Baptism serves as a crucial illustration, identification, and initiation into the Christian life, symbolizing a believer's death to sin and resurrection to new life in Christ. The sermon emphasizes that baptism, by immersion, visually represents this spiritual transformation, signifying a believer's voluntary commitment and identification with Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. It is not merely a ritual but a solemn act that publicly confesses allegiance to Christ and initiates one into the community of believers who have obeyed this command. The message concludes by urging believers to remain steadfast in their faith, living out the new life symbolized by their baptism and avoiding disobedience by delaying this important step.
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I heard about a young man who was saved, and after he'd been saved for a while, the people began to talk to him about getting baptized, and he began to bit get very troubled and a little bit embarrassed when he had to keep saying that he had not been baptized. And after an awful struggle with himself, and he suddenly realized it's something he should do, he said to his pastor, I would like to be baptized. His pastor said, praise the Lord. And so he arranged a date, and the young man, several were baptized that night, and it came his turn, and uh, he came down to the baptistry, and he was asked to declare concerning his salvation, and then he was put under the water, came up, somebody dried his face with a towel, and he turned around to the pastor as he went up the steps and said, well, pastor, that's the end of that.
The pastor said, yes, young man, but remember it's the front end. And because it's the front end, I thought that we ought to have some reminders about what our baptism really meant, the kind of effect it's meant to have in our lives as a witness. Let's read responsively this number six, uh, seven one six, and I'll read the first verse, you read the dark printing. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. Then answered Peter. And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord.
Then prayed they him to tarry certain days. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, 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. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve.
So there it is, baptism. I had several scriptures for you to turn to, but I thought in the end we would read this, and that would be sufficient, and the rest of the time we would just talk. I don't want to preach tonight, just talk about baptism. Now, I wonder how long it's been since you were baptized. Is there anybody here who's been baptized a hundred years? Nobody. Is there anybody here who's been baptized for eighty years?
Nobody. Anybody who's been baptized for seventy years. Aha! One, two, three, four, seventy years, and that is a long time. I was just trying to figure when I was baptized. I would say when I was thirteen, I was baptized before I was fourteen, and uh, now I'm eighty. I can't figure that out, so you can figure out how long it is since I was baptized. But I do want us to read a little now from Ephesians chapter four. There is here a sevenfold declaration, and seven of course, is the perfect number.
Ephesians chapter four and verse four: There is one body and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all. Seven things. Among those seven, we have God the Father, we have God the Son, and we have God the Spirit, which leaves us with four.
One body, one hope, one faith, and one baptism. One body of which Christ is the head. This is composed of who believes. One hope of which Christ is the foundation, and this is why they believe. One faith, and Christ is the author, and this is what they believe. And finally, one baptism, and Christ is the instigator, and this is how they witness to what they believe.
One baptism, not many, not two, just one. Now, in the early days of my life, when I was maybe about ten, I used to sing in the Church of England choir. I think I told you before, I got thrown out for fighting. But however, I used to look very angelic in my, uh, cassock and surplus, and I used to love to sing with the choir, actually, actually. But in the church, and believing at that time, or going along with the beliefs of the church, I used to recite a, a creed.
My baptism, wherein I was made a child of God and an inheritor of the kingdom of God. Nothing could have been further from the truth. What I had was not baptism. I was sprinkled. I, it was christening. Couldn't have been baptism. And in any case, it didn't do any good for me spiritually. It was just a right of the church, but I believed it for a long time, or at least for a few years. My baptism, wherein I was made a child of God and an inheritor of the kingdom of God.
It sounds blasphemous to me now, and I'm sure it makes you shiver just a little bit when you realize that boys and girls were taught this as long as they had been christened in the Church of England. One baptism, and that is not it. You all know, of course, that the word itself leaves only one form of baptism, and that is the mode of immersion. Baptism by immersion. Now there's a reason for it. There are three things I want to remind you about tonight with regard to your own baptism.
That baptism was meant to be an illustration. Secondly, that baptism was meant to be an identification. And thirdly, that baptism was meant to be an initiation. Because baptism is an illustration, this determines the manner of the ordinance. What is baptism to illustrate? Well, when a person is immersed, they go down under the water, and then they rise up out of the water, and their baptism is an illustration of death and resurrection.
We have died with Christ, and we have been risen, we have risen with him. The manner of the ordinance, undoubtedly, can only be immersion. I copied a little statement by a Presbyterian here, by the name of Marcus Dog- Dodds. I thought I couldn't say it this good. Baptism is a rite wherein, by immersion in water, the participant symbolizes and signalizes, first, his transition from an impure to a pure life, secondly, his death to a past that he abandons, and thirdly, his new birth to a future he desires.
I thought that was a very beautiful definition of baptism, and coming from a Presbyterian makes it that much more striking. Now we know that the Bible knows no other form of baptism. When the Lord Jesus was baptized, it says he went up straightway out of the water. Now that's found in Matthew chapter three and sixteen. It's one of the three sixteens in, in the New Testament. He went up straightway out of the water. Now, if he went up out of the water, he must have been in the water, so that sprinkling and pouring has no place here.
You remember the story of the Ethiopian eunuch? He was reading from Isaiah fifty three. Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness. When we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire of him. He's despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Philip, led by the Spirit of God, adjoined and was running alongside the chariot in which the Ethiopian eunuch was riding, and he called up to him and said, understandest thou what thou readest? And the chariot was stopped, and he climbed up into the chariot, and the eunuch asked, of whom does this speak? What a beautiful opening for the gospel. Now, after Philip had preached the gospel to him, and it is very interesting, he said, as they passed the waterway, behold, here is water.
What doth prevent me from being baptized? You know, I believe the gospel preacher always ought to teach baptism before he's through. I mean, with the gospel campaign. It was my practice at the end of every gospel campaign to have a baptismal service. And I've had the joy of baptizing as many as twenty two at one time. God is a wonderful God and so gracious, and the, the eunuch must have been taught by Philip, if you trust this one of whom Isaiah is speaking, and you make him your own savior, he expects you to be baptized.
Now I look at you, and I don't think there's anybody here who has never been baptized by immersion. So I'm not going to emphasize this. Maybe somebody slipped through the net. If so, I hope you're gonna get convicted tonight, because this is the very next step. Philip didn't say, well, we better bring you before the elders, and we better just watch you and make sure that everything is, uh, is going all right. I remember about a little girl, and she was saved, and she was very, very young, and so when she was about eight, after going to the elders, uh, a couple of times, she went a third time, and a very, a very kindly elder said to her, Mary, I don't know whether that was her name really, but however, what- whatever her name was, Mary, he said, you're still very young.
I know you've been to see us twice before, and we told you that you were very young then. He said, you're still only eight years of age, and that's very young. Maybe you should wait a little longer. She looked brightly up into his face, and she said, I don't mind how long you keep me waiting, as long as you promise to baptize me before Jesus comes again. Do you know what? They baptized her the very next Sunday. They weren't going to take any risks. It would be a sad thing to enter into the presence of the Lord Jesus unbaptized, because the word of God is so clear.
You trust the Lord Jesus, and you need, through this rite, to, to deliver to others an illustration that you've died with the Lord Jesus, the water closes over you, and then it breaks and releases you, and the, the illustration is that you're risen to walk in newness of life. Now, that's what the pastor meant when he said it's the front end. We betray our baptisms when we are not faithful to the Lord Jesus. When we forget that we've died to sin, and we forget that we're alive to God, and we begin to live selfishly, maybe even sinfully, we betray our baptism because in it we illustrated that having become believers, we were, we had, were dead to the old life and alive in Christ to the new.
Yes, baptism is an illustration. I read that at Aenon, where they were baptizing, because there was much water there. You only need a jug to sprinkle or pour, but you need much water to be immersed. Baptism is an illustration. But secondly, baptism is an identification. Now, the first one determines the manner of the ordinance. It can only be by immersion.
This one challenges the suitability of the candidate. If baptism is an identification, then obviously no one has a right to apply for baptism, and indeed no one in a scriptural con- sense can be baptized. Immerse maybe, but not baptized if they have not, first of all, deliberately, by their own choice, identified themselves with the Lord Jesus in his death and burial and resurrection. So baptism is an identification.
We must voluntarily and deliberately trust the Lord Jesus as our own savior, and when we do, we not only illis- illustrate death and burial and resurrection, but we identify ourselves with death and burial and resurrection. The death which brought an end to an old order, and the resurrection, which brought about a new creation. I read Simon believed and was baptized.
I read the eunuch believed and was baptized. I read that Saul's eyes were opened and he was baptized. Cornelius received, and he was baptized. Lydia's heart was opened, and she was baptized. We read in, in here about a man who was baptized and all his household. I think I mentioned to some of you. A man said to me, the Bible speaks of infant baptism. Oh, where? He said, uh, well, it's there in the Bible.
Cornelius's house were baptized. There must have been children in that house, babies in that house. I said, everybody in that house was over eighteen years of age. Where do you get that from, he said. I said, the same place that you get, that there were children in the family. Infant baptism is not found in the Word of God, and it cannot be because it calls for, as an identification, someone who has deliberately identified himself with Christ in his death and burial and resurrection, and an infant cannot do that. Finally, baptism is an initiation.
Now, this emphasizes, underscores the solemnity of the act. It's not a light thing to be baptized. It's not just something to be taken in our stride. It's a very solemn thing to do, because this, which is an illustration and an identification, is also an initiation, not into the body of Christ. That takes place at conversion, which must necessarily be behind us before we can be scripturally baptized. But it is an initiation into that part of the body that has openly, in a biblical and Christ, uh, engineered way in the rite of baptism.
Initiation into that part of the body that has publicly, joyfully, willingly, and under God effectively confessed that they belong to Christ. They've identified themselves with him, and now they are initiated into the part of the body that has done what Jesus asked them to do. And if you're saved and you're not baptized, you haven't done what Jesus asked you to do. You want to go on being disobedient? I can see the crowds gathered around. Think of that eunuch and all of his, his retinue, large retinue, watching.
And there that eunuch, newly saved only moments ago, confesses bo- before that crowd, I belong to the man who was bruised and broken and crucified on the cross. Don't let another week go by without being baptized. We have a swimming pool. An initiation into the company of those who have publicly owned Christ in the way that he himself asked.
A definite start, uh, must be made to public witness, and this is the right place to start. Those who start must go on, and that's why I'm reminding you. I haven't told you a thing tonight that you didn't know and that you did not know very well. But I'm just reminding you. They were baptized, it says of certain in the New Testament, and they continued steadfastly. It's the front end.
Now we have to continue steadfastly. I must have told you about that fellow who wouldn't get up in the morning, was always late for his work, and his father grew very exasperated because he knew his son was a Christian, but he wasn't working very hard at it. And one day he stood at the bottom of the stairs and he said, son, for goodness sake, get up, you'll be late for your work. The Bible says be steadfast, not be bedfast. You know, I know a lot of bedfast Christians. I really do. They're fast asleep. If they've been baptized, they're not being true. They were baptized, and they continued steadfastly.
I just wanted to spend a few minutes just reminding you, look back some time upon that day of your baptism. Do you remember how you felt? Do you remember what it did to you? You, I can remember my dad. He was saved long after I was saved, and he had a long fight with a smoking habit. He used to smoke a pipe, and he used to smoke twist. If you don't know what twist is, you never want to smell it in a pipe. But however, he wouldn't be baptized. And I was talking to him one day about it. This was after he got saved. He said, I'm not going to get baptized until I give up the pint.
The months went by, and then he came to me and he said, I want to see the elders. I want to be baptized. I said, Dad, what about the pipe? He said, it's going to take care of itself. And he was baptized. I heard about another man who had the same bad habit, and when he, after he was up out of the tank and he'd gone home, the service was all over, the janitor was cleaning out the baptistry, and there was a pipe and a pouch of tobacco. When he got baptized, he was sure he wasn't going to do it, and he's going to leave the evidence right there under the water. So what a wonderful thing it is to be a baptized believer, living up to the things that we profess, and God help us to do it more faithfully as the days go by.
Let's pray together, shall we? Our Father, this is a reminder to us of a very happy and a very challenging day in our lives. A day that we can look back upon and look back, uh, as we've done many times, and realize it was the mark of a, a new movement in our lives, obedience to the will of God.