The Three Baptisms

The sermon is called the Three Baptisms. Three baptisms, because that's what's described to us in the Bible. Three baptisms. I know a lot of people have questions. I have received quite a few questions from people all over the Caribbean, also from South Florida here, and those that I have counseled, and those who have baptized. There are some, as they look at it, maybe some conflicting scriptures. So I would like to clear that out if we can today, so that perhaps you can understand. You can explain to someone. Because some people have asked, well, wait a minute, in Ephesians 4 and verse 5, it says there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. So what are you talking about? Three baptisms. So that's something that we'll go into today. I know sometimes we think about baptism, and I've had people ask me the question, well, wait a minute, do I need to be baptized again? Well, a lot of times when you ask that question, if you've been baptized in the faith by all the tenets that we see in the Bible that we'll go through today, probably not. If you're asking that question, it means that you're hopefully beginning to grow.

And we have baptized people who have been baptized before because they just felt like they didn't fully understand the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and didn't know that they had really saw the fruits of His Holy Spirit. So I remember I was about six years old, six or seven, when my parents were baptized in, I don't remember what kind of church it was, it was in Indiana. I just remember being a kid and watching them put them in this long-like structure with water, and they came down, and then the guy pulled them back up, and I thought, oh, that's amazing! Never seen that before.

So the following week, my mother went to have her hair done, and so she took me, and so I was outside with another kid and saw this Siamese cat.

And then I found a good reason why cats do not want to be baptized.

As a matter of fact, it's very difficult to baptize a cat, as I found out, as I was scratched all up and down and just thought that looked unique. But that was me at six.

But I even love the story of a, at a baptism minister approached a young husband who was to be baptized, and he said, Son, baptism is a serious step. Are you prepared for it?

And the young man said, I think so. My wife has made some appetizers, and we've got a caterer that's bringing in plenty of cookies and cakes for all the guests.

And the minister said, well, I don't mean that. I mean, are you prepared spiritually?

To which the young man said, oh, yes, I've got a keg of beer and a case of good wine for after the baptism.

It is a serious matter when we talk about baptism. That's why we just don't have, as Charisse and I were talking, various churches have mass baptisms.

There they just go and dunk you and just get as many as they can and put you down, pull you back up.

I think of Andy as we were talking about this movie. In my effect, I almost had you bring the movie so we could show the little part in it.

Oh, brother, where art thou? If you've seen that. And the baptism scene that goes on is they're baptizing all these people.

And people are thinking, oh, well. So why do we sometimes, why do we counsel?

Because we do not baptize someone unless you go through counseling. And if he remembers that, knows that, and various people here that have baptized everywhere.

We do not take it lightly, as the Scriptures say. We ask people to count the cost.

So I'd like you to turn to Acts 2, if you will.

Acts 2, as we know on the first Pentecost. Acts 2 and verse 38, as Peter Gray gave this fantastic sermon to all the men who were standing there in Jerusalem.

And they all came and realized what they had done. That they had killed Jesus Christ. The Christ.

And they said, what can we do? What should we do as they were torn at their heart?

And in Acts 2 and verse 38, then Peter said to them, repent. That's the first one. That's a big word.

Repent, and let every one of you be baptized. There's another step.

In the name of Jesus Christ for the remission, or the taking away, the forgiving of your sin, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

So there's various steps here that's involved. Various aspects of the whole forgiveness and baptism process.

I hope you will think about your baptism as we head towards the spring holy days, as we head towards Passover.

And we realize the seriousness of it, because it is a time to rededicate ourselves, to God, to kind of get us focused on what we should be doing in this life, that who we have given our life over to. That's one of the reasons we do it.

But in Hebrews 6 and verse 2, it talks about the doctrines of the church.

And as it's given there in Hebrews 6 and verse 2, it says, The doctrine of baptisms. Plural. Baptisms. Plural.

And I hope you will study Ephesians 4 and verse 5. I hope you study the whole chapter of Ephesians 4, because as you can see, Paul is addressing the church at Ephesus to become together as one.

To have unity. He's not talking about just one. He's talking about having a baptism of the same mindset, of the same Christ, of the same way.

And we were all baptized following the same God, the same Spirit as Christ is living in us.

But I'd like you to turn to Matthew 3, if you will.

Matthew 3. We find out about baptism here.

Matthew 3. And verse 11. Here we have John the Baptist make paving his way for Christ.

And he says, as he's instructing the people in Matthew 3 and verse 11, I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. So water is necessary.

But he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

So we have a baptism of water, we have a baptism of the Spirit, and we have a baptism of fire.

Are we able to explain that or for you to understand why the Scriptures here talk of three different types or three different phases of baptism?

I'd like you to, because it actually says in Luke 3 and verse 16 the very same thing, baptism of spirit and of fire. Do we understand what they are?

Well, the first baptism is of water, is of cleansing. You're being washed.

That's why we'll go into it just a little bit later, of the symbolism that it's not just taking a bath.

It's not taking you out into the ocean and dunking you and saying, oh, you're clean now.

But that is symbolic of, as baptism is, of us being washed from the sin by the blood of Jesus Christ.

And then we have another, as it talks about here, another baptism of the Holy Spirit.

And that takes place after you are cleansed of your sins, the washing of water.

We take someone out, we wash them, Christ does, of all their sins because they have repented. They realize what they need to do. Their mindset is being changed. And they are repentant.

They realize, as I had to come to this conclusion, many of you came to the same conclusion that I don't want to live the way of the world anymore.

I want to follow Christ. I want to walk a different walk, live a different way, and walk that way.

And so after you have been cleansed of all your sins, then you are washed with the Holy Spirit. Not cleansed, but you are immersed. As God grants you the gift of the Holy Spirit, as hands are laid upon you, and you are now receiving God's Holy Spirit.

You have received it in your body. If I can say that. You have received it in your mind. You have received it in your heart. And it begins to change you. And that's why some people have asked the question, well, wait a minute. I've been baptized for 10 or 15 years, and I don't know that I'm making any progress. I don't know if I'm not going backwards. And a lot of times it's not, did I really even receive the Spirit? Well, it is a gift.

The Holy Spirit, as we find in Romans, it's 23, that is a gift from God. But we do receive it. But how do we know? I don't know.

I lay hands upon you, as the Scriptures tell, and pray over you, and ask that you receive God's Holy Spirit.

Do you know that you have it? I can't look at you and go, ah! There you go!

But we can tell, because it talks about, by their fruits you shall know them. Will you begin to change?

Are we beginning to look at life differently? Are we beginning to put Christ first and foremost?

And a lot of times it's not that people have not received His Holy Spirit. They've just not, they have not done anything with it.

They have not used it. They do not stir it up. As the Scriptures say, there is a great chance that we sometimes quench His Spirit.

We quench it. It dries to nothing, because we do not use it. We must use it. And then the last, it says, a baptism of fire, which is another purging.

Because just as we purge our sins from the washing of water, there is a time that's ahead.

And it's called the time of the judgment. And there is a purging of fire that is called the lake of fire.

And it is a purging of the individual out of existence forever.

So it is one baptism we do not want. It is one baptism that God is very serious about.

And He doesn't take it lightly, either the first or the third.

And as I've said many times, if you receive His Holy Spirit, which resurrection will you be in?

Either the first or the third. We do not want to be in the third, in the lake of fire.

And neither does God want us to be. That's why He admonishes us to use this Holy Spirit to not quench it.

Because by quenching it, we are rejecting Him.

As we look through the symbolic picture of baptism, as Christ had no need to be cleansed, as we see in Matthew here.

He didn't sin, right?

But yet, He said, I need to be baptized. As a matter of fact, Matthew 3 and verse 15.

For thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness, as He told John the Baptist. Because John the Baptist would be like any of us.

We realize through Christ, we go, I don't need to be baptized by you.

I like how it's explained in the New Living Translation in Matthew 3.

Verse 15.

He said, but Jesus said, it should be done, what should be done? The baptism of Him, even though He's without sin.

It should be done, for we must carry out all that God requires.

God requires baptism for the followers of God.

To be a Christian, we must be Christ-like. We must live like Christ.

That's why it's so important to read the Scriptures.

How do we know how to live unless we have an example laid out before us in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? You know, practice being Christ-like every day can be difficult.

But as the old saying goes, practice makes perfect.

The more we practice it, the easier it kind of becomes because it becomes part of our character.

As we look and see how Christ handled situations, and I constantly look at, okay, I've got a situation, I've got a problem I have to handle.

I try to go back into the Scriptures and see how Christ handled certain situations and problems.

And you know, I haven't found a problem yet that I could not go to the Scriptures and find an answer to.

I had to pray a lot, but those answers are given to us.

Shows how Christ lives, how He lived.

So we must be Christ-like, we must live like Christ, and Christ was, as an example, baptized.

Christ was baptized.

So it's important if you're going to follow God that we are baptized.

And we understand how crucial it is because on Passover night, the only ones who partake of the bread and the wine and the ceremony are baptized members.

And we do that for a reason, because it's serious matter.

As the Scriptures tell us, we don't want to take those symbols unworthy in an unworthy manner.

None of us are really worthy, but we are through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

The question was asked, well, wait a minute, do I really need to be baptized?

Wasn't I? I was baptized in some other church.

Well, there are a few cases where we have not baptized.

We baptized someone because of their understanding.

But it's rare, because most people, after you really are baptized, you receive His Holy Spirit, you really realize how much you didn't know and how much God is actually working with you.

Found that in many examples, as people are reading the Bible as never before, and all of a sudden they realize that God put that in their minds.

So it's an incredible gift when He gives us a Holy Spirit.

It's a serious matter.

But I had the question. Well, your church believes in water baptism. Full immersion.

I said, yes, they do.

Then that's the only thing you believe in.

I said, yes, that's what the Scriptures show us.

And then they brought up Ezekiel 36. Can we go there?

Brought up Ezekiel 36.

36, and it says here in the New King James about being sprinkled, and people being cleansed and being sprinkled.

So how would you answer that question?

As you go to Ezekiel 36 and verse 25, as God is talking about when He was going to bring the nations together at the end time, He's going to bring Judah back and Israel back.

And it says for 24th verse, I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of the countries, and bring you into your own country.

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean.

I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

I will give you a new heart and will put a new spirit within you.

I will take the heart of stone out of you and give you a heart of flesh.

I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues, and you will keep my judgments, and you will do them.

Sprinkle.

Well, that's one of the few places, not the only place, to talk about baptism and sprinkling.

Except you have different churches that believe also in sprinkling.

They also believe a lot of things that we cannot find in the Bible.

But it's interesting here because the word sprinkle is from the Hebrew word zarach.

Z-A-R-A-Q.

And it's translated here sprinkle, but it means, more than that, it means to be here and there.

To scatter.

To strew is the actual word.

And the symbolic picture is, if I had a hose, and I turned that hose and I scattered it over not just one place, but over a whole area.

It doesn't mean that everybody's not wet.

But they've taken the scripture, they've taken this word and said, oh well, it's okay to just be sprinkled.

Instead of what the actual word meant was, if I took a fireman's hose here, and I went like this, and I went like this, and I went like this, I don't think you would feel like I was sprinkling you.

But that's the context of this, is he's going to cover and cleanse the entire nation.

Because that nation's need to be cleansed. As a matter of fact, cleansed here in the scripture is actually Tahar. Tahar, and Tahar means to purify, uncontaminate, to make clean, to purge.

Hard to make clean if you just sprinkle something.

Very hard to make something really, really clean.

Before we serve food today, I ask whoever is serving it, that you do not sprinkle your hands before you serve it. That you wash your hands so we can purge.

That's what these scriptures are talking about.

But so many times, religions will just take, the nomination will take a word, and they just, oh, this is good, we'll just do it there. And they leave out all the other places in scripture where, especially Jesus Christ's example, when we see that we need to be cleansed.

See, the picture of baptism and the life of Jesus Christ, it teaches us so much. Because, just like before we're baptized, in counseling, we talk about the old man being put to death. Now, we're not talking about somebody's father or somebody down the street, okay? Some old man who's a crabby old man that needs to be put down. No, talking about that. We're talking about us, what we are called out of the world to not be like the world, right?

Because it's easy to just follow like everybody else does. You do not really stand out.

You are not really a light. But as you come to understanding, as God opens up our minds, because God begins to call, He said, you can't come to Christ unless the Father draws you. You can't come. It also says to God, unless Christ is involved.

So, when God begins to work with our minds, we begin to see we don't want to live the way of the world.

And so, we put to death, as it says, in a watery grave, as the Scriptures tell us. Because as I ask everybody before I baptize them, that after they have counted the cost, we have counseled, they understand, the significance of not looking back, not turning back to the world, but marching forward.

Also, that they are going to slip and fall. But the key is putting two steps forward, and occasionally you're going to have one step back. Making those two steps forward. But when we take a person and we baptize them, they are completely immersed. And we usually have someone, I've had to baptize one or two, that's by myself, and I have to be very careful that everything is down.

Not a finger sticking up, not a toe, not anything, which is complete. And they then come up out of the water, cleansed, purified by the blood of Jesus Christ. Pure, clean, holy, sacred, set apart. Very special time. And the old man is dead, and now the new has been resurrected. They are a new creation at that time. And then once they do that, just like Christ overcame the world, we must live in the world. You are given His Holy Spirit, and you have a life then led by the Spirit instead of by the flesh.

Because we all are pulled by the flesh more than we want to be. But we need to be led by the Holy Spirit, which can only be stirred up by prayer and by study. You can't just go and listen to this music, because a lot of people believe that I get into the Spirit, and this music gets me going, and it stirs up my spirit. Music can change your mindset. It's very powerful. But it's similar to what you want to say like it does in Jamaica with the Rast-Ferrids. They believe they access the Holy Spirit, because I spent time with a couple of them, and they explained it to me that the only way they could really see the Holy Spirit was in them was to smoke ganja.

And then they felt the Spirit in them, and they truly believe that. The ones I talk to anyway. So we are led by the Holy Spirit, because Christ's life, because the very essence, the Holy Spirit is the very essence, the power, the energy of God the Father and Jesus Christ. And they give us that essence, a small portion, you might say a down payment. They give it to us to use to see how we can use it.

Do they completely fill us with this Holy Spirit at the start? Usually not. Because most of us couldn't handle it. But they give us enough, and then they see, can I give you more? It's like a parent. Giving you responsibilities as you grow older, as your child.

Giving you responsibilities even at your workplace. When you start a job, they don't just think, okay, here, you run the company. I'm sorry, yeah, we did hire you at entry level, but we expect you to run the whole company. That's not how it is. That's not how God does it either. He gives us, and then he sees we can handle it, and handle it, and handle it. That's why there's so many parables about the Holy Spirit and the gifts given to us. We come out of the grave, resurrected not only a new person, but we will start to act like a new person. We should.

And that is sometimes the hardest part. Even now, after Passover, we'll take a Passover. We're rededicating our life. We're telling God, we're going to spend the next seven days focusing on putting sin out of our lives, becoming more like Him because He's sinless. Do we realize that too is like a new start every year? It should energize us to look forward to that time to go, you know, there's a lot of areas.

There are some areas I need to work on. And there's one or two sins that just constantly I've been working on, I really need to concentrate on. Now, if you think during the days of Unleavened Bread, if you've been around a long time, that you're going to eliminate all your sins, you're mistaken. But there are some that you can really work on. And that's what we should be doing. Becoming more like Christ, as sinless as we can be, and knowing that no matter how good we are, no matter how many times we may think, oh, I lived the perfect day, we didn't.

Because with God, all our righteousness is but dirty rags. That's it. We do not understand not even that much of what it is to truly be righteous like God. We can't. Our minds are so limited. We can't even imagine not having any evil thought ever enter our minds, can we? We cannot comprehend that we would never get upset at someone else. We would never speak cross. We would never lose control. We would never have any lusts. We can't comprehend that. But God wants us to try. Because that's all we're doing.

We're here practicing. We're here practicing for how we will live for eternity. And that's why the Holy Spirit is given. So we can stir it up. And mind does get stirred up when I study. My focus isn't so much on the world. Is that why the Bible says, Set your mind on the things above and not on things of the earth?

Because every time I set my mind or get my mind thinking of something down here, guess what? I'm in trouble. I need to set it up there. Acts 22 and verse 16. Acts 22 and verse 16. We have, as Paul relates here, his story. Acts 22. Verse 16. He said, And now, why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.

That's what Paul had to do. See, Paul knew what was right and wrong. He had been raised, taught right and wrong, but he thought he was all right, as many of us do, too many times. And any time we think we're all right, we're not. And we have to go because we're not Christ yet. We have to live like Christ. Treat people like Christ. We'd treat them, answer as Christ would answer, and have that faith.

Someone asked me the question about coming before the judgment seat of Christ. And how does that work with us? Because 1 Corinthians 3 and verse 13, Romans 14, 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 10, all talk about the judgment seat of Christ. But what about us? Where Paul says, I die daily. What about us? I'd like you to turn to 1 Peter 4.

1 Peter 4. Because Peter makes a statement here. I think we all need to understand. 1 Peter 4 and verse 17. Peter says, For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God. And if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel? So we are being judged now, the household of faith, those who have His Holy Spirit. We're being judged. Will we be judged then in the future? Yes. Only for... only to determine to have our works judged for the rewards. That's why we'll be judged in the future. It isn't, oh no, you've lost out. Because when Christ returns, we will be changed in a moment in between the men of an eye.

Change the spirit of being. The only judgment awaits us is what our rewards will be. How many cities? What we will be doing in the Kingdom of God. How much we've used His Holy Spirit. Judgment will be upon the entire earth. And a lot of people are thrown by this Scripture in verse 18.

It says, now, if the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear? And people have asked me, wait a minute, and I've actually used that Scripture in the past too. I'm scarcely saved. Are you scarcely saved? Somebody ask you that. Are you just barely saved? Well, we're in the process of being saved. That's for sure. We're not saved yet. We're in the process of being saved. But are we in the process of being saved just barely? It doesn't make sense, does it? And yet, that's been used time and time again. Well, I'd like to look at that because the translation of it, which is actually from Proverbs 11 and verse 31, that's where the Scripture is quoted.

Now, I read you Proverbs 11 and verse 31. It says, if the righteous will be rewarded on the earth, how much more the wicked and the sinner? Doesn't sound like it's scarcely saved. Like we just are barely going to make it. Like Christ just really has to... Come on, last minute. Oh, no. I'll pull you out. It's not the God of the universe and the power of the universe. But the different translations... So when they translated that from the Septuagint, which was the Greek of the Old Testament, that's what they translated it instead of Proverbs 11 verse 31.

And it's interesting because the NIV says, if it is hard for the righteous to be saved... Because guess what? This walk is not that easy, right? It's a difficult way. Narrow is a path that leads to righteousness. Why? Because it's so much easier just to go off and follow. Okay, I want to do this. I'll just do it. It doesn't matter if I hurt anyone's feelings. It doesn't matter if I... I'm just going to take care of myself. That's the easy way.

That's the wide road. It's interesting because in the Greek, one of the translations of this is, if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, which it is, what will become of the Godless man and the sinner? See, it's a difficult world to live in. If you're truly a Christian, if you truly make that walk, if it's your walk, it's not easy. I never said it would be.

I like how one man put it. He said, you don't have to take yourself out of the world. You don't have to come out of the world. Which when I first heard him say that, I'm going, what? That's the exact opposite of what Scripture says. Come out of the world. But then he finished the saying. He said, because if you truly live like Christ, the world will cast you out. When you live like Christ, people you work with, your family, everybody in the world, they may respect you in a moment, but they'll turn on you in a heartbeat.

Because you're not like them. You don't think like them. How dare you judge? How dare you judge? You homophobes? You write to lifers? How dare you judge us? And you don't even have to say a word, but if they know that you believe in that book, and you go to church, you're not like them. This world is not easy for the children of God. And if I can use a Caribbean term, as my friend and Trinidad always uses, vexed. You're vexed. Are we vexed? Are we vexed? Do you look at the things of this world and go, I don't want to live in this world.

They're shoesbearers. They don't want to raise their kids like all the other kids in the world. They want a better future for their kids. Right? We are people who take jobs because they want a better life, but they're not willing to compromise. We are different. When you follow Christ, you're going to be different. I want to read here. 1 Peter 4 and verse 19, I'll read it from the New Living Translation. Verse 19. Because I think it strikes the cord for all of us. It says, so if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on doing what is right and trust your lives to God who created you.

And He will never fail you. God will never fail you. But we have to keep our focus. We have to use the Holy Spirit. That's why we're here. That's what it's about. That's why baptism is so important. That's why living God's way of life is so important. Let's look at the word baptism. It comes in the Greek word from baptism.

Baptizo. It's a Greek word, actually, B-A-P-T-I-Z-O. But it's pronounced baptizo. And it means to cover fully. It means to be fully wet. That's what baptism is. So that's why we have full immersion. Okay? We get you fully wet. Because it's washing you totally.

And baptizo, which is actually the root word in the Greek, means to cover wholly with the fluid. To cover wholly with the fluid. The Greek word is understood and it was used, baptizo, to... E. Mark's fluid was used by dyers. Okay? It's a dy word. Not D-I-E. D-Y-E. It was... Dyers were known because they would dye a piece of cloth totally. And they would fully immerse. Take that piece of cloth and put it fully in. And then they would pull it out and what had... What did it become?

A new, different piece of cloth. Because it was dye. Was not the same as it was before. It means to immerse completely. Like you turn to Acts as we begin to wrap this up. Acts 16. What an incredible story of a woman and some people who got baptized. A woman who would totally understand what baptism meant. And her name was Lydia. And Lydia, it said, came from the...

She was originally from Thyatira. And if you studied anything about the city of Thyatira, besides being in the Book of Revelation, it was known in the ancient times for its purple dyes and colors. And it was actually in the city now that was Thyatira. It's a different city now, but you can see the ruins. And you can actually see, if you can read the Greek, it had this plaque to the Guild of Dyers. The Guild of Dyers. So it was very well known as a city that dyed cloths.

And the color purple was something that they used because it was highly prized among the ancients. And what happened was that there was a time when the masses were forbidden. They were forbidden to wear purple. It was only made for the royalty and the very wealth. But as time went on, something happened. People began to be in want of... I hope you don't worry about it. It's a color purple. They began to want to wear it. It became so popular that there was such a high demand that cloth dyed purple to wear as clothing. Just about this time would sell for the amount of its weight in gold. That's how popular it was. So we see a woman here in Acts 16 and verse 13.

It said, On the Sabbath day, we went out of the city to the river where prayer was custom made and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. So here you had some women who were meeting for prayer. Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira who worshiped God.

So he or she was worshiping God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken to her by Paul. What do you think Paul was telling her? Is Romans 10 verse 17? Tell you that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. He was telling her the Word of God. As he would typically do on a Sabbath. And verse 15, And when she and her household...

Where was her household? They weren't in Thyatira, were they? No, they were in Philippi. Okay? Philippi was a very prosperous city. So here we can take from reading this that here was this woman, an entrepreneur. Very wealthy because we see she had a house also in Philippi. And she was a seller of purple, so she was very prosperous.

God was calling her. And it said, And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. And she constrained us. Now, as we look at that, do you think she understood the new creation? Bearing the old person? Can you imagine when he said baptism? She knew exactly. She was going to go down in the water. Come out here? And she's going to come out over here when he raised her up, just like she would take a piece of cotton or a piece of wax or a piece of wool, and she would take it down because they would actually...

The color purple is actually... They had insects over by Thyatira that were actually purple. And also there was a plant that they would take and they would squeeze it out and get all the juice out of it. And then they would put it in this little container and they would take cloth and they would put it completely in person and bring it back out. And it would be the color purple.

So she understood, as you can imagine, what it meant to come back up. Brethren, do we sometimes forget that we're a complete... Because of that baptism, we're a completely new piece of cloth. The color of royalty. Worth a tremendous amount to our Father. Those are the amazing things. So in the doctrine of baptisms, we have total immersion. We realize that. You can see that that was done. We have repentance, which is necessary before we immersion. And you see that in Matthew 3, verse 7 through 8.

John the Baptist is getting ready to baptize people. And so here are all these Pharisees and some scribes and some are coming up there and he said, you brood of vipers? Who told you? And he said, what? Show fruits worthy of repentance. He just didn't baptize somebody. He just didn't baptize, oh well, this is okay. But he wanted to see that they were truly repentant of their life. They needed to change. We need to. Before we're baptized. We need to change now.

We need to change today. We need to change tomorrow. Because this is a constant walk to the kingdom of God every day. He's changing. He's changing. He's changing. It's not you're going to see these great changes and you're like, oh wow!

Look at this. I'm so much more righteous than I was yesterday. It doesn't work. But your family and your friends and your mates and your children, they will begin to see. Where is that?

Like I saw in my father. It wasn't the same thing.

My wife hopefully sees in me.

I see in her we constantly need to just realize God made us a new piece of the model. He made us purple. He made us like Lydia. Purple. Royalty. It's what He wants us to be. But something else is required is faith. See, we counsel and we talk about faith. Do you have the faith that God, that Jesus Christ came and died for your sins? Not just leave the world out for you. He died for you. Do we have the faith that we know that God of the universe died for us and we have faith that all of our sins are gone? And that if we can pray before Him every day, two or three times a day, and they're all gone. He cleanses us again and again and again. Because if you do not believe that and have the faith that Jesus died, that He was the Creator who died for you, the best is His Word.

It really is. There's no reason to. Because you're going to be, in six months, you're going to be out somewhere else.

Because Satan's going to work on you and realize, ah, that didn't mean anything. It's happened many times before.

There's no evidence in scriptures of sprinkling of children, of sprinkling of anyone, of baptizing of children.

Because it is a serious, serious calling.

Someone asked me about the thief on the cross.

So, wait a minute. If everybody has to be baptized, what about that thief?

He's going to be in God's kingdom and he wasn't baptized, right?

I said, can you tell me he wasn't?

Because he really, with Jesus Christ, who had the power to forgive sins, he said it many times in the New Testament, he had the power to forgive the sin, so that isn't a matter.

But is it possible that this man was baptized?

That thief? Because he wasn't just a thief, he was a murderer, otherwise he wouldn't have killed him.

But is it possible? Because how in the world would he know?

Unless he knew the work of Jesus Christ. How did he know? This man did not deserve this.

We deserve this. This man didn't. Obviously, he knew of Christ.

Was he one of John the Baptist?

Followers?

Can't say. Say he was or he wouldn't. But it is possible.

But it doesn't matter because Christ had the power.

He was a God. So baptism is a serious business.

Very serious business.

Christ said to his followers, we must first count the cost.

We need to count the cost every day and say, you know, I've got to get up and do a better job.

This week, and I did last week, I need to have more patience, need to have more love, need to work on my shortcomings, because all this is is a turning ground. See, it's not just a changed life.

Rather, it is a way of life.

It is a way.

This is a way. Walk you in it. We have to know that way. Love that way. Walk that way. Even though we stumble.

Because we can be forgiven at any time we stumble.

And he wants to.

It's a way of life with eternal ramifications.

Eternal life or eternal death?

Once we're baptized, there's no turning back.

He who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit, worthy of the kingdom of God.

See, there's no greater gift than to be washed or died by the blood of Jesus Christ. Until you layer that, you realize that it's not just that. It is so much more.

There's no greater gift than to be granted the Holy Spirit.

And to be led by the very essence and power that Jesus Christ put inside of us.

That a piece of Him is in us to help us live like Him.

We just don't use it enough.

We just don't realize how much power we have.

If we did, it would change our lives.

So much faster than they're being changed now.

There's no greater gift than to be given and promised eternal life with all the power, all the royalty, all the things that come with being the sons of God.

There's a question we ask, two questions.

Ceremony.

Have you repented of your sins?

Hopefully they will say yes, or it's a very short day.

We'll ask if you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior.

Hopefully they will say yes.

Since you have repented of your sins, which are contrary to and against God's perfect holy and righteous law, and since you've accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, Lord and Master, high priest and soon coming King, I baptize you not into any denomination or sect of this world, but into the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

I do this in, by, and through the authority of Jesus Christ for the remission of all your sins.

It's a powerful words. It's the beginning of a new life.

It's the beginning, really, of eternal life.

That's the wonder of baptism.