[go to: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4; part 5; part 6]
     Good morning and welcome to the Berean Break.  My name is George Sinkie and I am so glad that you joined us this morning.  As we look into today’s topic, I encourage you to check it out with the Word of God and see that it is the truth.  And then once you recognize the truth I would encourage you to obey that truth with your life.  If the truth requires that you give up your current beliefs, then give them up, knowing that the salvation that God offers is worth it.  As we begin this morning let’s go to God in prayer,

Great God in heaven, We thank You for this day, may we give diligence to studying Your word, May we give sincerity to obeying Your word, and may we faithfully follow Your Word for the rest of our lives.  Dear Lord sometimes it is hard to give up the man-made doctrines that we have been following, we have been taught them so long, but put into each one of us the desire to follow You and You alone with our lives.  We thank You for Jesus and the sacrifice He made, may we humble ourselves before You now, we pray in Jesus’ Name, AMEN !!

     This is our sixth lesson in this series on baptism and we have learned may things from the truth.  These lessons will richly bless you if you obey the truth.  If you would like to go over these lessons again or perhaps you did not catch all of them I want to remind you that these lessons are available on cassette tape, free of charge and obligation.  They are a grace gift from us to you.  Like the salvation that God offers by grace there is something you must do to receive these tapes though, that is let us know that you want them.  You can do that by calling 996-1964 or writing to Berean Break, 1600 East First Ave, Mitchell, SD 57301, and requesting the series on baptism.
     Let’s recap what we have seen so far.  As we looked at the teachings of the apostles and in particular the teachings of Peter and Paul, we saw that baptism was essential for salvation.  Peter said that it was “for the forgiveness of sins,” in Acts 2:38.  Paul as he recounted what Ananias had told him and what he had done said that it was to “wash away” his sins and how to “call upon the name of the Lord,” in Acts 22:16.  This should not, and would not, come as a surprise to anyone that examined the Lord’s personal words as Jesus gave what we call the Great Commission in Mark 16:16

   16 He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved;  but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.

     Then we looked at a question that the apostles never encountered in the first century.  As a matter of fact it is a question that wasn’t raised for hundreds of years after the Church began.  That question is “should baptism be done by sprinkling, pouring, or immersion?”  We looked at in answer to this question that there are words in the Koine Greek language in which the New Testament was written, that mean sprinkling and pouring, but these words were never used to describe baptism.  We also saw that the words that were used meant to immersed.  This is further supported by the fact that baptism is described as a burial in the Scriptures.  Immersion is what God commanded and only immersion will fulfill His will for us.
     Last week we looked at a doctrine that is held by many man-made religions.  That doctrine is the teaching of infant baptism.  First we saw that most of the time what is called infant baptism, isn’t a baptism at all, but a sprinkling or pouring on the infant.  We also saw that infants could not believe and therefore could not be scripturally baptized even if they were immersed.  The biggest problem with the doctrine of infant baptism is that infants do not need to be baptized because they are not lost to start with.  We looked for a while at the false doctrine of original sin or total hereditary depravity.  Satan is so effective at distorting God’s will and deceiving those who are not vigilant.  That is why I encourage you constantly to check out what I say with the Word of God.
     That brings us to the question we what to consider on this final lesson in our series on baptism.  There are those who will hear these lessons and check them out with the word of God and sincerely say “That is not what I did and I want to obey the Lord.”  There are also those who hear these lessons who are not so sincere that reject the truth and continue on the way they are.  We all get those choices.  Some will wonder, “Should I be re-baptized?”  For some this is a legitimate question because they were immersed at one point and now have seen more of the teaching concerning this topic in the word of God.  For others this question will not be real accurate because what they want to know is “I was sprinkled or poured, do I need to be baptized (that is immersed)?”

     This same question had come up in the first century and I think that we can learn some important truths by studying it.  Turn with me over to Acts 19:1-5

   1 And it came about that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper country came to Ephesus, and found some disciples,
   2 and he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”  And they said to him, “No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.”
   4 And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus.”
   5 And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

     If you would read the concluding verses in Acts 18, you would see that Apollos had been here to Ephesus and he was teaching the baptism of John.  Priscilla and Aquila had taught him and corrected this error in his teaching.  It is likely that these men Paul encountered were ones that were taught by Apollos while he was in Ephesus.  Whoever taught them their understanding was only of John’s baptism and when they were taught the truth about Jesus and His will, they accepted the authority of Jesus and were “re-baptized.”
     To recap – they were immersed in the immersion taught by John the Immerser.  So we see that they had the right “mode” – as some people put it.  But there was still a problem because they did not have the right understanding.  Remember what Jesus said in Mark 16:16

   16 He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.

     These men did not believe the gospel, because they had only been taught John’s baptism.  Therefore they could not “believe and be baptized” so as to be saved.  You see it is not “water salvation” as some falsely claim.  There are several essential aspects to make a person’s immersion proper in God’s sight.

     Let’s look at four essential things when checking out if our baptism was proper.  As we look at each of these we will point out some common errors taught concerning these things today.
     First, it has to be by the proper mode as we have looked at before.  Romans 6:3 and Colossians 2:12 both describe baptism as a burial.  And the word baptism in the Greek means to immerse.  As we have seen before in this series there are a number of man-made religions that teach sprinkling or pouring are “baptism.”  None who have been sprinkled or poured, have obeyed the Lord’s will to be immersed.
     The second essential element is the proper authority.  As we saw in Acts 19:5 with the men that Paul found and taught the truth, it says,

   5 And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

     This was a fulfillment of the Great Commission as Matthew recorded it in Matthew 28:19-20

   19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
   20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

     That phrase, “in the name of,” means “in the authority of” or “by the command of.”  It is like when the police knock on the door and say “Open up, in the name of the law.”
     In application, there are those today who may immerse, but they do it by the authority of Ellen G. White, or Joseph Smith, or The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.  This immersion would not be Scriptural baptism because it is done with the wrong authority and to be right with God a person would have to be re-baptized.
     The third essential element, I would like to consider is immersion has to be for the proper purpose.  The purpose of baptism is to deal with our sin problem that separates us from God.  Consider again Acts 2:38

   38 And Peter said to them, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins;  and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

     And Acts 22:16

   16 ‘And now why do you delay?  Arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name.’

     We see that sins are not removed, they are not forgiven, until a person is baptized and that is the purpose or reason why the person is immersed.  Man sometimes teaches that baptism is an “outward sign of an inward grace,” or to put it simpler – you are baptized because you were already saved.  I encountered a Baptist preacher one time that said he had never baptized a lost person.  He said this because his Baptist doctrine teaches that baptism is ONLY for saved people.  The Bible teaches the exact opposite, that baptism is ONLY for lost people.  If you were baptized because you were taught you were saved then you were baptized for the wrong purpose and God’s desire for you would be that you be baptized for His purpose.
     A final essential element that may necessitate re-baptism is that only penitent believers are the proper subjects for baptism.  We have looked at the Great Commission that teaches a person must believe before being baptized.  We also just read Acts 2:38 where Peter said that a person needs to repent before being immersed.  If a person was baptized as an infant they were capable of neither belief nor repentance and therefore it was not a valid baptism.  Other ways that this could be a problem may be that you were baptized because your friends were doing it, or family were pressuring you.  This ties in with the purpose but it can be that you were also not a repentant believer.
     This is a very important subject because the destiny of your eternal soul depends on how you relate to God and His will.  You need to honestly and sincerely consider what you have done in regard to baptism.  If your baptism was not in the right mode, by the right authority, for the right purpose, or you were not the right subject, then the Lord, and I, plead for you to obey God’s will and be re-baptized.
     In a sense, “re-baptized,” is a misnomer because if we didn’t do it properly then we have not obeyed the Lord’s will to be baptized in the first place.

[go to: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4; part 5; part 6]