All right, as we work through this confession, oh, I hear something. Get a little echo here. Anyway, as we work through, we got into this number 16 on baptism. This is a lesson here that some of us have already gone over. So if you've been here for a while, pick this up and look at it and say, I think I've got a copy of that. You do. All right? And so, but there's some here that do not. And so we want to go over this. And this, we're looking in that confession of faith at number 16. And so we'll deal with this the next week. We'll be dealing with the Lord's Supper, all right? Baptism and the Lord's Supper, the two ordinances that we have. So let's go to the Lord in prayer, and then we'll get started with this. Heavenly Father, as we come to you right now, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you, dear Lord, that you've given us a book to guide us through all that we do and through life. We thank you, dear Lord, that you've given us this book as a rule book for life. It's a owner's manual, shall we say. And we thank you now. Pray that you'd bless this time of study we have this morning, and Heavenly Father, teach us. We ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. We talk about Christian baptism, so, We'll go over this. Like I've said before, prior to Christian baptism, the other, oh, there's all kinds of cults and everything else that practice some type of baptism. But this Christian baptism is something else. So who started it? Well, that's a good question, isn't it? Who started it? We find the Matthew 21, 25, the baptism of John, which was it? From heaven or of men? That's the question, isn't it? And they reasoned with themselves, saying, if we shall say from heaven, he will say unto us, why did ye not then believe him? And that's the truth. Well, the answer comes to us in John 1.6. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. So Christian baptism, as we look at it, realize that it came from God. And just think about this. At this point in time, There was only one person in the whole wide world that had the authority to baptize. Now, I can remember when, some of you might not know the name Pat Boone, but he was a actor and singer years ago. And so he had a big swimming pool out back of his house shaped like a guitar. And anyway, he was an ecumenical Christian. And so he just baptized all kinds of people. And remember this and never forget it as we look at these things. There's one thing the devil wants to do. He wants to take the authority of the Word of God away from you. So when you look at any doctrine in the Bible, and if it's a doctrine that demands obedience, you'll find that that'll be one of the first things that the devil will attack, I don't care what it is, because he wants to take that authority away from God. And so, the best way to do that is just take the authority of the word of God out of the hearts and minds of people. and that way they'll do anything, all right? And so I get amazed at that. For instance, let me give you an example. The Lord has not started anything outside the church. The Lord instituted the church. He said the church was the pillar and ground of the truth. The church, the Lord loved the church and gave himself for it. And so what we find is that, I can remember 40 years ago when some of the preachers were talking, they said, now if you guys lived to a year in your 70s, whatever, they said, you'll see this, the devil's constant attack on getting the authority away from the church. And what do we have today? Just like the mailbox out there is filled with stuff. All these people have ministries. All right? Ministries. None of them are sponsored by a church. They just have their ministry. Totally, 100% unscriptural. All right? A ministry apart from the church is 100% unscriptural. God has nothing to do with it. Period. But yet, when you look around today, I mean, the Manor mailbox is full of all these people that have their ministry. And so, when you realize what you've got there, is you've got the devil working first class to do his thing. And so there was a man sent from God. Now that's very important because you have the authority now. So now let's see how this works out some, let's go on. All right, when did it start? So we have the man now that has, he was sent from God. And when did it start? The answer, Matthew 3, 13. Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him. Now just think about this. Jesus walked over 60 miles to be baptized of John. And Why? Because he knew that John was the only person that God the Father had put on earth to baptize. Nobody else. Then comes Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John. See that? Unto John. Why John? because John was sent from God. Nobody else. And when this ecumenical explosion started years ago, everybody was baptizing everybody. I mean, man, if they found a mud puddle big enough to baptize somebody in, they'd do it. And totally unscriptural. To be baptized of him, But now watch this in verse 14, Matthew 3, 14. But John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering, said unto him, Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill righteousness. Then he suffered him. In other words, he baptized him. And so Jesus knew the order. Now, I get kind of amused at times. I hear preachers say, well, we gotta follow the New Testament pattern. We gotta follow the New Testament pattern. And I've come to the conclusion that a lot of those people are Democrats. Because they say, let's follow the New Testament pattern, and then the next thing they do is forsake the New Testament pattern. And so what they say and what they do is two different things. But that's typical for the devil, isn't it? And that's typical for socialists and communists because what they do is lie about everything. The order is, look at this now, God, John the Baptist, Jesus, and then Jesus gave the commission to the church. And so when we just simply go through the Word of God, allow the Word of God to speak to us, we'll find the book has the answers. All right? And that's why it's so important for us to pay attention to the answers, but that's why you find, what do these occults do? One of the first things they do is they gotta come up with their own Bible. And the reason they gotta come up with their own Bible, because they need a Bible that's going to back up their doctrine, right? And that's why, you know, Jehovah's Witness come up with their New World Translation that's been changed about 500 times since they wrote it. and Book of Mormon, they gotta have their own form of book to do what they're going to do. But what's interesting is Baptist people and others have been dumbed down to the point that they don't even recognize, when you look at something like the NIV, right? Now listen, if the Jehovah's Witnesses can use the NIV and the Catholics can use the NIV, Baptists need to throw it in the garbage. But we have all these religious lost people, and over the next two weeks, I'm going to start today with a sermon dealing with religious and lost, and I'll show you some things that You might not have ever seen before, but I'll deal with some of that today, and then next week, we'll sum it all up, okay? We'll just take one passage of scripture and deal with it, and I'm looking forward to that. All right, so we realize then, who started it? Well, God did. He sent John, all right. And then Jesus came, and when did it start? It's when Jesus walked over 60 miles to be baptized of John. Nobody else, nobody else had the authority to do it. And so now we find what is the purpose of this Christian baptism. It's very important. Romans 6.3. Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death. See that? It's a symbol. That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Verse five, for if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Colossians 2.12. buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised him from the dead. Now, what we find is this. Grab your Bibles, turn to Acts 2.38. Now, if you took Acts 2.38 out of the Bible, the Church of Christ, the Christian church, and others would collapse. All right? They would just absolutely collapse because they take these verses and just pervert them, twist them. And when you look at, Acts 2, 37, 38, and we'll throw in verse 39 also. But in verse 37, it says, now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Now, simply looking at this, the Church of Christ, Christian Church, they twist this around like you wouldn't believe. But, now listen, if I took all of you to the post office, And you know, in a post office, they have the board where, wanted, isn't that right? They have all these people wanted for murder, for drugs, for this and that, right? It says, wanted, what's the next word? For. You see that? Wanted for what? Murder. When you read this, it says, then Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall, in other words, for the remission, your sins have already been remitted. You see, it's not hard. It's just knowing the language. That's all. Why are you getting baptized? Well, I'm getting baptized because of my sins are gone. Oh, okay, good. Baptized for that. Look at verse 39. For the promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are far off, even as many as the Lord God shall, what's the next word? Call. You see that? Shall call. You see, folks, when we look at these, isn't it amazing? They take one verse, they pervert it along with a few others, but what about the other thousand? This is blatant. You say, by grace through faith, that not of yourself, it's the gift of God. All these verses, right? You see, they wanna take these people and they get them focused on one false thing. Right? In other words, it's kind of like this. They'll use a whole ocean of truth to inject one pint of poison. All right? And isn't it the poison of salvation? See how it works? And that's what these deceivers do. They work hard at that. And they robbed God of his sovereignty. And they're telling you that baptism saves you. That's a lie. Baptism didn't die for you on the cross. Baptism didn't shed any blood for you. Baptism nowhere in the Bible purchased your redemption. Christ done that. And so, when we look at these verses, we realize the purpose of this is to represent the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And then it represents the new birth for you. Man, the old man has died and buried, and now there's a new birth, that's you. That's what it says. buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised him from the dead, Colossians 2.12. It's a symbol. See that? Ever so important. But these people want to pervert that truth. Listen. These people, they're prolific liars and deceivers. And never forget, the Bible says that Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it's no great thing that his ministers also become the ministers of righteousness. You see that? And so, don't ever forget that. All right, let's take a look at this. We've got, we start off here, scriptural baptism requires something. The proper candidate. Now there's one thing about this church. Remember something. And I hear it all the time. A preacher called me yesterday and talked to me for a while, and he's basically a Protestant. He's supposed to be a Baptist, but he's basically a Protestant. And just for those of you who don't know it, Baptists are not Protestant, never have been. Protestants are those people that came out of the Catholic Church. That's your Methodist, Episcopalians, your Lutherans, your Presbyterians, all them. Church of Christ, Christian church. When you look at the beginning, you realize, man, all that stuff come out of the Catholic Church. That's why they practice Catholic doctrine, like baptism and works for salvation and stuff like that. All of them, the word Protestant means protesters, and that's what it is. They all came, Protestants all came out of the Catholic Church. Well, the Baptists didn't come out of the Catholic Church. And so we're not Protestants, we're Baptists. Now watch this. So when it talks about the proper candidate, now we understand that, now listen to me, here's one of the differences. The Bible teaches, now listen to me, the Bible teaches there's a difference between, all right, the church and the family of God, all right? Now the family of God is universal, okay? But the church is local and visible. Protestants don't make a difference between those two. They say the church and the family of God is one. And I hear some of the most confused preachers in my life. Sometimes, of course I can't, once they've messed it up like that, I just shut them off. I can't hear it, I can't listen to it no more. Because if they're wrong on the church, they're gonna be wrong on the ordinances. If they're gonna be wrong on the church, they're gonna be wrong on authority. And I told this preacher that called me, I said, I want you to know something. I said, I'm a man of one book, and this is a church of one book. And he felt dead silent. Now, so what we have here, we've got to realize that within the church, you might say, well, you got lost people in the church. No, we got lost people amongst us. All right. I might've been deceived and accepted somebody. We might've accepted somebody into the fellowship, but that's no sign they're saved. The family of God consists of those that are saved. All right? Ever so important. That's why when the time comes, God's gonna send forth his angels and he's gonna separate the goats from the sheep. All right? And so the church, the church is different from the family. Now let me show you what the universalists do. Now a lot of them, even some of the Baptist churches around here are so messed up, they'd be better off if a tornado hit them, just tore their building down, they never rebuilt it, they just left and went somewhere else. Terrible. Because they don't see biblical doctrine, they add a doctrine. Like the First Baptist Church in Milford and a bunch of others in this area, they have two churches. And I'm thinking, You know what? You're so dumb if your IQ dropped one more point, you'd be a plant. That's right. Because they say, well, we've got the universal church, all the Savior in the church, and then we got this local visible body. Now, if that be true, if that be true, now listen to me, if that was true, then why in the world would anybody get scripturally baptized? Why would we have local church authority? Why would God give pastors to teach you? Why is the church then the pillar and ground of the truth? If you have this universal body, See, the people that believe that, well, they don't see any importance in baptism. They don't see any importance in church membership. They don't see any importance in the things that's important to God. If Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that's pretty important, isn't it? You see, and so what we have, there's only one church. And I've been in some debates and stuff, and when I go off on this, they quit. Because even when I was going to the University of Göttingen in Germany, after some old, a lot of history there, I'll just put it like that. But we got in this conversation and one of the guys said, well, I don't believe that. And I said, well, how can you not? I said, the Lord, Bible says the Lord started a church, singular, right? And he said, yeah. I said, well, okay, let me ask you a question. I said, when did the Catholic church start? According to Catholic history, he said third and fourth century. I said, well, now what about all these churches that Paul started? in the 300 years prior to that. What were they? When Paul started that church at Ephesus, what was it? If he started the church at Corinth, what was it besides messed up really bad? The fact of it is, Paul started Baptist churches. And what determines that? The doctrine. I don't care what your name is. If I question you and you come up with a scriptural baptism and the Lord's Supper and the authority of the church, I know what you are. Doctrine determines denomination. You see, all I have to do is listen to you talk for a little while, then I'll know you're lost down and going to hell or you're not. Either you're a Baptist or you're not. You see, why? Because doctrine determines what you are. Okay, that's why the devil wants to fight so hard against doctrine. All right, quickly, now let's move on. Scriptural baptism. requires something, a proper candidate. And we find that as we go through these scriptures, boy, every one of them, you know, Paul, what happened to Paul? Well, the stuff fell off his eyes and then he was baptized, all right? Now, if we look at this, Acts 2 41, then they that gladly received his word were baptized. You see that? Who was doing the baptizing? These apostles, they were doing the baptizing, weren't they? And the same day they were added unto them about 3,000 souls. Okay, now there had to be something there to be added to. Isn't that right? Well, if we were to look on through that, they were added to the church. Acts 8, 12, but when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized both men and women. See, then baptism, scriptural Christian baptism, you're saved, baptized, added to the church. All right, the church is a local, visible body. Ever so important. Watch this one now, just drop down to Acts 16, 14, 15. And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of the city of Thyatira, which worshiped God, heard us, whose heart the Lord opened, and she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized, Paul was doing his mission work, wasn't he? saved, baptized in her household. She was sort of saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there. And she constrained them. All right, Acts 18, seven. And he departed thence and entered into a certain man's house, named Justice, one of the worshiped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue. And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house. And many of the Corinthians hearing believed and were baptized. Saved, baptized, added to the church. Remember, baptism is an act of identification, all right? It does two things. One, it's scriptural, all right? And it represents the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And two, we look at not only does it represent that, but it's a thing of identification. And I've already mentioned that to you about Fellow I know in, well, several of them in different countries. One of them is in Indonesia. They always have a public baptizing because if you're not willing to be publicly baptized, then there's something wrong with you. You see, you're not really saved. But for those that are publicly baptized, well, then those people are identifying with the Lord Jesus Christ, all right? All right, proper mode. Question, how do you bury a person? Sprinkle, pour, or bury in? And folks, listen, when you look at the history of these things, where does sprinkling or pouring come from? I mean, you look back at the old kings and queens and them with all their garb on, and man, they're gonna have a baptizing, and lo and behold, one of them said, I'm wearing these clothes, you're not baptizing me, let go of me, I'll drown in these things. You better figure out another way of doing it. And so they come up with pouring and sprinkling. Pouring for the adults, sprinkling for the babies. And we all know who does that today, don't we? You see, it hasn't changed. Remember something. Here's what's so amazing. History does some things that's absolutely amazing to me. One, notice this. Truth is constantly under attack. Why? Because the devil wants truth to change. Right now, just think about the things that have been changed thousands of years ago. totally corrupted and changed, but then nobody tries to change it. And the reason they don't try to change it is because the devil has already changed it and got people to accept it. And so there's no reason, but now when it comes to truth, now he's constantly attacking that because he wants somebody to bury the truth and accept the lie. And so when you look at baptismal regeneration, works for salvation, all of these church ceremonies and stuff that's been perverted, you don't find them in the word of God. You say, how does it keep on going? Well, the devil's just, he's not gonna fight against it because it's going. You say, why fight against it? He wanted to get it going and it got going. So once he perverts something, he leaves it there. And so when you look at the proper mode of baptism, how do you bury a person? Do you sprinkle, do you lay him down on dirt and sprinkle a little dirt on him? Do you pour a little bit of dirt on him? Or do you bury him? Strong says to immerse, submerge, to make overwhelmed, fully wet. used only in the New Testament of ceremonial ablution, especially, technically, of the ordinance of Christian baptism. And so, the mode is immersion. Not sprinkling, not pouring. The Methodist Church, a lot of different parts of the Methodist Church have got to the point now where they don't worry about baptism, they'll let you choose whether you want to be sprinkled, poured, or immersed. Doesn't make any difference to them. So if you just want a little sprinkling and then say you've been baptized, well, you can go up there and they'll sprinkle the water on you and say you've been baptized. Or you can lean over a bowl and they'll pour some water over your head and say you've been baptized. Or they'll immerse you if you want to be immersed. That's amazing. In other words, they really don't care what the Bible teaches about that. They're willing to do anything they want to do. And you give man the opportunity and he'll mess it up. Proper administrator, the one given the authority to. Let me tell you, there's some things that's happened that I think is just absolutely wonderful. I knew a missionary that was in another country, and it was a very sparse country, like Nepal or somewhere like that. And he was told about some people that have accepted Christ and they live way, way back in the mountains somewhere. So out of curiosity, he said, well, can you take me there? They said, well, it'll take us a week because we don't drive so far, the rest of us walking. When he got back there, there was 20 of these people, Christians, And the men there, and they had studied the word of God. And get this, they didn't start a church. They didn't baptize anybody. They just prayed that God would send somebody so they could do it scripturally. And so when this missionary showed up, they inquired of him, who sent him, everything. They inquired him. They had been waiting, get this now, almost 20 years for somebody that had the authority to do it. And so that missionary stayed there about a week with them and scripturally baptized them and who had been teaching and doing the teaching and stuff and they ordained them a deacon and organized the church, the whole shooting match. But those people understood the word of God and waited for almost 20 years. Now, see, that's what biblical convictions can do. Ever so important. The proper administrator. Well, that's gotta be somebody that's got the authority, huh? That's why when I baptize somebody, I say, by the authority given to me and by Chapel Ridge Baptist Church. Because an individual doesn't have the authority to do that. That authority's got to be given to that individual, whether it be a missionary or who, the church has got to give the authority. Other than that, it's an unscriptural baptism. I baptized one lady years ago, and she said, I gotta be rebaptized. I said, re? I said, there's no such thing as that. She said, okay. She said, I gotta be baptized scripturally. I said, I can handle that. I said, what happened? She said, well, when I was saved, she said, I was a member of a contemporary type church and they took everybody that was saved out back and run them all through a cattle trough. And she said, there was no authority in that. Nobody had done anything. She said, we just went out there and she said, my husband baptized me. and proper minister, proper authority of today, the Lord's Church. All right, let me read these real quick, got three or four minutes left. All right, so Matthew 6, 16 to 18, and this church, the one the Lord started, and Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. Remember that word revealed. Everybody say revealed. I said, don't forget it because you're going to see it again in a few minutes. But notice something. If God the Father doesn't reveal this, you'll not see it. All right, verse 18. And I say unto thee, thou art Peter. All right. And, That's one word, and up on this rock, and that's reflexive, he's talking about himself. I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now, the liars, they wanna say, well, Peter started the church. No, no, no, no, no. Scripture does not sustain that. Luke 6, 12, and it came to pass in those days that he went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer. And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples, and of them he chose 12, whom he also named apostles. See that? So now, he's got these guys, they're baptized now, and he's gonna start the first church. Watch this now, 1 Corinthians 12, 28, and God has sent some in the church, first apostles. See that? It's right there in front of you, isn't it? So the Lord called these guys together. Of them, he chose 12, whom he named apostles. And then you go right here, and God said, some in the church, what? First apostles. There's your first church. Okay? Matthew 28, 18 to 20. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, all powers given unto me in heaven and earth. In other words, Jesus is telling them, I have the authority to do what I'm about to do. I've got the power. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Teaching them to observe all things. Ever, ever so important. Okay? And so keep that and know this. There is a biblical church. There is a scriptural baptism. And that's got to be our scriptural pattern. Amen? All right, let's all stand, if you would, please. Time is gone already. Time is gone already. Poof, gone. And so good to go across this with you one more time. Brother Dan, would you dismiss us in prayer, please?