(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, we're here in Acts chapter 8, and we're going to be talking about baptism as part of our Salvation Boot Camp, because a lot of people believe that you have to be baptized to go to heaven, or you have to be baptized to wash away sin, or something like that, and you might think, well, this is a topic I think I know pretty well, and everything like that, but I remember when I first got saved, you know, and I started to read the Bible, memorized verses and everything, and I was even trying to share the gospel with people, but it was about six months later was the first time anyone had told me I needed to get baptized. I had no idea. And we might think that people that get saved, they already know this stuff, but they don't. And look, when we get Catholics saved, they don't realize they should get baptized now unless we make it clear to them. They're not going to know anything unless we make it clear. And so when it comes to this topic of baptism, you know, it's something that we need to just be very clear about what does the Bible teach, and we need to be prepared to try to teach our converts why they should get baptized so we can get a lot of baptisms. And so the first point that we have here is, what precedes baptism? What comes before baptism? What precedes baptism? And the answer to that is, salvation comes before baptism. Look at Acts chapter 8, look at verse 35. Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. So he's preaching the message of Jesus to this eunuch. This is a miraculous story, this is one of the most exciting so many stories in the Bible. And then in verse 36 it says, and as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water. And the eunuch said, see here is water, what doth hinder me, or what's stopping me, to be baptized. Now there's a couple different ways you can look at this, and I'm going to give you both opinions, and I'll tell you what I lean towards, but I can see either one being valid. The eunuch brings up baptism in verse 36, right? Most converts that we win to the Lord don't bring up baptism, do they? We have to make it known to them. I personally think that before verse 36 he's already led the eunuch to the Lord. That's my opinion. I know some people that believe that and some don't. I think that he's preached the gospel, because it says, and as they went on their way, the implication is this is over some time period later. So I think he preached the gospel to him, and he already called on the name of the Lord. And so for me in verse 37, where Philip said, if thou believes with all thine heart thou mayest, and he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I think he already called on the name of the Lord before he said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. But when we baptize people, we want to make sure they got it, okay? So I personally believe that before verse 36, he's already been led to the Lord, and Philip talked to him about baptism, which is why the eunuch brings up baptism. But other people would look at this, and I'm not saying this wrong, they might be right, I used to think this myself, is that he's preaching the gospel. And then in verse 36, the eunuch is, and he's talked to him maybe about baptism and stuff, but he isn't sure that he's gotten saved yet, he hasn't called on the name of the Lord. And then in verse 36, he brings up baptism, and Philip says in verse 37, we need to make sure that you're saved, and he says, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. So some people would look at that as the moment that he calls on the name of the Lord. That's not my personal position, but it might be right, I'm not sure. There's a lot of things in the Bible that you could have different opinions on them, and we're all going to get to heaven one day and realize, okay, some of my interpretations were wrong. Regardless though, Philip leads him to the Lord, and before he's able to get baptized, Philip says, there's a requirement before you get baptized. Now, if we were reading the NIV here today, the NIV would just remove verse 37. He'd say in verse 36, hey, what stops me from being baptized, what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip says, well, let's just baptize him. Because according to the NIV, you don't have to believe first. But the Bible's very clear here in verse 37 that the requirement before you get baptized is if thou believeth with all thine heart. And not just you kind of believe, like you believe Jesus was real. No, you've got to put your full faith, your full trust on Jesus Christ. You've got to believe with all your heart. It's not about how strong your faith is, it's where you place it. And you must place all of your faith in Jesus Christ. And if you believe with your whole heart, then you're able to get baptized. But if you haven't believed, you're not able to get baptized. That's what the Bible teaches. Turn to Acts 19. Now, there's a lot of people in this world that have been baptized before, supposedly. When I was a baby, I had water sprinkled on my head at a Protestant church. Look, that's not baptism. Because when I was a baby, guess what? I didn't understand that Jesus Christ died and paid for my sins. You can't understand that as a baby. And there might be people in this room that say, Wow, when I was 25 or something, I got baptized. But you didn't fully understand before. Look, you need to get baptized again. And look, there's a lot of people that get baptized that say, I'm not sure I think I was saved, so I think the baptism is valid. Well, if you're not sure, then just do it. Just make sure that you make it right. Because you're just trying to follow God. And if you've already been biblically baptized and you did fully believe before, there's no problem with doing it again just to make sure. You want to make sure God's blessing is upon you. We had many people in April during the missions trip in this room who got baptized. And they might have been baptized biblically before, but they wanted to make sure that they had it right and they did fully understand just in case. And there's people that are going to be baptized today the same way. And honestly, when you're at a church like this, we make salvation super clear. And so it's very clear to people whether or not they believe or they hate what I'm saying. It's going to be one or the other. You either believe what I'm saying about salvation or you hate my guts, right? That's going to be the way it is. Most churches, they're very vague about salvation. It's very confusing and people can go to those churches and they're not really sure the moment they got saved. But we make it very clear here and we need to do that when we're preaching the gospel to people. Now in Acts 19 we see a story where there's people that got baptized, but they did not believe before. And in Acts 19 verse 1 it says, And it came to pass that while Paul was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coast came to Ephesus and finding certain disciples. He said unto them, Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? And they said unto them, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, Unto what then were you baptized? And they said unto John's baptism. And so they said, We don't even know about the Holy Ghost. And then Paul's just like, What were you baptized then? I mean, obviously John the Baptist is preaching the right gospel. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on him what should come after them, that is on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Look, a lot of people came to hear the preaching of John the Baptist. And I'm sure there's a lot of people that got emotional, they heard it and they called in the name of the Lord, but they didn't yet fully believe it in their heart. It wasn't John's fault that people said that they believed, but they didn't quite fully get it yet. That's just going to be the way it is. People hear the message and some people, they get emotional. Maybe they call in the name of the Lord, but they don't fully believe it yet themselves. That's going to happen. I don't think John the Baptist screwed up. And when you're baptizing a lot of people like he did, you're bound to make mistakes here and there, obviously. But because of the fact they didn't understand salvation, they had to get baptized again. You say, Brother Sucky, I wasn't baptized as an infant, I was baptized as an adult by immersion. But if you did not believe first, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how deep that water was, because unless you believed it in your heart, it means nothing. You must believe the message of salvation in order to get baptized. And we could baptize you, but if you didn't fully get it first, then it doesn't count as valid baptism. Obviously, I don't know your heart, but if you believe this and you haven't been baptized before, after you got saved, you need to get baptized. That's what the Bible teaches. Now turn to Acts 2. Now I believe that we need to make this clear to our Congress, that when they get saved, we should talk to them about why they should get baptized. You say, why? Because when a person gets saved, they don't realize they need to get baptized. Most don't realize it unless we talk to them about why they should. If you were to ask the average person in the Philippines what baptism means, what's the purpose of it, you're going to hear a million different answers. People are going to be like, I have no idea why they throw people underwater. I have no idea why they sprinkle water on them. They're not going to know, because we've got to make it clear. That's the way it is with things in the Bible. Acts 2, verse 41 says, The they that gladly received His word were baptized, and the same day they were added unto them about three thousand souls. And so it says in Acts 2, 41, they that gladly received His word, and I've made that distinction here in the first couple of weeks, but it's important, throughout the Bible, receiving the word of Jesus is when you get saved. But gladly receiving is when you get saved. But gladly receiving is when you actually do something with that. Look, at this church we have people that go soul winning. Why? Because you're glad you received the word of salvation, and you want to pass on that message of salvation to other people. There's a lot of people, though, they receive the message of salvation, they believe it, they're not really that glad. How do we know that? Because they never do anything with it. There's a ton of people that are saved here in the Philippines that are going to die with zero congress. That's most people. It's the very few people that do big things. That's just the way it is. Now, we can just decide, well, because other people are being lazy, we're going to be lazy as well, or we can just make it our personal mission that we've got to up our game because of the fact there's a bunch of lazy Baptists here in the Philippines that do nothing. And so the Bible says they that gladly received His word. So if you're really glad that you've heard the message of salvation and you believed on Jesus, you're going to get baptized. That's what the Bible says. Now, you can turn to Galatians 3. Now, let's just say, for example, that baptism was part of salvation. Let's say that you had to get baptized to go to heaven. This wouldn't really make a lot of sense. And you say, why? Because of the fact, people in the Old Testament, why didn't they have to get baptized if that was part of salvation? People in the Old Testament didn't get baptized. You say, well, why would that be automatic if it was required now? Because of the fact, salvation is just as easy for me to get saved today as it was 3,000 years ago. Because it's by faith. And if you had to get baptized in today's world, salvation is a lot more difficult in today's world than it was 3,000 years ago. Because 3,000 years ago was just by faith, just believing on the living God, just believing the word of God. And if you had to get believed and get baptized today, it would make it a lot more difficult. It's an added step. It wouldn't make sense. Why wouldn't they have to be baptized in the Old Testament? So people will say, well, circumcision was the baptism of the Old Testament. Here's why that doesn't make sense. Because here's the thing. The Bible says that God is not a respecter of persons. It's just as easy for us today to get saved as it was for them back then. They believed in the living God. We believe in the living God. We just sung that song, Christ A Rose. We both believe in the living God. We both believe in the word of God. You either believe the word or you don't. It's equally as difficult now as it was back then. People say, well, circumcision was the baptism of the Old Testament. Well, here's why that doesn't make sense. Because if circumcision was required for salvation, guess what? It would be a lot easier for a woman to go to heaven than it would for a guy, right? Because guys would have an added step. It doesn't make sense. Circumcision is not equivalent to baptism. I understand there's correlations, but look, God's not a respecter of persons. It's always been just by faith. And so if we had to be baptized today, I don't see why you wouldn't have to be baptized back then. Because it would be a lot easier for them to get saved than it would be for us today. But the Bible is just very clear throughout the Bible that it's always been by faith and it always will be by faith. Now, you're in Galatians 3, but let's talk about infant baptism for a second. And in the first three points, we're going to talk about infant baptism a little bit. Because in this country, 90 plus percent of people were probably baptized as an infant, right? Almost everybody here in the Philippines, I myself was in a Protestant church, was baptized, quote unquote, as an infant. Now, people that believe in infant baptism, they will say, well, there's no verse in the Bible that explicitly condemns infant baptism. And since there's no verse that explicitly condemns him, you could see it either way, okay? Well, first off, that's not true. Because what's the first point? What precedes baptism? Salvation. There's a thousand verses that condemn infant baptism. John 3.16, John 3.15, John 3.18, John 3.36. I mean, do we want to keep going on? There's plenty of verses that would condemn infant baptism. Why? Because the Bible is very clear you must believe first. It's crystal clear. And you got these people like R.C. Sproul, who was this big Protestant person before he died. And, you know, he's this big Calvinist. And all the Calvinists love him even though he was an infant baptizer. And it's just like it doesn't really matter as long as you're a Calvinist whether or not you baptize babies or not. I'm sorry, but if somebody baptizes babies, they obviously don't believe the same stuff we do. They're obviously not basing it on the Bible. Now, one thing we're not going to do at this church, we say, well, we don't believe in infant baptism. What about a baby dedication? Look, I'm going to abstain from all appearance of evil. I don't want to look like we're Catholic. Okay? And I'm not trying to say that to... Because here's the truth. There are going to be people eventually that come to this church that get saved through soul winning. And they're going to ask us if we can dedicate their baby with... And they might even say infant baptism. And they're not saying it because they're trying to be, you know, against us. It's not because they're not saved. It's just because if they grew up with that, they might think it's normal. Right? So I'm not going to be a jerk when I talk to them. But I will show them what the Bible says and say, you know, I'm sorry, we're not going to have a baby dedication where we put water on your head because of the fact we don't want to appear like we're Catholic. You know, it's great if you want to... Obviously, it's great if you want to dedicate your kids to the Lord. But we're not going to appear to be Catholic. Okay? We're not going to have this big Catholic-type ceremony. Because we want to abstain from all appearance of evil. We want to make it very clear what we believe is Baptist. Now in Galatians 3, I want you to notice verses 26 and 27. And in this sermon, we're not really going to go and look at all the verses people use to try to say you have to get baptized to be saved. It's kind of outside the scope of the sermon. But this one kind of covers a lot because in Galatians 3, verses 26 and 27, it says, For a year all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, for as many as who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Now this is one of the top six or seven verses people use to say you have to be baptized. Because they'll say, well, you know, it says baptized into Christ. But if you notice in verse 27, the first word is for. For is a connection word. Okay? It's connecting verses 26 and 27. Here's what we have to understand that a lot of people don't get that are unsaved. The word baptized is not always talking about water baptism. Okay? The word baptized means to immerse. It's not always referring to water baptism. The Bible says Jesus is going to baptize with fire and the Holy Ghost. Right? That's not water. Right? And so it's not always referring to water baptism. So in verse 27, it's basically saying you're immersed in Jesus Christ. You put on Christ. How did you put on Christ? Well, verse 26 made it very clear. By faith in Christ Jesus. Because the first word of 27 is a connection word for. So the word baptized is not always referring to water baptism. Now, here's the thing about this, though. Baptism symbolizes salvation, which we're going to talk about in a second. So I believe a lot of verses you look at can be looked at in multiple different ways. Oftentimes I've noticed when I talk to people about the Bible that I respect and everything, we could look at a verse and kind of have different opinions. And I kind of come to the conclusion, well, the verse is kind of showing us both things. It's just the Bible's really in depth. So it can have multiple meanings. Sometimes you only have the word baptism, and it can refer both to the symbolism of salvation or actual water baptism, or it can refer to something else. The word baptized does not always refer to water baptism. I don't believe in verse 27 it's referring to water baptism, because the first word for in verse 27 connects to verse 26, where you become a child of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Now, turn to Acts 8. Acts 8. So we see that what precedes baptism is salvation. Now, we didn't cover all the verses that we quoted like the last month, because it would be a long sermon. And like I said, I'm kind of tired after all the soul-willing yesterday. We're going to probably make this a bit short of a sermon. But the first thing is what precedes baptism and that's salvation very clearly throughout the Bible. The second thing is this, though. What is the picture of baptism? What's the picture? Well, it's the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is why we go under the water and come up, because what you're doing is showing that you believe Jesus was buried and he rose again. Right? Now, I remember the first time somebody told me that, I'm like, wow, that makes perfect sense. Like I said, though, unless somebody explains it, people just aren't aware of these things. Now, in verse 38 of Acts 8, Acts 8 verse 38, remember we just read verses 35 through 37 and said you must believe first? Verse 38, and he commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. So, since he believes, he commands the chariot to stand still. That shows us baptism is very important, because he said, let's get this done now. You believe we have the water here, let's do this. But I want you to notice that it says they went down both into the water. Okay? They went into the water. Why? Because baptism pictures the burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He didn't just take water and just sprinkle it on his head. Right? He had to go under the water. Now, it would have been a lot easier to just pull out a water bottle and just sprinkle some water on the head, but that wouldn't picture baptism. That wouldn't picture the burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which baptism is picturing. The Bible is very clear, baptism pictures the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now turn to Romans 6. Romans 6. And in Romans 6, this is a very famous passage on baptism. In verse 3, it says, Note ye not that so many of us, as we're baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death? 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. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Notice in verse 4 it says, we are buried with him. Right? Baptism pictures a burial. Now look, if you went to a funeral and somebody was buried, their whole body was there and they just had their arms sticking out of the ground, wouldn't that be pretty weird? It would be pretty strange, right? When it says that they were buried, that's the example of being buried, it shows us that you're supposed to go fully under the water. You're not supposed to just say, well, I'll just have part of my body. I can't remember where this is, but I remember reading this a long time ago. There's a denomination that does baptism in water, but once you get in the water, they just sprinkle water on your head. And it's just like, how do you come up with this stuff? But the Bible says it's a burial, so they go fully under the water. But in verse 5, it also makes it clear, it says for if we have been planted, okay? When you plant vegetables, guess what? When you plant vegetables, you put the vegetables under the ground, don't you? You're not going to be very successful if you just throw some tomato seeds like on top of the ground, right? It's not going to work very well. You put it actually under the ground. So buried or planted, it shows us that when you do baptism, you go under the water and you come back up. It's by immersion. Now turn to John 3. Now I will say this, that I do believe some people can go a little bit overboard with this. And what I mean by that is this. I know situations where someone was baptized and depending on the place you're baptizing, you could have more water or less and they'll baptize someone and it's like just a couple fingers didn't go fully under the water. And they're like, no, we got to throw you back down because we don't think that we got the fingers fully under the water. I think that's where we're getting a little bit too extreme because obviously, you know, God looks like, you know, they're putting in the effort. They try. Honestly, you know, in April, you know, I watch back to the baptisms we did. And when you get baptized in a pool, when your head goes down, your feet kind of swing up. And I was like, man, I have to see an instant replay to see whether or not with some of these people, if they were fully at one time under the water, I don't think that means you have to get re-baptized. I think that's getting a little bit overboard, right? Because obviously God sees the heart of they, they, they tried their best and you know, now I have seen situations though, where it's usually happens with kids where they go to get baptized. And then all of a sudden when they're going under the water, they, they like grab onto the side. They get really scared. And then all of a sudden it's like, well, you probably do need to get baptized then if you didn't even go under at all. But obviously, you know, I think people can go a little bit overboard with that, but baptism pictures, the burial and resurrection in John three, verses 22 and verse 23, it says John three, verse 22, after these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judea. And there he tarried with them and baptized. And John also was baptizing in Anan near to Salem. Why was he doing that? Because there was much water there and they came and were baptized. He went to a place where there's a lot of water. Look, when we look for a permanent building, we're going to look for a place where we can actually baptize people on a weekly basis, where we have water to do that. And obviously churches are in different situations, but when John the Baptist went, he said, I want to make sure I'm at a place where I can baptize my converts. And he needs a lot of water to do that. He needs water enough that he can put people under the water and that they would come up. Once again, let's talk about infant baptism. Now if infant baptism was scriptural, which it's not, if it was in the Bible, guess how they should be baptizing those babies. They should be slamming those babies under the water and bringing them up, right? Because baptism is by immersion. Now look, I sound like I like the Orthodox Church here because I'm just going to mention that that's what they do. They take babies and they slam them under the water. I mean, and they do it three times with most Orthodox churches. I mean, it's crazy. Like they'll just be like down and it's sort of funny, it's sort of not, but you watch videos of it and the parents have never seen like a baptism take place. And they are horrified when they see their baby being slammed under the water. And guess what? I would be too. If my baby was being slammed under the water, it's like, what kind of a moron would do that? Now if infant baptism was scriptural though, that is what you do. You would slam that baby under the water, not three times like they do, but you would slam that baby under the water because baptism is by immersion. Now why is it that the Orthodox Church understands that baptism is by immersion and the Catholic Church doesn't get that? Well, I mean, the New Testament was written in Greek, right? So when it comes to the Greek Orthodox Church, they knew what the word meant. In baptizo, it means to immerse. So they said, you know, look, it's by immersion. Now anyone could read the Bible and see that for themselves, that they do where there's much water, but they looked at that and say, well, it's by immersion. So they kept the vain tradition of baptizing babies, but they just changed a little bit. They just decided to just slam those babies under the water. You know, it's madness. It's ridiculous. Now turn in Matthew chapter 3, Matthew 3. It just kind of shows you when you have these religions that do all these traditions and they don't have any verses for why they do it. It just shows that people don't really care what the Bible says. They just follow man's tradition, whatever they're taught, and they keep their stupid, vain traditions that are never in the Bible. That's what it shows us. Matthew chapter 3, verses 13 through 16. Verse 16. So the Bible's very clear that when Jesus was baptized, he went up a straight way out of the water, which means he was in the water. Now you see those pictures where he has like this long, flowing, you know, effeminate hair and he like gets out and he's just like, I mean, it's bizarre. It's weird. But the Bible's very clear that when Jesus was baptized, it was by immersion. Why? Because it's picturing the burial and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And so the third thing I want to look at is this. What's the point of baptism? Because we saw what precedes baptism. That's salvation. We saw that what's the picture of baptism. But honestly, what's the point of it? You know, because we stress to people that they should get baptized. But why is it so important? Well, I came up with three different reasons why it's very important. And in Matthew 3, verse 15 is the first thing. This says in Matthew 3, verse 15, The first reason why baptism is so important, the first point of it, is because God commands it. Okay? Now that might sound basic, but here's the thing. There's a lot of things, whether we understand it or not in the Bible, if God commands it, we do it. Right? God commands us to go soul winning, we go soul winning. He commands us to read the Bible every day, we read the Bible every day. He commands us to get baptized after we believe, we get baptized after we believe. We don't have to fully understand it. That's what's the problem with a lot of people, where they won't do anything in the Bible unless they fully understand it or fully grasp it. God expects you just to obey it. And the truth is with the Bible, most things you don't fully get until you start doing it. Right? I remember before I was married, and I was homeschooled starting in middle school, but I remember kind of changing my stance, even after I was saved, and I was just like, well, you know, I don't really want my wife to be a stay at home mom. And the reason why is because, you know, you get trained by the world, you have all these false philosophies, and I noticed, though, when it was preached, that the Bible's clear, that women are supposed to be stay at home moms. And then all of a sudden I was like, I don't understand it, I don't know why. Now if you're going to ask me now, I do understand it a lot better than back then. But here's the thing, we just do what the Bible says whether we get it or not. Now look at Matthew chapter 3, verses 5 through 10. And another reason why, the point of baptism, not only is it a command from God, but it shows that you've repented of your unbelief. It shows that you've changed your belief, you've believed on Jesus Christ, that before you believed whatever, Roman Catholicism, and now you believe that, you know what, it was all done by Jesus Christ, that he was buried and he rose again. Now Matthew 3, verses 5 through 10, this is one of the big passages people that believe in repentance of sins like to use. And I'll make it very clear what this is talking about, I don't think it's that confusing once you see it. But in verse 5 it says, Then went out to Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan. So once again, it's by immersion, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits made for repentance. And think not to say within yourselves, yourselves, we have Abraham to our father, for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid under the root of the trees, therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. So people like to use this in verse 8, people that are repentant of sins, heretics, and they say, well you need fruits of repentance, you need to show through your works, your actions, that you're repentant of your sins. They use this passage as a big one. But I want you to understand something. The people that are wanting to get baptized are the Pharisees and the Sadducees. It's not just someone they led to the Lord, it's the Pharisees and Sadducees, the people that mocked the Bible. Now when he says fruits meet for repentance, it's referring to their converts, it's not referring to their works. Because of the fact he knew the Pharisees, he knew the Sadducees, and they've been converting a bunch of children of the devil and telling them you've got to repent of your sins and do this and follow the law and all this stuff. And he's seeing them be these false prophets and he's like, I want to see some actual fruit that you've actually been preaching the right gospel before I baptize you. It would be like if today, Apollo Kibbeloy showed up to get baptized by me. I'd be like, wait one second, before I baptize you, I want to see fruits meet for repentance. I want you to admit that you're not the son of God, that you're not the way to heaven and all this stuff. I would be like, you know, what in the world? And that's what's going on here. The Pharisees and the Sadducees are showing up to get baptized. And John the Baptist is like, you're not fooling me. I'm not going to baptize you. It would be the same thing as if some hardcore Jehovah's Witness or hardcore Mormon came in. Before I baptized them, I'd be like, you know what, I want to spend a little bit more time making sure that you actually believe the gospel. And there's people that are getting baptized today that look, I've been sowing with you. I've heard you give the gospel. I'm not going to spend 30 minutes to make sure that you've changed your mind. But look, if some hardcore INC street preacher just showed up to get baptized today, well, wait one second. We've got a lot to go over before I'm going to baptize you, right? You say, well, why would the Pharisees and Sadducees come to get baptized then? Look, throughout the Bible, enemies of God try to link up with God's people and pretend to be like them. Yeah, but that's what you see in the Bible. I mean, they're like, we've come from a far country to serve the same God that you do. They're just lying about. You see people in the Old Testament that say, well, we worship the same God as you. We want to build with you. In reality, they wanted to kill them. Look, they're phonies. People sometimes lie, and they're fake. And at this church, we will have people that are baptized by my hands, people that come sowing with us, and in reality, they're just here to cause problems. It's going to happen. People that are going to pretend to be like us, they're going to be fake. They're going to be just like the Pharisees and Sadducees, right? That's the reason why he says, bring forth their fruits made for repentance, because it's like, well, wait a minute. Now, this guy over here, I led to the Lord, but you, I've heard you preach a false gospel and tell me I'm a heretic and a devil. I got to actually see that you changed your mind. And the truth is, if somebody showed up to be baptized that was a part of some weird religion, I would take more time to make sure they got it than someone I've heard preach the gospel that has the right message. And so once again, when people try to say, well, you got to repent of your sins, look, I mean, if you just look at the context, you'd be able to tell us not what the Bible is saying. They show up to get baptized because they're just trying to trick him, make him look foolish or whatever, link up with God's people. John the Baptist is not full. He's a smart guy. He knows their phonies. And I'm sure John the Baptist knew the reprobate doctrine. He knew there was evil people that are going to pretend to be like him. That's the truth. Turn to Acts 26, Acts 26. And so baptism, it shows what's the point of it, what's a command from God. And it also shows that you've changed your mind about what you believe. That's why he's looking at the Pharisees and Sadducees saying, wait a minute, I'm not going to baptize you to show that you've changed your mind until I actually see that you've changed your mind. But we're not going to link up with some of these other churches that preach a false gospel and have this joint baptism. We're not going to do it. We're not going to baptize them unless they believe the same gospel that we do. But the third reason why baptism is so important. The third point of it is this, because it forces people to make a decision if they're going to live for God or they're not going to live for God. And honestly, when I was preparing this sermon, that's the thing that really stuck out in my mind. In Acts 26, notice this example with King Agrippa, an unsaved man. It says in verse 27, King Agrippa, believeth thou the prophets? I know that thou believeth. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. This is one of the saddest verses in the Bible. This man who's a man of great authority, he hears the gospel and he just chooses not to believe. Based on what we see, we can assume he's in hell now. We assume that he never ended up believing. Because when people hear the gospel and they reject it at the moment, usually they're never going to believe on Jesus Christ. But what Paul's trying to do is force him to make a decision. Nobody is going to change their mind about what they believe about salvation unless we make it very clear, you've got to make a decision. Are you going to believe what you've been taught your whole life? Are you going to believe what I've shown you? That the gift of God is eternal life. We force people to make a decision when we're soul winning. And Paul aggressively does that. He gets to the end and he tries to persuade and convince King Agrippa to put his full faith on Jesus. But King Agrippa is not able to do it. 2 Corinthians chapter 6, let's look at verse 2. 2 Corinthians 6 verse 2. And here's what you have to understand, that when it comes to this idea of baptism, we're basically pushing people to make a decision if they're going to live for God or not. Baptism is a great thing that God has in the Bible because it helps us decide we're going to live for God. When I preach sermons, what's the main point of my sermons? I'm going to talk about something and at the end I try to force you to make a decision on the topic. I preach about why you need to read the Bible every day, what's my goal? To get you to stop reading it every once in a while and decide I'm going to read it every single day. I preach against the television, what's my goal? To get you to stop watching television and just read the Bible or do whatever. Anything is more profitable than watching the television. But I mean like anything, I preach something and like I've said before, we're against the altar call, but at the same time with preaching, you are trying to motivate people to make a decision. And when it comes to people getting baptized, it helps them make a decision if they're going to live for God. And oftentimes that's the thing that makes them decide to go full in for God. And so it's important when you get people saved, we want them to make a decision, okay you got saved, but a lot of people don't want to come to church. Now we're talking about why they should be baptized. And it kind of puts them on the brink where it says, okay, I'm going to decide to live for God. 2 Corinthians 6, 2, it says, for he saith, I have heard thee in a time except that in the day and in the day of salvation of my succor thee, behold, now is the accepted time, behold, now is the day of salvation. We talk to people about that where we tell them, hey, now's your day of salvation. Decide to believe today. This is your opportunity. Don't decide, well, one day I'll listen. This is your opportunity. We try to persuade them, right? Now, when it comes to infant baptism, they say the point of baptism is to wash away original sin. Isn't that what they say? Now here's the thing about original sin. Original sin is a false doctrine. Yeah. Okay. Now some people are confused about what original sin means. I get it that from a young age, children disobey their parents. Obviously I'm a parent. I'm well aware of that, right? Children disobey from the beginning. But what they mean by original sin is if you die without being baptized, you're going to burn in hell. That's what they mean by original sin. That's not what we believe. If a baby dies, they go to heaven. If a one year old or two year old dies, they go to heaven. But what they mean by original sin is this, that if we don't baptize you, you still have your sin on your record. If you die as a baby, you're going to die and go to hell. Now here's the thing. There was a time period when a lot higher percentage of babies died because at hospitals they weren't very sanitary. They didn't follow the standards of what God has. And so a lot of babies died at a young age. So what did the Catholic Church do? They guilted parents into giving them money to baptize their babies and things like that. That's the truth. I mean the Catholic Church is so wicked when you look at their history. They were preying on innocent people, moms and dads that had lost their kids or were worried for their kids' lives. And they would charge you money. Right? There's no new thing under the sun. If you really look, you know, if you hear stories of Orthodox countries, because it's like Catholicism was 400 years ago, it's the same sort of thing. You hear those stories where they basically guilt you into doing things. But that's what Catholic Church says. That's not what we believe, though. What we believe is that baptism is very important to push someone to the point where they're going to decide to live for God or not. So what should we do when we go soul winning? We ought to make it clear that they should get baptized. Now turn to Matthew 9. Let's look at the last thing. And so the first point we had about baptism is this. What precedes baptism? And the answer is salvation. The second thing is, what's the picture of baptism? What's the death, the burial, and resurrection of Jesus? The third thing was, what's the point of baptism? And we talked about how it's a commandment of God. We talked about how people make a decision if they're going to live for God. And it also shows that we believed on Jesus Christ. We changed our mind about what we believe. So the fourth thing is this. What is our plan for baptism? How are we going to get people baptized? Because if it's so important, we need to have a plan for how we're going to do it. Now this is kind of tough because obviously at the moment we're having baptisms once a month. But this is something that when we have the ability to do it every week, we want to push to get people baptized. Why? Because if we can get people baptized, it's going to make them 50 times more likely to come to church. And eventually become a soul winner. And so here's what you have to understand. That if there was an unsaved person here, and they said, you know, what do I have to do to get to heaven? Most people in this room would be able to spend 15 minutes and show them what it takes to get to heaven. We have a church of people that know how to preach the gospel. But I wonder if there's a lot of people in this room that if somebody asked you about baptism, if you would be just as confident and just as able to show them what is baptism and why should they get baptized. Now, I personally, for people that were soul winning yesterday, I gave you guys the handout of baptism. That's kind of the general way that I talk to people about why they should get baptized. Now obviously it's the few that get baptized. Most people get saved, they don't get baptized. But I believe we should make an effort after we get somebody saved to tell them why they should get baptized. Now I'm planning to, the sheets that we gave out yesterday, I think we're going to, I'm not saying it's going to stay the exact same, but I think we're going to print off lots of those so when we go soul winning we can baptize each week. Because what it helps is, us that are soul winners, it's very easy for us to just show them, okay John 1.12 and all the verses and be confident, we explain it to them, we leave it with them, it's going to make them much more likely to get baptized. Look, if we just get them saved and don't tell them they should get baptized or come to church, they're not going to. They're not going to come unless we make it an effort. Now here's the thing, I personally, and people have different opinions, but I think the best way is when you get them saved to try to convince them to get baptized. Now some people try to convince them to come to church, but the reason why I think it's better to try to get them to get baptized and talk to them about that is because it gets kind of awkward if they come to church and later on you're trying to talk to them about baptism later on. It's best if you just preach them the gospel to just show them, okay baptism, now come to church. And here's the thing, if they get baptized and come to church, this is a church where they're going to hear the preaching of God's word. We've all been part of churches where we knew if I bring someone to church they're going to learn nothing, it's going to be boring, it's not going to help them at all. This is a different church though. At this church if people come here, it can change their life. And I'm not saying that because me, I'm just saying when you preach the word of God, it has power, and very few people are preaching the word of God. We all come from churches before, at least in the past and sometime. I've been a part of churches where I realize if I bring someone to church, I'm going to have to teach them everything while I'm giving them a ride for church. That's very frustrating. Here, all you've got to do is convince them to come to church, and you want some people, most people end up fading out, but if they come here, they hear the preaching, there are people out there that just want to hear the truth. And when they hear the preaching of God's word, they're going to be like, I've never heard preaching like this before. Like I said, not because of me. I'm just saying, when you bring people to a church where they preach the truth, they're not used to that. They're just like, wow, I've never heard somebody get up and just preach the truth. And so in Matthew 9, one thing we should do, we need to have a structured plan for how to do baptism, to all of us individually and as a church as well. One thing we should do, I think we should pray about it. And here's what it says in Matthew 9, verses 35 to 38. And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. When he saw them all the twos, he was moved with compassion on them, because they feigned and were scattered abroad, sheep having no shepherds. Then saith the unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labors are few. Pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labors into his harvest. God says we should pray that there's more soul winners. Well, here's the truth. Nobody's going to be a soul winner unless they're also willing to get baptized. Now, people go soul winning when they learn later on, maybe I should get baptized, maybe it wasn't valid before, but I promise you, you're never going to have someone who's at a church for 20 years and dedicated to a soul winner, but they just refuse to get baptized. And so in terms of getting more labors, yes, we pray about it. We also make the effort to try to convince them to come to church and get baptized, and then they start hearing the preaching of God's word. Now turn to one last place, Matthew 28. Now, this is something that, you know, it steps on my toes too, because honestly, it takes effort to get people to come to church. It takes time, it takes effort, and so it can be frustrating. When we go soul winning, you know, we can talk to 20 people that aren't interested, right? And it's frustrating, but we get that one person that ends up wanting to hear. And it's all worth it, isn't it? It's the same thing with getting someone to come to church. We try to get them to come to church over and over again. Once you get that one person that decides they want to come and start living for the Lord, it's worth it all. It's worth the struggle, but it does take effort in our part. Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20. When it comes to the Great Commission, God said, I want you to go out there, Jesus said, I want you to go out there and preach the Gospel, but also to get your converts baptized. He links that together when it comes to the Great Commission. And so we as a church, yes, we're zealous with preaching the Gospel, we need to be zealous with trying to get people to come to church and get baptized as well. So our four points that we saw here were, what precedes baptism? That's salvation. What's the picture of baptism? That's the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. What's the point of baptism? We see that it's a command from God, it shows that people believe, and it helps people make the decision to live for God. And what's our plan? You know, we need to make an effort to talk to people, we need to pray about it, and have a structured plan of how we're going to talk to them. The sheets I made yesterday are not perfect. You could make it different if you want, that's fine. But it's important as a soul winner that you know how to say something, that you have an idea. You say, I don't like using John 1-12, you can use different prayers, it's fine, I don't care. I have no problem if you want to make your own or something, or if you have an idea and say, hey, can we do it like this? If I like it, we might do it. But whether you use the method I do or not, you should have some sort of method. You should have some sort of structured plan of how you're going to talk to them about baptism. As a church, we are getting multitude saved right now. No question about that. Let us all, including myself, make an effort to try to baptize more Congress. Let's close in a word of prayer.