Alright, so we're looking at the Baptist distinctives. And we've looked at biblical authority. We've looked at autonomy of the local church. And we've looked at priesthood of the believers. Tonight, we're going to look at the two ordinances. The two ordinances. I'm gonna read here. I'm using this this little study guide for this I'm gonna read this and I don't know who wrote this or I'd give them credit, but there's no credit there. So But but it's pretty good it says here the local church must keep the ordinances as delivered to the Apostles in the New Testament number one baptism by immersion and for believers who have evidenced fruit meat for repentance picturing the death burial and resurrection of Christ which commemorates Christ's sacrificial death for our sins participants. I'm sorry I just. Skipped the line my bad picturing the death burial and resurrection of Christ and giving entrance for the new believer into the local church body. Number two, the Lord's Supper, which commemorates Christ's sacrificial death for our sins. Notice that both actually do commemorate Christ's sacrificial death for our sins. And then participants of the Lord's Supper are born again baptized believers of the local church body. And so we're going to look at those things tonight, each of those. Let's pray for just a second here. And then we're going to look at these topics, the baptism and the Lord's Supper, these matters of order. Father, we thank you, Lord, so much for your goodness. We thank you, Lord. for Your Word. We thank You for order. We thank You, Lord, for the order that You've given the church. And Lord, we pray that You'd help us to be orderly in it. And Lord, we pray, Father, that You would just help us, Lord, to consider that these things are given from You. Not a work of our own. Not some achievement that we make. But Lord, we thank You, Father, that You give us these things to remind us of You. And Lord, we just pray Your blessing. Help us, Lord, in our study. In Jesus' name, Amen. Alright, so, if you'll look over at 1 Corinthians 11, I'm just going to read just a little bit here. I think maybe just one verse or so. 1 Corinthians. Chapter number 11. Just a disclaimer for my help in the back, I will not need lemon juice tonight, alright? I'm good, I've got what I need here. I may still have issues because I drank coffee with milk in it, so y'all just bear with me while I get rid of it if I have to. So, 1 Corinthians 11, notice here, he says, verse number 1, Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances as I delivered them to you. And we're going to stop there. I'm not going to deal with these next things. I'm not going to read these next things. You going to be all right, brother? All right. You can check on him if you want to. I'm not going to deal with these next things, these matters of order in the ranking system. He went on the front porch. I'm not going to spend time talking about the order of the ranking system, but the next several verses deal with the rank and file or rank and order. that God has among people. And so, you can read that on your own. There's some pictures of that order in our head coverings or the lack thereof. And so, some of those things you can look at on your own as I rub my bald head. Wow, we almost have a majority of bald heads in here. Wow. All right, so. He says here, though, that you remember the ordinances. These ordinances are ordained things. These are ordained things of order. Alright? And so, matters of order. You order the church in the sense of how you order the entrance into the church. And I'm not talking about the doors. I'm talking about entrance into the church congregation as a member. and then you order the revival of the church. And that is the regular reminder of what Christ did for us until He comes. You have this order in the church in this sense. And by the way, I call this section of 1 Corinthians, Order in the Church. I forget now which chapter it starts with. I believe it is chapter 9 maybe, through 14, or maybe it's 11 through 14, but you'll notice at the end of chapter 14, verse number 40, it says, let all things be done decently and in order. And so, I had to make the side statement earlier about, you know, this matter of being right and wrong and stuff, or things being just so, or orderly or whatever, because we will look at this, things being done decently and in order does not mean that things ought to be done mechanically. Y'all with me? You understand what I'm talking about? It does not mean that we need liturgy. It does not mean that we need... Listen, y'all, this is as far as I go with the bulletin. Upcoming events all right. Yeah, we talked about those upcoming events a lot, but that's as far as I go I'm not putting the song numbers in the bulletin. I'm not putting the the message title or the well I do put the message title. It's there, but I'm not putting the the you know the the points of the message in the bulletin necessarily I you know there was a time when I did that for help for people to keep track of the notes and stuff and But I don't do that and I don't order the service in that way. By the way, I think we're a little too structured. We get into that and we just get hooked into that and we're like, okay, this is how we do what we do. And you know why? It's because it's easy to, you know, people are methodical. and we follow those things. And so, I don't know if you all have noticed, but almost every service, we sing four songs. I don't think we did tonight. I did an opening song, which kind of made it. But we sing four songs. We do a song, we do a missions moment, and then we do a song, and then we do announcements and offering, and then we do a song, and then preach. Right? Or maybe two songs and then preach. Right? Now, at the same time, what else are you going to do? We're not going to change it every week. But at the same time, once in a while we do. A lot of times you have your prayer time altar call at the end of the service. I just on purpose say, you know what? We're going to have altar call at the beginning. And we'll do it at the end too. Whatever. Sometimes we say, you know what? We're going to change things up a little bit. Let's come to the altar and pray, right? And we do that. Sometimes we change those things because for the purpose of breaking up the liturgy or breaking up that mechanical nature, the mechanics, right? Because you get so... so caught up in the mechanics that you're in a rut right and and you're caught up in those mechanics and you just get so used to just do it and that it lulls you to sleep and you're able to just go through the motions without really being there And that's not what we're here for. We're not here to go through the motions. We're not here to just get through it and be done, right? Yes, sir? Tradition by the way in the Bible there are at least two places in the New Testament where tradition is talked about there are more than two there at least two but I'm thinking about Paul and What he said about tradition in one place. He said beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition, right? And he goes on, and it's the traditions of the world, right? Or after the traditions of men, rather, in the rudiments of the world. But then there's another place where he says to follow the traditions that he's established. So traditions are bad sometimes, but they're not always bad. But traditions do not trump the Word of God. And traditions need to be, if it's a biblical tradition, you follow it. If it's simply a tradition and it's the way we do things, every once in a while, change it. Break it up. Because we get too methodical. Or we get too mechanical in what we do. The church should not be a well-oiled machine. It should not be a well-oiled machine. And we can get there easily. What's that? The oil is good. Yeah, amen. We have the oil, we have the Spirit of God, right? But maybe we ought to be a well-oiled organism. A well-oiled body. Not a machine. And so I'm saying these things because order is important. But when order goes so far that we just do what we do and that's how we do it and we've been doing it for 50 years and that's what we do, right? Some of y'all you've been in churches that are that way it's like well This is the way we do it and you know and and that's why I try not to keep it always that way now I will say I like the order of you know a song and then the missions won't by the way We started the missions moment what four years ago. I think three or four when we came to this building we actually We had we had grown a little bit cold on missions as a church and And so, I believe that the Lord led me to start having a missionary or a guest preacher every week, every Sunday night. We did that for a whole year. And I called it My Life Verse was the theme. And we had people give their life verse and preach their life verse and stuff. And so we had a guest preacher missionary every week for a year. Part of that was to show our church that we're not the only good Bible believers around. There are other ones out there too. And by the way, that's one of the reasons we brought the Gemlicks in, because I want people to know, hey, we've got other good Baptist people out there. And then we started doing the tent meetings, which also showed us that as well. But the other reason was I wanted to encourage missions and things, right? And then after that was done, we started having our missions moment. Because we got to know a lot of missionaries. And so we said, well, we'll pray for you. And so we started every service. And that's a tradition that we do. But by the way, we don't always do it. And sometimes I skip it on purpose. Is it because I don't like missionaries? No. No. It's because I'm just changing things a little bit. And what that does to you a lot of times, sometimes I'll skip something and you're like, oh, he forgot to... Sometimes I do forget, okay? But most of the time it's not forgetting, it's just not doing it because... I want people to miss it sometimes, or realize that we don't just go through the motions. Right? And so, again, I'm spending a lot of time dealing with this, but when we talk about ordinances, we talk about order, I'm telling you, if we emphasize order so much that we become Catholic, It's not good. It's meaningless. But that's order in general. The ordinances, though, they do need to be observed, right? And so, number one, baptism. Some things about baptism. I could just read it from our church statement of faith, but I'm going to give this more from the heart than off of a paper. But baptism is, and I read that for you there, but baptism is not for your salvation. Let's go over to the book of Mark. Go to Mark. Mark chapter 16. Verse number 16. Yep, Mark 16, 16. The Bible says, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. Oh, it goes on? Oh, it does, doesn't it? but he that believeth not shall be damned." This isn't saying that you aren't saved if you don't get baptized. That's why the second half of the verse doesn't include baptism, right? It just says, he that believeth not shall be damned. Say again? Hold on a second here. So, I would say there's a couple things that we need to get from this verse. First of all, that baptism is expected. It's expected. It's not something that we put off. It's not something that we neglect to do. So it says, he that believeth in is baptized. Now, again, that is not to say that the person has to be baptized to be saved. I know people will read this he that is he the believer that is baptized shall be saved and I've I've heard I've heard folks from the Church of Christ over and over and we'll just repeat it at the at the tent at the fair I've heard him just come in and just argue he the believer that is baptized shall be saved he the believer that is baptized shall be saved as whoa whoa whoa but he that believeth not shall be damned You see, those that believe, get baptized. At least that's the expectation. That is right. And that is the other point to make from this verse. You don't get baptized unless you believe. And it comes in that order. Believeth, then baptized. Alright? And there's a lot of folks who misunderstand this matter of baptism. Baptism does not save you from sin. It does not save you from hell. Now, I'm about to say something and somebody's going to misunderstand. I know it. However, baptism does save you. What? It does? It does? Wait a minute. How does baptism save you? I'll go over to 1 Peter. I don't have this in my notes, so I'm going to be hunting for it. He's talking about Noah. Hold on now. Let me do the preaching. You're not following? I'll get you. I'll get you there. I think I found it. Here we go. Chapter 3. 1 Peter chapter 3. Wait a minute. All right, here we go. Let's see. Verse number 21, the like figure where unto even baptism doth also now save us. not the purifying or not I'm sorry not the putting away of the filth of the flesh but the answer of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ now don't misunderstand me here don't misunderstand me here y'all I'm giving you what the Bible says the Bible says baptism saves us now hold on you're about to Pastor, you're fired. Get out of here. Now, what does baptism save us from? It doesn't save us from hell. It doesn't save us and give us a place in heaven. In that sense, it does not deliver us from the filth of the flesh. What does it save us from? What did water save Noah from? Verse number 20, the verse before. It says, Which sometime were disobedient when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was a preparing wherein few, that is eight souls, were saved by water. The like figure, just like that, just like that figure there, where unto even baptism doth also now save us. I'm asking you to gather this here, to think on this, right? By the way, I'm going this way because I'm trying to upset your normal Baptist mind that just parrots the things that you parrot. I'm going to the passages that people go to to try to trip you up on your belief of baptism. What does this verse mean? Now, let me be more specific. What does baptism save us from? From drowning? Yeah, you get to get out, right? Yes sir? That's right. Baptism saves us from identification with the world. That's what it does. It saves us from identification with the world. It doesn't save our soul. It saves us from identification with the sinful world. It is an identification with Christ. It is an answer of a good conscience toward God. Right? Were you going to say something? That's true. It also saves us from being disobedient. But that's not what the context here is dealing with. That's a tricky way to say that. Yes. Yes. It doesn't save us from our sin. But it saves us from the sinful world. In that sense, as we are no longer identifying with the world, we are now identifying with Christ. Okay? So, now, I know, we should have titled this, Baptism Saves, so we could get some attention out there, right? Don't change the title, leave it alone. But I'm bringing that up because listen I was in Bible college once. Well a few times. For a long time off and on I was a Bible college and in Bible college and maybe I went to the wrong Bible colleges I don't know but in Bible college they teach you basically it's almost like a catechism you learn This is what we believe. And here are the proof texts for it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think anybody was there in 2001 when we had a Bible conference on the topic of Calvinism in 2001 when I was in Bible college. when I well yeah my my my time in the dorm and Bible college there so we had a Bible conference on Calvinism would you know that they spent two days just telling you Calvinism is wrong. Little bit a little bit of explanation as to why you know what there are two students at least that I know Personally that were there at that conference That had no clue no clue why Calvinism was wrong and they had no way of arguing when I because we went back to the dorm and I was like hey so you know the Bible uses the word elect what's that mean right you can't say that that's Calvinism like it's the Bible. The Bible uses word predestinate predestinated What's that mean? You can't use it. That's a Calvinist word. No, they don't own those words. Bless you. I think this area over here is like a sneeze world over here. I don't know the sneeze zone. But no, it's a Bible word, right? There are Bible words there. The Bible does say some things and sometimes you scratch your head and you say, what's that mean? You got to study it and you got to figure it out. No, you don't. Those two guys, by the way, they're now five-point hyper-Calvinists. Because if you don't know why we believe what we believe and deal with all the Scripture, Even the ones that they bring up, right? I'm not trying to talk about Calvinism tonight, but how do you explain passages that they bring up to try to convince you? Same thing with baptism. How do you explain the things that other people bring up? You can't just say, my pastor says, right? Or just parrot what your pastor says. Well, you know, baptism is not for salvation. Where does the Bible say that? Well, I can give you some passages, right? Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us, right? And by the washing of regeneration. Not the washing of baptism, the washing of regeneration. Yep, context. Ephesians, right? For by grace are you saved through faith in that and not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Baptism is a work. It is a good work. And it's a work that we ought to be doing. But it's not a work that saves from sin. So, I know, see we get technical, right? Now, Pastor G's going to go and he's going to say, Pastor said, baptism saves. Context, brother. Context. The Bible says it. Okay? So, now, you could also argue the same point from Mark 16, 16. That matter of, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. Saved from what? It doesn't specifically say in that verse. But the end of it says that he that believeth not shall be damned. So what we know is that the qualifier that's maintained through the verse is belief. Now we didn't even talk about what the rest of that chapter says and talks about signs that follow and stuff like that. And we know that those were were specifically dealing with. You know the. That time and his disciples then. Right. Right. So, this matter of baptism, again, it's a picture of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. We do so as a matter of obedience, right? As Jesus said, and we dealt with this in more depth in our church statement of faith in Sunday school recently, so I'm going to leave it mainly with that. So I'm kind of trying to hit it on a shallow point tonight. But really, I'm trying to hit those conflicting positions so that you gather that properly, right? Baptism is not a sacrament. It is an ordinance. The Catholics believe in seven sacraments that save your soul. Did you all know that marriage is a sacrament? So, their belief is you're married to a spouse or you're married to the church. Anybody ever notice that nuns wear wedding rings? Yeah, they're married to the church. What's that? The church. No, I don't know. However, let me qualify that. I don't know if all nuns wear wedding rings. The one that I talked to this week did. I don't know if priests wear wedding rings. They do? Ok. Because they're married to the church. If they do wear them. Because they're not allowed to be married outside of the church. That's right. Well, for them, the church is the universal church of which the Pope is the head under Christ or in the place of Christ. Kind of, you know, Antichrist. Yeah, somewhere in there. Yes, there are seven sacraments. I won't go through all of those. There are seven sacraments that they hold to. We'll say it that way. We don't believe in the sacraments. Some of the things that they believe about those things, some of them are absolute blasphemy. Some of them are okay, but they're not getting you to heaven. I don't think so but it's it is blasphemy and idolatry. But the. Being right with the church is definitely a heaven or hell matter. And for them, being right with the church... Man, that was a clip somebody could grab and use. Being right with the Catholic Church, they believe, is a heaven or hell matter. And if you're not right with Mary, for them, you're not right with the church. So, there's all that. And then they have the prayers to Mary and all those things. Yes, sir? Yeah. Yeah, their local priest or whatever, yeah. Yeah. So, on the matter of baptism, it's an ordinance. It's ordained that we have baptism, that we baptize believers, right? That folks who get saved get baptized into that church, right? Alright, now the Lord's Supper. And we've dealt with this, by the way, we dealt with this recently. And I'm just going to real quick because we're over time. We dealt with this recently. We talked about the Lord's Supper when we had the Lord's Supper. I preached on it and gave you direction on it and everything. So I'm going to kind of just keep it simple. If you want to write down some verses that we were dealing with here, on this topic on baptism and the Lord's Supper just in general between the two Mark 16 15 and 16 there Luke 3 7 and 8 Acts 8 12 and 1st Corinthians 12 verses 12 through fourteen and first Corinthians eleven verse two and verses twenty three through thirty two and so those are going to deal with that the Lord supper is is what we observe on a regular basis It says as oft as you do it. For us, it's about four times a year. We typically observe the Lord's Supper on the fifth Sunday. That's how we do that. That's our definition of as oft as we do it. As often as we do it. At least right now it is. We had done it maybe once a year. That's not very often. Some churches do that that way but we we tried we try to have a way and then I was like well how do we know how we plan like a good time you know actually his brother C.D. that suggested quarterly and I said well maybe we do it on the fifth Sunday and he said that's a great idea by the way brother C.D. wants to get baptized. He got saved at the tent meeting a couple of years ago and he wants to get baptized. So. We observe the Lord's Supper. The purpose of observing the Lord's Supper is to remember the Lord's death. The work that Christ did for us. Now, baptism reminds us of what Christ did for us. For the new believer, baptism is identifying with what Christ did for us. And for the church, it's again reminding us what Christ did for us. for the church, the Lord's Supper is reminding us of what Christ did for us, and it reminds us that we need to walk worthy. We need to walk worthy. It reminds us, you know, we're believers, we've been saved, and the Lord's Supper is to remind us that it wasn't just, you know, some light thing that Christ died for our sins. That it's a big deal. We need to discern the Lord's body as 1 Corinthians 11 says. We celebrate what the Lord did and how He rose again every Sunday, right? That's why we meet on Sundays, because He rose. But, when we have Lord's Supper, It is an opportunity to get right. Because we need to eat worthily. We need to partake worthily. Right? And the only way to partake worthily is to make sure that we're right with God. And so if we're not right with God, We get right with God at the Lord's Supper, right? That is an ordinance that we are commanded to observe on a regular basis. Regular for us is four times a year. Yes, sir. Amen. Amen. Now, that being said, that does not mean that you don't get right with God in between those fifth Sundays, okay? So, if you've done something wrong, get right right away. That's right. Keep a short account, as some preachers would put it. If you've done wrong, get right. If you've wronged somebody, get right with that person. And you shouldn't, by the way, you shouldn't wait until Sunday to get right. Right? You shouldn't wait till the next church service to get right. If God has convicted you of sin, get right, right then. Don't wait till you go to bed at night. Don't wait till you get up the next day. Don't wait till you're doing your devotions. Get right, right then. I know some folks, matter of fact, I think it was John R. Rice, He would, and that's not an endorsement of him, just saying, you know, but he said that he would, every night, he would write down his sins. And he would confess his sin. Whatever he did that day that God dealt with him on, he'd write them down, confess them. And then he would dispose of that list. I can't remember how, but I know one preacher ate it. He ate it. I know one flushed it down the toilet That's a good way to do it. One tore it up so it couldn't be read. Or you burn it. I am not necessarily an advocate of writing out all your sins every night. I'm an advocate of just getting right the moment you realize you sinned. The moment God brings conviction. And it doesn't need to be heavy conviction. It can simply be just, you're doing wrong. It can simply be just, you're doing it wrong. And then, you deal with it right then. You get right, right then. By the way, that's why we say, and sometimes practice, the altar is not closed. You know? In other words, listen, if God deals with your heart in the middle of a sermon, and He has prompted you to go get right, or He's prompted you to go pray, maybe God prompts you to pray for the preacher, because he's ugly, or something, I don't know. Or, no, I don't want hair. I'm good without it. Matter of fact, just pray that it doesn't grow back, because then I have to shave it again. Whatever it is, the altar's open, you can come on down and pray. If you realize you're lost, now everybody in here I think has a testimony of salvation, but if you realize you're lost and you need to get saved, hey, hit the altar, get saved. Don't wait. Don't wait. If you need to talk to somebody, I suppose, you know, if you've been around here any length of time at all, you know who you can talk to, just tap on their shoulder and say, I need to get saved. And I think they'll be just fine with that. And listen, that's where the order thing goes out the window. Because you know what? There's nothing more orderly than somebody getting saved. We don't have to follow the, well, pastor's preaching, he's on point number three. Listen, if you need to get saved, I don't care if I have to stop the sermon. We'll just stop the sermon. You get saved. And if the Lord leads, I'll continue the sermon. If He doesn't, we'll just all shout and holler and just have a good old time. But Lord's Supper is a reminder to stay right. to get right, to stay right. It's a reminder, it's a public reminder to get right. But it's not just a reminder to get right, it's a reminder of why we're able to get right. Because of Christ's sacrifice for us. And so, again, I can't really take you to a passage that people use to try to show you that, oh, maybe I can. Somebody help me. Y'all get your phones out. Or something. Search for Eat My Flesh. And then, man, I just opened a can of worms. Or something. I knew Brother Ramsey would find it first. Yeah, John 6.51, let's start there. Oh no, let's start earlier. How about John 6.47? John 6.47. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I think that's good enough right there, amen? Verse 48, I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven. That a man may eat thereof and not die. What bread the manna. No Jesus. Right. The manna was a picture of Jesus. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh. which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves saying. How can this man give us his flesh to eat. Then Jesus said unto them verily verily I say unto you except ye eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you. Who so eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life. and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him, as the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the father so he that eateth me even he shall live by me this is the bread which came down from heaven not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead he that eateth of this bread shall live forever Hmm. You know, this is the passage that Catholicism uses to try to prove that the wafer and the wine become the actual physical body and blood of Jesus. You might want to go help him again. He's on the phone. All right. That the wafer and the wine become the actual body and blood of Jesus. That's what they believe. That's not correct. That's not correct. What is he talking about here? What is he talking about here? It's symbolic, that's right. It's symbolic. Just like he said, what, I am the vine, you're the branches. That's symbolic. He didn't mean that he was literally a tree, right? And here it sounds, now, this was a hard saying, okay? And it was a hard saying for a reason. Because they needed to really, really think about what it meant to follow Him. They really needed to consider this matter. It seems quite graphic there, doesn't it? But we have this symbolism here. Now, the bread that we partake in in the Lord's Supper and the juice that we partake in in the Lord's Supper is symbolic of the body and blood of Jesus. It is a symbol. And we are symbolically fulfilling what he's saying here. that the fulfillment, symbolic fulfillment of what he's saying here does not save us. But it is something that saved people do. Right? There's a lot of stuff like that in the Bible. That, you know, you're seated with Christ in heavenly places. There are some things that the Bible just declares that you have, as a believer, you are and you do those things. Now, some don't. But, if they stick around on the planet, and they get right with God, they will. if they do what they ought to do. Right. That's right. And if you don't there's there's chastisement and such. Again, the point here really is to just point out the fact that there are misuses or misapplications related to the ordinances. We don't have time to go into all of them and every detail and everything, but I wanted to point these things out and show you some of the passages there that they deal with. And Brother Phil, he hit it right on the head there. that it's symbolic. It's symbolic. Amen. Amen. Well, that is, those are the two ordinances. And next week, we'll be dealing with a different topic. Unless Pastor G wants to just preach on individual soul liberty. I mean, it's up to you. You have liberty. Individually. In your soul. To decide.