. You are growing us in a love for You that causes us to walk joyfully in Your commandments. You are growing us in a conviction. over the gospel that we might seek to be used by you to take it to those who do not know. And tonight we look to your word and think about a subject that can be controversial and we just pray that you would be with us and help us as we discuss baptism and do it from your word. And we just give you all the praise for your word, praying for your blessing, trusting for it. In Christ Jesus' holy name, amen. All of you know this if you went to Grace Church 101, but we are a reformed Baptist church. We believe and teach what has been called credo-baptism. Credo being Latin for I believe, and it refers to a personal profession of faith or belief. And baptism, of course you know the ordinance, normally involving immersion in water, symbolizing our union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. So put together, that means baptism upon confession of faith. We don't know for sure. Who all has been regenerated? The early church didn't know. They baptized Simon Magus and he turned out not to be a true follower of Christ. But we baptize on the basis of a credible profession of faith. So credo baptism means simply baptism upon confession of faith. Now, we don't have regeneration goggles that we can see into the heart and tell whoever, everyone is who is regenerate. So in other words, someone is baptized because they personally confess to believing in, trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. And tonight we've already begun that discussion really by the question asking what is baptism. Tonight we come to the first part, I would say, to whom is baptism to be administered. Tonight I wanted to, from this question, go through the Great Commission and look into the book of Acts just to see how did the church put Christ's command into practice. What can we tell from reading and studying just briefly the Great Commission and then going to see how the disciples did that from Acts 2 forward. So that's really what we're going to do tonight and then next week, next week, next time, next time I'm here for a PM service, Y'all don't know this, but the next time will be Jonathan and not me. No, that's morning. You're doing evening too. Yeah, my brain. Morning and evening. Yeah, yeah. So pray for him. But next time I'm here will be the question on infant baptism. should infants be baptized, basically. What I want to do when we get there, that's not tonight, so all the questions won't be answered tonight. I want to start where we start and move into that. But what I want to do, and you can pray for me between now and a month from now, whenever the next time I do this, is that when we get to that question about infant baptism, I want to put before you a fair summary of both sides of the argument. I want you to see what the people believe who believe that we should as reformed people not thinking in infant baptismal regeneration or anything like that. What is the case that a reformed Presbyterian would make for infant baptism and what is the case that a reformed Baptist would make so that you can have them faithfully set side by side. Because I know there's a lot of there's a lot of misunderstanding and lack of understanding when it comes to those kinds of things. But that's not tonight. We'll do that next time. Tonight I wanted to say how did the early church administer baptism? And you see that reflected in this question in question 76. To whom is baptism to be administered? And then the answer in Spurgeon's Catechism or the Puritan Catechism representing a Reformed Baptist position, says, baptism is to be administered to all those who actually profess repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and to none other. And the none other part comes, that will roll around till next time when we talk about infant baptism, because that's where this flows if you're just reading the catechism. But baptism is to be administered to all those who actually repent, repess? profess repentance towards God in faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. But look back first at the Great Commission. Maybe this exercise will at least help you understand the structure there of those verses. When Jesus says in 18, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. He's king, he's reigning now, he's at the right hand, all the things that we've talked about. Now on the basis of that, what does he say? He says, Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Jesus made and baptized disciples. You can go look at John 4. 322 and 4 if you want to look at that. And actually it was his apostles, his disciples doing the baptizing. But here, if you look at these verses in verse 19, the main verb is make disciples. That's the main verb of this section. Make disciples. And it's surrounded by three participles. Okay? And the participle represented in your English translation here as go, that's a participle. And it doesn't mean as you are going. In the construction and the way it's put together in the Greek, it is a command, right? Go with the gospel to those who need to hear it. If you want to put it that way. Go, go. The way we're going to make disciples is these three participles. Going, then baptizing, and then teaching. So that's what surrounds make disciples. Make disciples is the main verb and then we make disciples by first participle represented by go. Going. Going with the gospel. Going out with the gospel and proclaiming the gospel. Two, baptizing. That's kind of the end of that missionary enterprise or that evangelistic enterprise where you go out with the gospel and then you baptize those who come to faith. And then three, teaching them to obey Christ, teaching them, you see that in the early church, as we'll see. But we are commanded to make disciples by going, baptizing, and teaching. That's the structure there. Just so you can see what the main verb is, make disciples, and then the three participles of going, baptizing, and teaching. And that's something, if you mark in your Bible, you can highlight or make notes and it would come in handy later. But Jesus is commanding his church to go to all nations and make disciples. Go I've already said baptizing and teaching building up his church. And so how did how did the early church do that. What do we see represented in the book of Acts is where we would go look right as to how the early church did that. And Luke, cool, Luke has been called a historian of the first rank. He is a very detailed guy. When he's given accounts, I mean, he's given accounts of who's reigning at the time and where it is. He's very, very detailed. in his reports. And so, what I wanted to start with tonight is just looking at a verse that both sides use, right? But Acts 2, 37-41. Y'all know that the context of this is that the day of Pentecost has come. The Holy Spirit has been poured out on the church. Tongues of fire rested on them. They were speaking in tongues, languages that the people understood the great, the majesty, the things, the gospel that they were talking about in their own language. And that gives Peter the opportunity right there in Jerusalem where Christ was crucified to preach the gospel and to show that Jesus Christ is Lord and is Christ. That they have actually taken by wicked hands and killed their own Messiah. So Peter gets to stand there and do the gospel preaching part, which is what he did. And he showed them, if you go read the account, he's showing them how Christ is the fulfillment of what was predicted in the Old Testament. He's using what we would call Old Testament verses to do that. That would just have been their scriptures. from the Scriptures, he was showing that Jesus is the Christ. And that's the pattern if you read Acts, as they go around on missionary journeys. They're reasoning from the Scriptures, showing that Jesus is the Christ. So Peter has preached the Gospel there. You see that's what they're doing from the pouring out of the Spirit. The promise, the covenant, the new covenant promise with God, pour His Spirit out on all His people. Not just select anointed offices, but on all His people. We get new heart. We get the Holy Spirit that causes us to walk with Him and obey Him. So that covenant promise there. But it says now, when they heard this, we heard Peter's presentation of Jesus Christ being the true Messiah, how He had died and how there was forgiveness and salvation in Him. They say this, it's when they heard this, they were cut to the heart. What does that mean? It's conviction, right? Their heart is ripped. They're convicted. And they say to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? I mean, this is probably a lot of the same crowd who stood outside before Pilate and said, crucify him. His blood be upon us and our children. Matthew 27, 25. I think that's right. His blood be upon us and our children. They had rejected Jesus as the Messiah. They had called out for His crucifixion and He was crucified. And now by the work of the Spirit in and through Peter and the apostles there, the Gospels being preached and the spirits at work such that they're cut to the heart. And they say, Brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said this to them, Repent. And sometimes when the gospel's being presented and conversion is being called for, sometimes the scripture uses just repentance. Sometimes it uses just faith. But when one is used, the other is assumed, conversion is repentance and faith, okay? Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin. So repent for the forgiveness of sins, trust in Christ, and be baptized. We know that's the content of the gospel. It says, so repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. After all, that's what they had witnessed there that day. They had witnessed the Spirit and fulfillment of God's promises being poured out on His church. And it had caused quite a commotion, hadn't it? But that was a gospel commotion. Because they were able to proclaim the gospel to the people all around there. And Peter was able to have this one of many that we see in the book of Acts. Magnificent gospel opportunities. So he calls them to repentance, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and to be baptized. And he makes this promise, you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And then in verse 39, For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them saying, save yourself from this crooked generation. So those who received his word were baptized and there was added that day about 3,000 souls. Let's back up and break that down just a little bit. Where he says, in verse 39, he says, for the promise. What is he talking about there? I've kind of hinted at God's promises. God's new covenant promises to pour out His Spirit on His people. But there's some other verses. The promise is the promise of the Holy Spirit to the repentant. He's just stated a promise, and it's an encapsulation, obviously, of God's promise, and He says this promise is for you, and we'll go forward in a minute. But the promise being the promise of the Father. Luke 24, 49, Behold, I am sending the promise of the Father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. We know that promise of the Father, obviously, was the Holy Spirit there. Acts 1, 4-5, And while staying with them..." See, Jesus was with them. If you read the first part of the book of Acts, He was with them for over 40 days and giving many convincing proofs of His resurrection. He was teaching them and preparing them. And it says, "...while staying with them, He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father." which you have heard from me. For John baptized with water, which you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." And I put some other verses there if you're interested and want to go look at them. I didn't want to put them all on your sheet. But the promise there being the promise of the Holy Spirit in fulfillment to God's new covenant promises poured out on all of His people. So Peter, nothing really all that controversial so far. Water. Thoughts or comments? Oh, you want to see where I'm going? OK. How about the recipients of this offer? You and your children. Who is that? Who is you and your children in that verse? That's the Jews he's talking to, and they're Descendants. The Jewish people. He says, this promise, this offer, this promise to you is for you and your children. And I know some see that and use that verse to try to promote infant baptism. We can talk more about that next time. I just don't think it's here in this particular text. Because of the qualifiers. If he had just stopped there, He said, this promise is to you and your children, which are Jews in the following generations, their offspring. And then he says, all who are far off. Who is that? Gentiles. And you can see that if you go read in Ephesians 2, for instance, you'll see that being used, I think twice, to speak those who are far off and those who are near. speaking of the Gentiles. So this promise is to you, the Jewish people, and it's to those who are far off, the Gentiles, and there's another qualifier. Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself. For the promise is to, you could read it like this, the promise is to everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself." The receiving of the Holy Spirit. And that matches so well with the rest of the New Testament, where you see one new man in Christ Jesus, Jew and Gentile, the Israel of God, or the true and greater Israel, however you want to say that. But this is a promise being made to the ones the Lord will call to Himself, from the Jews and from the Gentiles. In other words, it's a promise to the elect. Does that make sense? All whom the Lord our God will call to Himself. In apposition. That apposition helps. Jews, Gentiles, and all whom the Lord will call to Himself. So it's a promise to God's people. It's a promise to the elect. It's a promise of what God will do. through conversion and them coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The promise of the Holy Spirit upon the repentant. Same Holy Spirit poured out of Pentecost and caused this whole gospel to be preached there. What boldness! What changed in these people, by the way? From hiding in that upper room, afraid they were next, to standing right out in the open, and preaching. Yeah, the resurrection. The resurrection and the Holy Spirit, obviously. But the recipients are the elect, the recipients of this offer, the recipients of the promise. You and your children, all who are far off, Jew, Gentile, and qualified by apposition. Every one of those groups that the Lord our God calls to Himself. And so what happened? What happened? He says, the promises for you, those far off, and those the Lord will call, it says, and with many other words He bore witness and continued to exhort them, save yourself from this crooked generation. Now look what happened. So, those who received His Word were baptized, and they were added about 3,000 souls. Those who received His Word. The ones who were baptized were those who received His Word. In other words, those who believed, those who made profession of faith. I'm not trying to be mean here. These are the things that have held me back from it. All confusion would have been cleared if He'd have said, those who received His Word and their children. But he doesn't say that. He was a very, Luke again, is a very detailed writer. And if what he was saying, to me it seems, if what he was saying in verse 38 is in support of that and carrying that through, then what we would have read in verse 41, verse 38 to 41, verse 41 would have been those who received his word and their children were baptized. But that's not what it says. So at least there, this passage for me, and I'm just being honest with you, this passage supports believers' baptism strongly. For me. For those reasons. Luke was a very detailed writer. It seems to me he would have put that there. But it seems to me, at least we're starting in this text, the pattern that we see flowing out of Jesus' great commission, the pattern that we see is preaching of the gospel, Souls coming to faith and professing that faith, and them being baptized, and then if you continue reading in Acts 2 in verse 42, they were devoted to the apostles' doctrine, and on down the road you go. They were in fulfillment to the Great Commission. That was them doing the Great Commission. They were teaching. Teaching them to obey everything Jesus said. So that seems to be supporting the pattern, preaching, believing, making profession, baptism, and teaching. Again, if you read 242. Thoughts or comments? I'm open to them. When I was really young and learning about the Lord and getting to know Him, one of my questions was, if God wills that everyone be saved, then why aren't we? And then I read this, and it says there's a difference. He calls people, but many, many people just kind of drift off and take la-la land, I guess. But others really want it, and they receive it, and they're just so, have so much joy over it, and baptism is Have one next Sunday. We're going to have some baptisms next Sunday, so another day of joy. Okay, let's move on to some other complimentary verses. You have them there. And again, we're not answering every question this week. I'm starting here and then we'll go back to more focused on the infant baptism question and the two arguments next time. But complementary verses, Acts 8, 12, Philip is preaching. It says, when they believed Philip as he preached the good news about the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ. He's preaching the gospel. They were baptized. Now look, we get a little more detail. Both men and women. If they baptized their children, I think he would have said so right here. He's giving detail. He didn't do that. I know that's not a shut-the-door argument. But He tells us exactly who was baptized. Both men and women who professed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Later in that same chapter, It says this, as they were going along the road and they came to the water. This is Philip in the Ethiopian eunuch. It's a great story. He walks up. God sends him there and he hears him reading from Isaiah. And he says, do you know what you're reading? And he's like, how can I know unless someone shows me? And he shows him and preaches the gospel to him. And he says, see, here is water. What prevents me from being baptized? So evidently, Philip is proclaiming the same thing Peter is. And he commanded the chariot to stop and they both went down into the water and Philip and the eunuch was, and he baptized him. So the only reason I quoted those is you just see, well the one is the detail, the two with Philip and the eunuch, is you see that same pattern. The proclamation of the gospel, profession of faith, and then baptism. And then the last thing I have on here, and it's going to go quick if, quicker than I But that's okay. The last thing I have on here is sometimes household baptisms are appealed to. Right? And so I wanted to at least take a quick look at these household baptisms. Corey, would you read Acts 10, 44 to 48? And this is in the context. This is Peter. He's gone to Cornelius' house. and preaching the gospel to the ones that are gathered there. While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days. So he could teach them. Yeah. But look at that between verse 44 and 48. Peter's preaching, and the Holy Spirit falls on all who heard the Word. So the ones on whom the Holy Spirit fell were the ones who could hear and understand the Word. Right? They were of sufficient age to hear and understand the Word. And then in 47, those are the very ones who are baptized. The ones who obviously have believed what Peter is preaching and evidence of that, which the Jews needed in that day. They're struggling with this whole Jew-Gentile thing. The evidence that they have faith, which you know from Ephesians 1, right? That the Holy Spirit has come upon all there who heard the word. And they ask, can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? And it says, he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days. So the ones who heard the word and evidently believed because they received the Holy Spirit, they were the ones that were baptized in that household. This isn't a little bit of a side, but does anybody struggle with when it says baptized in the name of Jesus? Okay. Because sometimes people struggle. Okay, I thought we were supposed to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now it says baptized in the name of Jesus. Which one are we supposed to do? That little word of can be tricky in the Greek. It's a genitive with a lot of uses. And you could translate that the name Christ Jesus told you to baptize in, or the one he proclaimed it. Because if you read in Acts, he says, in the name of the Father and the Son. I mean, not Acts, Matthew. The name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So being baptized into the name of Jesus Christ is being baptized in the way that he said to be baptized. Right? And it's representing the coming to faith and the Holy Spirit baptizing you in the body. It's not two different things. That's the only thing I'm pointing out there. But in Cornelius' house, those who were baptized are the ones who heard the Word, who believed the Gospel, and received the Spirit. And you see, if you go on and read chapter 11, it's just an amazing thing to the Jews that the Gentiles had received the same Spirit they had. Right? That God was making no difference there. But the ones who believed were baptized. So again, we see the same pattern. Gospel preach, profession, and actually the obvious that they had come to faith, and baptism. How about Lydia? Who wants to read Acts 16, 14 to... I've got 14 to 5, and that's going backwards. Yeah, go ahead. I'm trying to envision what was happening there that day. I mean, I know this was after the Holy Spirit poured out for Pentecost. Right here? The 3,000 people when they were baptized. Yeah, that's two. Right, so what I'm trying to wrap my head around it, because I'm thinking like Jesus when he preached to a large crowd that was maybe 5,000 people, right? When he fed the 5,000, sorry. 5,000 people, right? So we would assume that if 3,000 people were baptized that day, they had crowds triple or quadruple the size of Jesus Maybe, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. There would have been a lot of people in Jerusalem. Not everybody believed, obviously. I don't think so. I think it may be a round number, you know, but I don't think it's, I don't think it's a symbolic number, okay? All right, so Cornelius. What about Lydia? I think this is supposed to say 14 to 15. I got here Acts If you can do that. Yeah, let's see. Let me look at it. Yeah, go ahead. 14 and 15. You know, Paul is there. He's gone to the place of prayer. He's preaching the Gospel there. And Sam, read 14 and 15. A woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshipper of God, was listening. Good. This is the only one of the four household baptisms that is not clear. Right? As to who was in the household, who all believed, all of that kind of language. We don't know if there were three people in the household or seventeen. She was a businesswoman. There's a lot of things. But what... We know that her and her household were baptized. It tells us that. She's a seller of purple goods. The Lord... By the way, why do people believe the gospel? Because the Lord opens their heart to believe the gospel. Why? Because we're dead in trespasses and sins. We won't respond. Sorry, Calvinist bones coming out. After she was baptized and her household as well. So we know that Lydia and her household were baptized, but we just don't have any information on who is in the household. This is the one of the four where we don't get good indicators, right? But it is the one of the four, and the three out of the four we have good indicators. But let me ask you a question. Let's just pause and think about this a minute. What would have been considered a household in that day? Well, a household in that day would certainly have, we don't even know if she had children. It doesn't say. But if she did, her household would have included her children, It may have included her extended family. It may have included domestic servants or slaves. And it possibly could have included live-in business staff, since she was a businesswoman. It could have been a big house. It could have been a small house. We don't have a lot of information. But I'm pretty sure that none of us would say that she believed in all of these other people were baptized. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't say that. We wouldn't say that a whole house full of unbelievers were baptized just because she was. I wouldn't say that. Because I would take the other household three out of the four to give me some indication as to what's going on here. But it would have been more than just Lydia and her children probably in her household. And we don't even know if she had children. We don't know if she was married. We don't know We don't have any of those answers. So we're not told as much as we'd like to be told about Lydia, but we're told everything we need to be told about her. So let's move to the Philippian jailer. It's in the same chapter. You don't have to go far. Verses 30. You know what happened. Paul's been locked up. They're praying and singing hymns. If you were to get put in prison for the gospel, hanging in shackles, or whatever was going on with them, I mean, man, that's convicting, isn't it? They're praying and singing hymns. They're not like, oh me, oh Lord, what's happening? We're being faithful to your name. Jesus told them. And they're rejoicing that they're suffering for the name. But anyway, so they're singing hymns, and the prisoners are listening, and suddenly there's an earthquake, and the prison was shaken, and fast forward, the jailer, he's afraid everybody's fled, and so he's going to take his own life because he knows he's toast anyway. They tell him not to, and he called for lights and rushed in, and everybody's still there. And so it's a convicting scene, and who knows how long he's been listening to them pray and sing hymns. But he's like, sir, what must I do to be saved? And in verse 31, it says, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. Now that's an interesting statement to me. I take that to mean, after thinking about it, the same thing that is true of your being saved is true of your household being saved. that you will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The same thing applies to your household. And then it says in verse 32, And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and... So evidently again we have a household, whoever they are, they're able to listen to the word. They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And He took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds, and He was baptized at once, He and all His family." So evidently they believed. Then He brought them up into His house and set food before them, and He rejoiced along with His entire household that He had believed in God. I know y'all got something to say about this one. We are going to talk about that next time. We don't baptize the unbelieving spouse. Hint. Right. Think about the marriages are holy. If it's one believer, the marriage is holy. You don't have to divorce your unbelieving spouse. Holy, holy word, holy is used in a lot of different, different ways. But we'll talk about that. We'll talk about that next time. What about this Philippian jailer? Go, John! Y'all are very sheepish, but I... So, I mean, this is, like, incredibly covenantal language here, right? Because the verb, the imperative, pistouson, is singular, right? You, singular, believe in uh and this is uh this is verse 31 you singular believe in the lord jesus christ and you singular will be saved you and your house yeah yeah so that's that's covenantal um such that the head of household right just as we saw in the old testament And see, that's what we're going to hear coming out next time. All this that he's saying right now will be what we bring out next time. And then that, right, that follows, and I noticed the CSV translates it, the Greek, a little bit differently. But, right, and he was baptized, he and all his family, and he rejoiced, along with his entire household, that he, singular, believed in God, right? That's the participle. Yeah, the participle's involved there. Pepistukos. Yeah. Hey, don't mock him until y'all try to pronounce some of those words. Yeah, the covenantal stuff is what I do want to deal with next time, and be faithful to that side of the argument. I really do. I don't have time to do that tonight. I just want to deal with what we see in the book of Acts here. But yeah, that's what I wanted somebody to bring out. That's what I wanted somebody to bring out. Where he says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. How is, he's not promising, the household won't be saved by one person believing. That ain't happening. So the promise is there. This is the standard. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you and your household same way. And the household is of age here. They can understand the preaching of the word. He spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them and then baptized him, he and his family. But to Jonathan, what Jonathan was talking about is what I wanted somebody to bring out because there's a difference. There's controversy in translation here in verse 24. You brought up the CSV. He brought them into his house and set a meal before them and rejoiced because he had come to believe in God with his entire household. The American Standard Version. before the New American Standard Version. Now, I didn't look at the New American, I mean, I'm sure it was probably the same. He brought them up into his house and he set food before them and greatly rejoiced with all his house having believed in God. All right? King James Version. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house. believing in God with all his house. That's the King James Version. And Mounce's book is the one I studied for Greek. He translates it this way. And when he had brought them up into his house, he set food before them, and he rejoiced, comma, having placed his faith in God along with his entire household. And so that's what makes sense in the context of the verses, that He's told, you believe in, and your household, you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll be saved. That's exactly what happened in verse 32. The Word was spoken to all in the house, and then they evidently believed it, and they were all baptized. And see, you all can see, even from some of this tonight, why you just want to be careful, and you just want to be kind and tender as brothers in the Lord when you discuss matters like this. Because, I mean, as we'll see next time, they are good scriptural arguments on both sides. It's not like one side is stupid. Either way, no matter what your camp is. The other side's not stupid. It's brothers and sisters in the Lord who can dwell together and disagree on some things from a biblical perspective. We're interpreting, we're seeing different things when it comes to continuity. We're seeing different things. There's a whole host of things that we can talk about. But what seems to be happening in the book of Acts, what I can see is that, and we'll see Crispus in a minute, but three out of the four household baptisms have the word preached to the entire house and the entire house believing. And one thing I hope nobody would say when we talk about a whole household being baptized is that slaves, and servants, and employees, and things who would probably be in the house would be. You can't just limit it to the children, that language. You can't, in that context, in that day. Yes, sir? One other thing to take care of is arguments from silence, right? Both sides have them. And so one of the things that you mentioned is that men and women are said explicitly in an earlier example. Yeah, in eight. And one of the things that's striking is Luke's recounting of the feeding of the 5,000. we're back in Luke chapter 9, the disciples are like, we have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we are to go and buy food for all these people, and Luke writes in chapter 9 verse 14, for there were about 5,000 men. Yeah, there were way more people than that. Right? Yeah. So the argument is But that's still very specific. The argument from silence would say, well, because he doesn't say women and children, there were none of them there as well. I don't think that logically follows the same way that what I'm saying does. I mean, I agree it's an argument from silence. I agree that. But I'm not sure the two are the same case. But those kind of things will be better for next time. Sam, go ahead. I think when he's getting at, I'll probably say it worse than He does speak well, doesn't he? Of course. Of course. That's right. And that was a general term given. by a very specific offer. He's clear that he's saying about 5,000 men. He didn't say people. We know we have to extrapolate for that. We don't know how many wives were there. We don't know how many children were there. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, both sides have some arguments from silence. I'm just saying to me, if Peter was making the case for children to be baptized based on 238, and if it really happened, then Luke would have mentioned it somewhere in here, and I can't find it. That's just one factor. I already said it's not a conclusive argument, but it is one factor. Lane. Yeah, I think the argument from silence is an argument. And I think it would be different if it would give more confidence to the position if it was limited to literature. But the argument is throughout the whole of the testament, there's a silence in totality of everything that's being baptized. Even in really key areas where it should have been mentioned, and I think you'll be addressing later, Acts 15, Judaizers circumcising the Gentiles, Galatians, Judaizers circumcising the Gentiles, I think an easy point, kind of Jeff's point earlier in Acts, where, man, it would just be easier if they would have said this. Well, it would really be easier if Paul and Luke, recounting the Jerusalem Council, would have just said, guys, you've been baptized, it's for Christ's sake. It's just silent, I don't know how to say that. Yes, it's already been understood, but it's a silence throughout the New Testament. So it's not limited to just the scope of Luke. All right, I knew y'all were gonna take me to next time, and I don't wanna go to next time yet. I won't have anything to say next time. So you gotta wait. So if you're taking me to next time, Andrew. Say again? The 5,000 versus the other person. My household is very countable. And that's most of these people are not. Yeah. So it's much easier to count the men and include all these wider numbers than to count the men and all the children. Got you. So that's why it might be that you count by a thousand men. Interesting. OK. Good. Thank you. All right. Let's look at Crispus. Because, yeah, see, I knew we were going to run out of time. Christmas 18, this won't take long, and there's not much about it, but if you look at chapter 18, verse 8, the gospel's going forth, and there's opposition, and they're having to move, and all of these things are happening. And it says in verse 8, Christmas the ruler of the synagogue believed in the Lord together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized. So it explicitly states that Crispus and his household believed. That's a household baptism where you can see it's a whole house conversion. I've actually seen a few of those where whole households have come to faith. As best we could tell, genuinely. This is amazing. We came to faith at the same time. And it is hard to believe, but it do, and that was our whole household. That was it. That's what I'm saying about Lydia, we just don't know. But our household came to faith at the same time. On our knees together with a Bible between us that still has tear stains on it. Yes, ma'am. I'd kind of like to, if you can correct me if you want to. Not on the night you're leaving. Yeah. Yes, the thing that is signified by baptism is the Spirit's work, baptizing us into the body. It is. Thank you. I will not correct you. I want you to come back. No, nothing wrong with what you're saying. Hit Christmas in his entire household belief. So just what I was trying to just kind of take a glance at here is what we see in the book of Acts. It seems clear to me by command and example of what the church did. They baptized those who professed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no clear command or example of the church doing otherwise. Now I know the New Testament is not, again we'll bring that out next time, it's not the all of the argument. But the pattern flowing behind the Great Commission is gospel, profession, baptism of those who profess faith. We hope that they are all regenerate, but we don't know. We don't know. So next time we're going to look at 77, and here's where it gets us all into all of that. That's why I don't want to do it tonight. Here's the question we'll look at next time. Are the infants of such as are professing to be baptized? And so what I want to do, what I really want to do is be faithful to both sides next time and show you how my Presbyterian brothers get where they go and then how Reformed Baptist brothers get where they go. Y'all know, I mean most of y'all probably know that we have an article in the Constitution that because it's not involving baptismal regeneration, things like that, that Presbyterians can join the church without being rebaptized. Or baptized. Yeah. OK, next time. But I guess that's some of what you get when you have a Reformed Baptist pastor who went to a Presbyterian seminary. But it is what it is. But I did. But and here's some of the stuff I struggle with. I'll be honest with you. OK. Any concluding comments or questions that don't take us to next time? That's hard, right? Because everything wants to push us in that direction. Sarah. Well, praise God and love one another, right? The way I have loved you. Amen? Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, there you go. All right, let me prep. Yeah, okay, Isaac. I'm not. The promise of the Father is to the repentant of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Right. What'd you see on Pentecost? Read Ephesians 1. When you come to faith, you get the Spirit. The Spirit's the seal of our redemption until the day. So that was promised in places like Ezekiel 36 and other places in the Old Testament. That's what I thought. I don't know. Hope it's a simple question. I just didn't know what the difference is between the way that the believers were baptized at Pentecost versus now. I'm not sure it matters. Oh yeah, that is another topic. That is another topic. Let me just say this for you, that Pentecost is non-repeatable. It is a one-time fulfillment of the pouring out of the Spirit on the body of Christ. Go read Ephesians 1 and you'll see how it normally happens now. When we come to faith, we get the Holy Spirit. We don't need to have the apostles' hands laid on us because every people group that needed to see that and have that done, they were like four Pentecosts in the book of Acts. Four different people's groups that got the Holy Spirit. But the normative thing is not the transitional thing that you read in the Acts, but what we find in the teaching material, like the epistles and things like that. So in Ephesians 1, the moment you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, you got the Holy Spirit. Okay? And the way you know you got the Holy Spirit is not speaking in tongues or some radical gift. It's the fruit of the Spirit being manifest in your life. Because I've known some of the meanest people in the world who claim to speak in tongues. No, I'm serious. They'll attack you upside one side and down the other. Okay. As far as I want to take that. You might want to take that back, Sarah, what you said earlier. Alright, let's pray. Lord, I too thank you for the unity that we can have even though we differ over some subjects like this. We want to honor you, love you, glorify you, and we want to love one another the way you have loved us. So help us do that. And Lord, go with us this week to, yes, ponder these things and think about what we've seen and read and heard, and have a burden for those out in the world, out in our neighborhoods, out in our workplace, out wherever you take us. Have a burden, maybe a refreshed burden for those who don't know you. who have no idea about your promises and your grace, and just help us to be light and salt to them. Lord, we give you praise that we are part of your church, and as part of your church, we are, our purpose, overarchingly, is that great commission. So help us to be instruments in your hand and see others come to faith in Jesus. Lord, bless us to love you and to grow in grace. It's in Christ.