Well, turn in your Bibles if you would please tonight to Acts chapter number 2. Acts chapter number 2. How many of you, and I just want to see a show of hands, you had to look through a post to see a screen. Lift your hand up high, I want to see your hand. You had to look through a post, I mean, a portion of it. All right, there were not enough hands going up. They're sort of doing like this kind of stuff, you know. And yeah, if you usually somewhere in the building, few people have a clear view unless you're setting in one of these sections over here, you have a clear view. So we're gonna be putting something in front of you in the near future. Well, it might be a little bit further than that. I want you to pray with me that will resolve the issue so that no matter what section you in, You're in, sitting, and you have a clear view of a screen. Wouldn't that be a blessing? And I think it would help us all the way around in our services. And I hate to use a term, a phrase, but I don't know how else to say it, a worship experience. And worship is an experience, isn't it? It is. It's where we meet with God. And there's poles that can be a little aggravating and stuff like that. And there's some folks, you know, you can't even see me, you have to turn around and look around to pole at me, you know what I'm saying? We can't remove the poles, I'm sorry. All right, if we do that, the building caves in, we can't do that. But we can fix some of these other issues. I'm not gonna be at the door tonight, I wanna be, but I can't. I have to go up. Many of you ask about my dad. I'm going to give you a quick update. My dad is okay. That's just the best way to put it. His mind is, it just, it is what it is. He probably is worse than he was before he had the open heart surgery. Probably didn't come back as far maybe as members of the family anticipated. His health overall, he's still very weak. He's made strides, but anyway, he still has a long way to go. You can't remember to exercise. You can't remember to do certain things in between. and you just lack the motivation for that. It's hard to come back from an open-heart surgery. And so he still lacks the ability to do a lot of things independently. So anyway, I'm gonna have to go home packed tonight. My sister's going on vacation, so I'm gonna go up and spend a couple days helping take care of my dad. There's a few things I need to do for the house, to the house for my mom. And so I appreciate your prayers. And so Lori and I will be gone for a couple days. We'll be here on the Lord's Day. and we sure would appreciate your prayers for our family thank you for being so faithful in that area praying for us but we're just gonna slip out right after the service and normally we'd hang around and shake some hands fellowship with folk but we need to get everything ready because I have to leave out early in the morning I have to have him at the doctor by 10 and it's about an hour and 45 minute drive one way and so we're going to leave real early and get him there to the doctor okay you should be in Acts chapter number 2 and I want you to find verse number 38 Acts chapter 2 and verse number 38 we're looking at an ask the pastor question And I'm going to give you the question here in just a moment, but I want to read the verse. Look at verse number 38, 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 receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Now here's the question. Here's the question. In the book of Acts, and it should be in your notes, I'm not sure if it is or not, it may come up on the screen, I'm not sure who I have back there, if I have anybody back there right now. There he is, I see him now. And so there it is. In the book of Acts, it says to baptize in the name of Jesus Christ. And it's called Jesus-only-ism, all right? And that's the phraseology that's used. So why are there two methods prescribed? One pre-Matthew 28, verse 19, that tells us to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And then this one here and others in the book of Acts, Acts 2.38, that is post-ascension after Jesus. as we went back to heaven, two formulas, why they're not really methods, there's only one method of baptism, that's immersion, that's full submersion in water, so it's actually, why are there two formulas? prescribed one pre and one post ascension but I've been wanting to do a study on this verse and preach through on this verse I couldn't tell you for a number of years and I just really never had the motivation to do the work to get there and then the question came in and so I'm actually going to take this question and answer further than the person who asked it, who asked the question. And there's a reason for that and you're going to understand why. Acts chapter 2 verse 38 is probably one of the most misunderstood and grossly misused, I want to use the word abused verses in all of the New Testament. Entire denominations and movements have grown up around the interpretation or the misinterpretation of this particular verse, such as the Church of Christ, the Disciples of Christ, Christian churches. They have two or three different names that go with that branch, that particular denomination or group. There are certain branches of the Pentecostal movement, so one's going to have to do with the doctrine of salvation. The other, when it comes to the Pentecostal realm, dealing with some of the branches of Pentecostalism, it'll have to do with the formula of baptism, and the ramifications are far greater. in their doctrine or actually their error than just a mode, not a mode, but a formula of baptism. It goes far deeper than that. And so we're going to take probably several Wednesday nights to answer the question. We're going to deal with what the verse actually means. So we're going to come at it at a couple different approaches. I thought it was also interesting in my study, I found that there were a number of mainline Protestant denomination churches that will actually, their theologians and pastors will actually use this verse in an attempt to legitimize infant baptism as a means of salvation. So that's why I use the word abused. So what is it? What does it mean? What is the truth of Acts 2.38? And we're going to come at it at a couple different angles. First of all, we're going to talk about what the verse actually means. We're going to do a Bible study tonight through Acts chapter 2. I don't want it to become tedious for you. I'm also going to answer a couple questions. How do I know that I've arrived at truth? When I read and study the Bible, how do I know that I'm arriving at the actual interpretation of the passage? How do you study the Bible? We're going to do that together tonight. We're going to study this verse, but it's actually going to be far greater than that. You're going to understand that you can't understand a verse and study and interpret a verse without dealing with the context in which that verse is in. All right, and we're going to see that tonight. So we're going to talk about what the verse means, and then you guys are way ahead of me. Can we back up? Can we back up? Yep, there you go. All right, and I'll guide you, okay? You just stay with me, and I'll tell you when to turn it, all right? And then the next thing we're going to do is we're going to talk about what it doesn't mean, okay? What it doesn't mean, and we're going to deal with that. And I'm confusing them in the back. This is not their fault. Even putting the handout together was not an easy thing because I have so much information. My assistant Christian, she didn't know what to put in, what to leave out. And so I said, just give a good outline and they'll take good notes. All right. And so I'm going to move along and I'm not going to go fast. All right, we're going to work along through this and we're going to study the verse together, all right? So number one, what does this verse mean? What this verse means? What does it mean? And you know what, that doesn't make sense, does it, that sentence? What this verse does mean? That does not make sense, okay? I will work on that, all right, when I get back in my office. Alright, and preach it next go-round, alright? So we're going to talk about what it does mean. How about that? What it does mean. Okay? And we're going to deal, letter A, here we go, with its context. Its context. Now, here's something you need to jot down. Anytime you're studying the Bible, when it comes to interpreting scripture, context is king. Not words. A lot of people want to just chase words through the Bible. That's okay. You can do that. You ought to compare scripture with scripture. They do deep word studies. It's good to do word studies. But you really don't understand the meaning and you're going to find that to be true in Acts 2.38. You really don't understand the meaning of a word many times without understanding the context in which it is used. And so you've got to understand the context. And so here's a principle, and I don't know if you have this in your notes, but I'm going to give it to you, and you ought to jot it down, okay? All right? Let's pretend like we're in Bible college tonight. You ready? And you're in my class, you're my students, okay? And here we go. A verse, okay? A verse apart from its context. If I'm going to study the Bible, here's the principle I need to know. A verse apart from its context. becomes a pretext. Okay, I'm going to say it again. A verse, apart from its context, becomes a pretext for a false doctrine. All right, can I say that again? All right. A verse apart from its context becomes a pretext for a false doctrine. So when I lift a verse out of the Bible and then I try to tell you what that verse means, but I've not done my due diligence in understanding the setting, the context of that particular verse. If I'm not careful, I will use it as a pretext for a misinterpretation of scripture that can lead to outright heresy. and so we need to be careful how we handle the Word of God and there's a difference between reading the Bible and studying the Bible all right we need to understand that and so we're going to look number one or underneath letter A all right so letter A Alright, there we go, it's context. Number one, the broader context. Okay, so understand that when you talk about context, context is not just verse 37 and 39, the verse before and after, it's much greater than that. Now I'm not going to get into a study of context, that is an entire Wednesday night study in and of itself, okay? But I'm going to just basically say this. There's what's called the analogy of Scripture. I tell my Bible college students, your message doesn't have to just carry the weight, alright? When I'm teaching preaching, your message, your lesson doesn't just have to carry the weight of what's in that chapter or what's in that book. book of the Bible that the chapter is in, alright, it has to carry the weight of what testament is it in, is it Old Testament, New Testament, and then it has to carry the weight of the whole Bible. What do you mean by that? God never contradicts Himself. And so, every time I preach, alright, or I arrive at an interpretation of Scripture, I have to ask myself, is there any other Scripture that contradicts what I'm saying? Does this stand the test of all of Scripture? But we're not going to look all at Scripture, we're just going to look at the broader context, and that has to do with the location of the verse. So it's in the book of Acts, we know that, that's a given, right? It's the fifth book of your New Testament. And Acts is a continuation of the gospel of Luke. It has the same writer, the same human penman as Luke. We know the author is the Holy Spirit, right? And so Luke is the human penman. And so the gospel of Luke tells you what Jesus began to do when he was on earth. The book of Acts is what Jesus continues to do through the Holy Spirit at work in the lives of his people. Are you following me? What he continues to do, it is the work or the acts of the risen Christ at work through the Holy Spirit as the Holy Spirit works in and through the saints of God. That's what the book of Acts is all about. And let me just tell you, there's no ending to the book of Acts. It just abruptly stops. You say, why does it do that? Because God's still writing the book. The Acts of the risen Christ continues today and you're in the book. You following me? Alright, and so there's two facts we need to understand about this particular book. First of all, and you want to jot this down, it is a historical book. It's a historical book, you need to know that. What kind of, we call it genre of scripture, I'm not trying to get technical tonight, but you hear genre of music, country music, rock music, southern gospel, contemporary gospel, good gospel songs, hymn music like we sing here at Calvary, and we sing some good southern gospel as well, and all of that, but that's genre, it's different styles or genre. So when you come to the Bible, there's different kinds of literature, there's poetical literature, there's narrative, there is what we would consider prophetical, and I need to know what is this, and so this is historical. The Holy Spirit is telling us a divinely inspired story of God's working through His people, alright, here in the book of Acts. And I need to understand, it's the history of the early church, it's the spread of the gospel to the world, alright? And I'm going to talk about how long it covers in a moment. In Acts chapter 1, can we go back there and look, you see why I tell you it's going to take us a while? Are you all okay with that? Are you going to stay with me? All right, look at verse number eight. I don't want to be boring tonight, but I want to help you understand how to study the Bible. And I'm going to answer some question, the question at the same time, because that's how I arrive at the answers that I'm going to give you. And of course, I'm going to do in-depth study further than what probably you would do, but that's my job, okay? There's a difference between having a few hours a week to study the Bible and you as your pastor, all right, You take care of my family to enable me to study the Bible 20, 30, 40 hours a week. There's a difference. Okay? And so we have to understand that. And I have training and tools and all of that. That's why you need a pastor. But it doesn't mean that you have to have a pastor to understand the Bible. The Holy Spirit teaches you as well, right? He illuminates all of us to truth. Isn't that right? So look at the divinely inspired outline of the book. It's in verse number 8. Now here's the outline, both in Jerusalem And in all Judea and in Samaria and under the uttermost part of the earth. And that's how the book divides. Alright, you can jot this down. Jerusalem, chapters 1-7. This is God working through the apostles in Jerusalem. Alright, chapters 1-7. Judea and Samaria, chapters 8-12. This will help you studying the book of Acts, won't it? You know where you're at. And then the uttermost part of the earth will be chapters 13 through 28. Alright, so Jerusalem, chapters 1 through 7. Judea and Samaria, chapters 8 through 12. And then the uttermost part of the earth, chapters 13 through 28. So it is a historical book that tells the story of God's working, of the Lord, the risen Christ at work in the early church and spreading the gospel to the uttermost part of the earth, alright? It's historical. Number two, you want to jot this down, it is transitional. It's a transitional book. Now all this didn't come up, she didn't have time to put it all on PowerPoint, that's why I'm going slow. We'll get the PowerPoint a little more in detail next go-round, okay? Alright? And so, it's a transitional book. A transitional book. This is all under the broader context. It's going to cover, this book covers a period of about 30 years. From the ascension of Jesus to the house arrest of the Apostle Paul, which is probably his, he was jailed in Acts 16, but he was imprisoned in Acts 28. So it's probably his first imprisonment where he writes the book of Philemon that we've been studying on Sunday mornings together. Now what is the transition preacher? Stay with me, you want to jot this down. Law to grace. For 1500 years God has been dealing with a nation on the basis of law. Okay, the law of God, it deals with the righteousness of God, the justice of God. Another question I'm going to answer, are there two different, why is God a God of wrath in the Old Testament, God of love in the New Testament? I'm going to answer that question, because you're going to find that's really not the case. It just seems that way, and I'm going to explain that to you. That's going to be down the road, alright? So he's going to go to the mercy and grace of God, because remember, the law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. You can go from law to grace. Post-cross, pre-cross, and post-cross. The Gospels are actually under the law. not grace, they're not New Testament, they're still Old Testament economy. Well it's in my New Testament preacher, I understand that, but because they were written by the apostles, but the setting, the historical setting is still under law. That's why Jesus said to the lepers, go show yourself to the priest, go offer to Moses what the law commands you to do. That's why the earthly parents of the Lord Jesus offered turtle doves. You remember that? They went to the temple and they offered the sacrifice. You're in an Old Testament law economy. But after the cross, the resurrection, you're now in a grace economy. OK, there's a change. All right. And it takes place about. You don't just jump from law to grace. You do theologically. But God transitions his people. It takes a while to get from one place to the next. All right. You're going to go from Israel to the church. You say, what does that do? That's 238. Everything in the world. And you'll see it when we get there. And we won't get there tonight, sorry. So you gotta come back next week and say, what if I'm sick? You can catch it live stream. All right? Israel to the church. We're gonna transition from God working with one nation, the nation of Israel, the Jewish people, to God working with one body. That's manifested on earth through various local churches. You following me? And so one nation's the Jewish nation, but the local assembly of a New Testament church, the body of Christ, is Jew and Gentile. So there's a transition here. And God is right now, He set Israel as a nation aside. He's not done with them. He's not done with them. I didn't hear any amens. Can I hear an amen? Okay, good. They're still his earthly people. God still has a plan for the Jew. It matters what happens in the Middle East. God's still in control. You say, preacher, I'm worried about it. We're abandoning them. God hadn't abandoned them. They're okay. They're going to be all right. We're not going to be all right, but they are. How about that? Okay. All right. And so God's going to again work with them when he's finished with his church. All right. And that'll take place at the rapture. And so that one body is all the saints from Pentecost to the rapture. Are you following me? Christ is the head. And then it manifests itself in local bodies of believers on earth. What we call New Testament churches. And we're going to go, now here's where it gets important. You ready for the next transition? From the Gospels to the Epistles. You wouldn't really understand what's going on if you didn't have the book of Acts. Let's just say that you went from Luke to Romans. Well, how did we get to Romans? Where did the church of Rome come from? What is a church? How did we get here? So you're going to find that it's a bridge. The Book of Acts is God's divinely inspired bridge that's going to take you from the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus, the death, burial, and resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus, to the epistles, which is very important. Because the Book of Acts is historical, it's not doctrinal. It moves you to the books of doctrine, the teachings of the apostles. And so you don't formulate doctrine from the book of Acts. It's not a doctrinal book. There are truths to be learned, there are truths to understand, but there are not New Testament doctrines. You see them in their embryonic stage in Acts, but you don't see the full understanding of it until you get to the epistles, what we know as the church epistles. Alright, so you interpret the book of Acts in light of the 22 books in our New Testament that come after it. You following me? It's called the Apostles' Doctrine. Look at Acts chapter 2 and find verse number 42. Alright, so here's the first church in Acts chapter 2 verse 42. And they continued steadfastly in the Apostle's Doctrine. Underline those two words, Apostle's Doctrine. That is all the teachings that you find from Romans to Revelation. And you interpret the book of Acts from those 22 books. And what that does is helps me to understand what is the gift of tongues. What about healing? What about all these signed gifts? Well, you know what? All of that is explained in the epistles. If you just take the book of Acts and pull it out and you formulate doctrine off of it, you're going to make a great theological blunder because that's not why God gave the book. God gave the book as a challenge to us to continue the work and he gave us the book of the epistles, Romans through Revelation, to tell us what to believe and how to do the work. All right? Now let's look secondly, I think we've got a little bit of time, let's look at the immediate context. Now we're in chapter 2, okay? So now we understand what the book's about, what's going on here, alright? And we come to chapter 2 and it helps explain what's getting ready to take place. Jesus has went back to heaven. Do you know when you come to Acts chapter 2, you're only 50 days, 50 days from the resurrection of Jesus? That's it. Fifty days. So, there's a time setting here. The events of the chapter center around the day of Pentecost, a Jewish feast day. Alright, look at verse number one, chapter two. And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, that's important, I want to understand that. There's a geographical setting, it's in the city of Jerusalem, they're in Jerusalem. Okay, how do I know that? Look at verse number five. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem. That's where they're at. They're in the upper room. We found that in chapter one. They're in Jerusalem. They're in the upper room. The 11 apostles are there, actually 12, because they've added Mattathias. And there's about 120 of them that are followers of the Lord Jesus. And Mary, the mother of Jesus, is in the midst of them. We learned that from chapter number one. And we're in the upper room. When you come to chapter two, you're still in the upper room. in jerusalem all right and now there's some events that take place all right we're gonna see what happens in the chapter we're gonna work our way through it okay you're gonna find the coming of the holy spirit verses one and two look at verse number two they're in one accord and suddenly there came from that from came a sound from heaven as a rushing mighty wind it filled all the house where they were sitting so it wasn't a rushing mighty wind it sounded like one all right It went, in the Bible, as an emblem of the Holy Spirit. So the Spirit, alright? They've been waiting on the gift of the Holy Spirit, alright? And so in Acts chapter 2, the day of Pentecost, they're in the upper room, and the Spirit comes, the Holy Spirit comes in a new ministry that He's never done before, prior to. Alright? And you're going to find the formation of the church. Now there's those who disagree with me, that's okay. I love them, they have a right to be wrong. who believe that it started in the Gospels. I see the church and the Gospels in embryonic stage. I do not fall out with anybody. We're brethren in Christ. It is not an area to fall out or to cause division about. It's just a personal belief that I have based on study of Scripture that I believe that the church began, the church began, formally began on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came. All right, and he baptizes them in the body of Christ, verse 3, and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as a fire, and it set on each of them. That was an emblem showing that the Holy Spirit had just entered and indwelt all 120 in that upper room. It didn't matter who they were. They were men, women, older, younger, men, whatever it was. Everyone in that room, that clove in tongue symbolizing the Holy Spirit, had just baptized them into one body, the body of Christ, and permanently indwelt them. Listen, before Calvary, the Holy Spirit came upon believers, but He didn't indwell them permanently. New ministry. And then He empowers them. Look at verse 4. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. The baptism with the Spirit and the filling of the Spirit are two different works of the Spirit. The one makes me a part of the body of Christ. The other empowers me to serve Christ. Alright? The baptism is a once-for-all act, never needs to be repeated. We need to be filled with the Spirit of God again and again and again and again. It can be repeated. You say, why? Because we leak. It's not like we lose the Holy Spirit. What it is, is we're not as obedient, not as yielded as we should be. Alright? When it comes to this matter of the Spirit of God. All right, and so you find that the tongues, all right, is a part of that empowerment. It was a sign to this group that God's doing something new, and you got questions about all that. I get it, that's not what this message is about. We come back to that, okay, or we'll never get done, all right? And then you come to verse 14, you have the first gospel sermon ever preached. Peter's gonna preach a gospel message. And the audience is there's no Gentiles here. They're all Jews. That's important. OK. And there are two kinds of Jews. What do you mean two kinds of Jews? There are Hebrew Jews, that means they speak Hebrew and they live in the land of Israel, they live in Israel. And there are dispersed Jews, alright? They were called Grecians in Acts 6. They are those that are the descendants of the Jews that did not come back after the Babylonian captivity but remained in the Gentile nations. And they don't necessarily speak Hebrew. That's why, and if they did speak Hebrew, but they still heard their 16 nations and regions mentioned in verses 9 and 10 and 11. And they all heard in their own language, the wonderful works of God. Okay. And they had made a pilgrimage from their native lands and they had traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. And they usually remain another... If you're going to travel a thousand miles to Jerusalem, you're not just going to come for Passover and leave. You're going to stay another month and you're going to celebrate Pentecost. All right, and so Peter's going to preach a gospel-centered message to them, okay? Remember, Calvary's still fresh on everybody's minds. It's only 50 days. Let's look at what he preached. Verse 22, he preaches the incarnation of Jesus. You men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man. Aren't you glad God became man? All right? And you can read the rest of it later. He's going to preach the crucifixion. Look at verse 23. Do you know what he just did right there? He charged the nation of Israel with the crucifixion of Jesus. That's what he did. You nailed him to the cross. You've rejected your Messiah. You set away with him. Crucify him. He's now going to preach the resurrection, verses 24 through 32. Look at verse 24. Whom God hath raised up. Did you see that? And then he gives Bible reasons. It's an expository message, the way I preach, and he's giving Bible truth using David and showing that there was prophecy proving that Jesus is Christ, that He's the Lord, and that He's risen from the dead. David's still in his grave, but Jesus is not. You can walk and watch it 50 days. You can go to the garden tomb. You can go to the place where He was buried. You can see the tomb is empty. Nobody did. That we know of. You know why? Because they all knew He wasn't there. And then he preaches the exaltation of Jesus. Look at verse 33. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which you now see and hear. So now he preaches the exaltation of Jesus. So what happens? Look at verse 37. And when they heard this, they were pricked. That means stabbed. It's called Holy Ghost conviction. Did you see that? You're guilty. You know what the Holy Ghost said to me one night? You're guilty. You're guilty. And they're so struck through the message and the work of the Holy Spirit, they cry out in verse number 37. They're pricked in their heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? We've crucified the Messiah. What do we do? He's the Lord. He's God. What do we do? How do we fix this? and he gives them the answer. Look at verse 38, repent. Then Peter said to them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And then verse 39 and 40 are also part of that invitation. He says, save yourself from this perverse generation that's rejected and crucified their Messiah. Look at what happens in verse 41. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day were added to them about 3,000 souls. Somebody ever ask the question, can a church get too big? What's amazing, the first church had 3,000 members on the first day. By the time you get to chapter seven, it's got about 20,000 members or more. Maybe 100,000 in certain estimates. So now we come to letter B, it's content. Now are y'all bored yet? Y'all still with me? Okay. I'm running out of time. The clock has raced to the finish line tonight. Isn't that amazing? So what does Acts 238 teach now? There's only one interpretation for the passage. Number one, they were to repent of their rejection of Christ. Just jot that down. Okay. I want to talk about repentance here. I do. which means a change of mind. God commands all men everywhere to repent. What were they changing their mind about? Christ. They had rejected him. Now they were to, by faith, receive him. Then they were to follow the Lord in baptism. So look at verse 38. and be baptized. That's two separate individual acts here. They would repent, believe on Christ, and then they were to be baptized. Somebody said, well, what about repentance and faith? Well, they go together. You can't repent without believing. You can't believe without repenting. They go together. You say, well, preacher, how do I know if I repented? Did you believe on Christ? Then you repented. You changed your mind about your sin. You changed your mind about the way of salvation. You placed your faith in Jesus Christ. That's why John never mentions repentance in 98. It mentions believe 98 times. Why does he do that? Because it's built in true saving faith always, always involves repentance, a change of mind about sin and Jesus and the way of salvation. OK. All right. And then they were to make a public profession of their faith in Christ. They would be immersed as believers only. That's our identification of the Lord with the Lord and His church. Their sins would be forgiven. All right, did you see that? for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. That's they were to be baptized with Holy Spirit and made a part of the body of Christ. Okay, so water baptism unites me with the local church. Spirit baptism unites me with the body of Christ. And I gave you some verses there. All right, here's the problem. When you look at Acts 2 38, it seems to indicate that you have to be baptized in order to be forgiven. You ever heard somebody say that? There's a whole lot of folks around here, that's all they preach, Acts 2.38, Acts 2.38, Acts 2.38, Acts 2. Repent and be baptized, repent and be baptized, repent and be baptized for remission of sins. And so baptism becomes a part of salvation. It is actually, they will deny this when you face them with it, but it is a work, it is an act of human effort towards salvation. And the Bible says that it's not of works. So there can be no human activity in the work of salvation. Believing is not a work. It's a reception of Christ's work that He's already done on your behalf. But baptism is a ritualistic act. You go into the water, a preacher immerses you, you come back up. It's called baptismal regeneration. That's the name. It's the erroneous belief that God... Now here's what they teach, okay? Here's what churches of Christ, these denominations teach. They believe at the moment you're baptized, that's when your sins are washed away, not when you believe. Now, just like in Baptist churches, there's variation of belief, in Church of Christ, and Disciples of Christ, and Christian churches, there are variations of belief. But they're dogma, okay? What came out of Alexander Campbell's teaching, who began this in the early 1800s out of the Cain Revival in Kentucky, All right, where he claimed that he had received the full gospel. All right. And we'll talk more about that in the next message. OK, they believe that you had to if you were if you believed that you weren't baptized, you didn't go to heaven because it's at baptism. Your sins are washed away. And they don't necessarily believe the water washed them away. But the act of baptism, God at that moment washed them away. So did Peter, will you all give me a few extra minutes? You want me to leave you hanging right here? Okay. Did Peter preach that you have to be baptized in order to be saved? Okay. Well, he said for the remission of sins. So how are you going to answer that? All right. So you're going to have to do a little work here. And we know, no, he didn't. And you're going to find other times he preached, he never even mentions baptism, but he always mentions faith. And I'll show you that in the next message. All right. It's all hinges on the little word for. It comes from, I don't normally do this, but you can do it in a strong, it comes from the Greek word ais, E-I-S is how it transliterates into English, ais. It's a preposition, okay? Just like the word for is a preposition. Has a variety of meanings in both English and Greek. All right, I looked it up today. In Merriam-Webster, there are 34 different uses in the English language for the little word for. 34. Okay, so when you read for the remission of sins, the first thought is, okay, I have to be baptized if I want to receive, because it's a purpose, I receive something, I get something for the remission of sins. Can the word for mean that? Yes, it can. But does it always mean that? No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. I'm going to give you some illustrations of that in just a moment, okay? It can also mean a substitute. Okay? I can say this, alright? Jesus died for me. That means He took my place, He's a substitute. It means instead of, right? Same word, same preposition. Alright, watch this one, okay? For the wages of sin is death. You know what that means? That means on account of sin, there's death. For by grace are you saved. That means I'm saved on account of or on the basis or because of grace. So the word for doesn't always have to mean receive or a purpose that it results in something. It doesn't always have to mean that. It can mean because of something. And so the context determines how that little word for is understood, how we understand the meaning of it. And so in Acts 2.38, watch this, and you're going to find that this little word ais is also translated at, that the people of Nineveh repented at or for because of the preaching of Jonah, Matthew 12.41. That's how it's used. Here, watch this. Then said Peter unto them, Repent. So you believe the gospel and your sins are forgiven. And be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus for, because of the remission of sins. When you repented, based on the analogy of Scripture and what God teaches in the epistles and other places of Scripture, we know that salvation is always by faith and faith alone. Apart from any human merit, Ephesians 2.8 and 9, there's where the doctrine's at. For by grace, or you say, through faith, and that not of you says, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. That's the doctrinal truth. So I interpret Acts 2.38 in light of Ephesians 2.8 and 9. And so the context determined the meaning. You're baptized because your sins have been forgiven. The little word for means because of or on the basis that your sins are forgiven and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Did you see that? And that's what Acts 2 38 means. It never means that you're saved by being baptized. It means you get baptized because you're saved and your sins have been forgiven. That's the proper interpretation, okay? And now we're gonna come back and we're gonna answer the other two questions, all right? I know I took a little longer and we've worked hard tonight. Are y'all tired? That was a good Bible study, wasn't it? It was not a good Bible study? All right, let's stand to our feet. We're gonna be dismissed tonight.