I'd like to just share a bit of a story from a book that was written by a missionary lady and her husband who had gone to the CAR in the mid-1900s. And she writes a book entitled, They Called Me Mama. And really just some wonderful stories in it. And the way I got introduced to the book was, where are the Claxons? They know that Elaine Schulte there at Bibles International and One day, she's an older lady and continues to work there at BI in her retirement. But she said, I was talking with her one day, just trying to learn and glean from the other BI workers and staff. And she said, have you read this book called They Called Me Mama? And I said, no. And she said, well, you've got to read it. And she took my hand and led me over to the BI library. And she found it and said, you've got to read this. So I did. And it was a wonderful book and one of the stories that I found in it was this account. She and her husband had been there in the CAR and one day they had two Portuguese men knock at their door. There in that area of Africa and probably other places too, they had had a number of mining camps that had risen up. Europeans would come down and invest in the countries and have mining and there would be these miners or prospectors working. Well, they were telling her about a situation that had arisen about another minor, another prospector, a Belgian young man. And this 19-year-old boy, this Belgian, and his name is not given, but he had gone down to Africa to work. And his mother, being a Christian, had given him instructions to not do certain things. not to drink and not to carouse and these kinds of things. So when he got down to this camp, he found that, well, all the other foreigners were doing that and he was kind of lonely. And one evening in his loneliness, he went out for a walk and he saw a group over by a little campfire. Out of curiosity he approached it and he was surprised when he got there because there were five Africans down on their stomachs holding up a little book close to the fire so they could read. He was amazed because he knew of no villagers who could read. He didn't know there was anything written in their language. When he questioned them and they said they were reading God's word, he laughed derisively. Don't tell me God knows your language. Well, they showed him the Gospel of John that Mr. Laird, Guy Laird, had translated into their language. And their church in Englewood, near Denver, had printed 10,000 copies of this Gospel of John in that language. The Lairds say, we did not know what had become of these believers that Mr. Laird had taught, taught them to read, and given them these copies of the Gospel of John in the Songo language. And then they had left and gone to another village. And so now they are learning that, oh, those men are at that mining camp. Well, after this young Belgian miner, prospector, had seen them there several evenings reading the scriptures by this little fire, he said, you're ruining your eyes reading with the light from that little fire. I have a big gasoline lantern on my veranda. Come up there and read. If God speaks to you, he might speak to me. These Africans went to his home to read, and the Belgian remembered his mother had given him a New Testament, and he had promised to read it. Well, he had never taken it out of his suitcase. But he went and got it to see if the contents were the same in his, which would have been a French New Testament, as to what the Tsonga was saying. And he eventually accepted Christ as his Savior at the testimony of those five Africans reading the scriptures in their language. However, when he was out prospecting one day, he suffered a sunstroke and they brought him in with a temperature of 106 degrees. Just before he died, he regained consciousness long enough to ask to be buried at that same village where the missionaries were. So these two Portuguese men had come to find the missionaries and to tell them what had happened and also to ask that they would write to his mother that he had requested that the missionaries would write to his mother and say that he had found the Lord and that he would meet her in glory. What a privilege for these missionaries to see this happening, and to see the fruit of their labors already with the translation of Scripture, and to see how God uses these hungry Africans for the Word of God, to show a man who had already had the Word of God completely in his hands, completely in his language, to awaken his need for them to graciously and humbly incorporate Him into their lives. So we are really just privileged at Bibles International to hear these kinds of stories and encounter them as we read about accounts, how God has used His Word throughout the world. And I've been assigned to preach on why baptism is a part of the Great Commission. If you would turn your Bibles to Matthew 28, we want to look the part that baptism plays in the Great Commission and why the Lord has put this in the Great Commission. Of course, who am I to say all the reasons why or understand it all, and yet we can come to recognize to some degree what is going on through the revelation of Scripture about baptism. In Matthew 28, we come to this passage that is being focused on in our conference, Matthew 28, 18-20. the Great Commission that is also revealed in the ends of the other Gospels as well, in Mark 16 and Luke 24 and John 20 and also Acts 1. We have other places where there's more revelation about the Great Commission, but this is probably the most familiar. Verse 18, And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power or authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we do ask again for your help to open our eyes and to enable the speaker and to enable our ears to hear the truth, for your spirit to apply to our lives what it is you have us to do, but also to understand your greatness, to understand your revelation in scripture about baptism. In Jesus name. Amen. The first fulfillment of this happening was really the Day of Pentecost, where as these disciples, with the ladies, 120 disciples, meeting, praying together, waiting upon the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, to come to indwell them. And here they are at the Day of Pentecost. Then the Spirit comes. and they are empowered, and they are empowered to witness to many nations right there in Jerusalem. And this is really the first fulfillment of this great commission of people coming to know the Lord, to being, all these nations being taught, all these nations having people that are becoming disciples and then being baptized and being taught. And as we look at this question this morning, why is baptism then a part of the Great Commission? And in this lesson I'll be arranging New Testament teaching on baptism into a number of statements, not exhaustively, but not all the statements that we look at this morning are necessarily worded as a direct reason as to why, but I trust they will be recognized as biblical content about baptism and baptism's significance in God's grand design in the church and in missions. First of all, Of course, and very importantly, among these statements about baptism, we must recognize that in the words of Ephesians 2.8, we are saved by grace through faith. And that, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast. We are saved by grace through faith, not baptism. Salvation is through belief, not baptism. He's on the basis of belief that a person is saved. Ephesians 2.8.9, as I quoted, says this, and Abraham also believed God, and it was counted to him unto righteousness. Genesis 15.6. The apostle Paul was given by God to extensively develop the doctrine of salvation in the book of Romans. In chapter 4, Romans, Paul asks us, what does the scripture say? And he quotes Genesis 15.6. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him unto righteousness. He tells us about salvation, and what is amazing is that he can go all the way back to the very beginning of the Scriptures, the first book of the Bible, the first half of the book of Genesis, and quote this to show the foundation for faith in Christ and faith in God, that salvation is through faith alone. And it is not through the ritual of going through the waters of baptism that saves a person. However, secondly, baptism does follow belief. The Great Commission instructs us this, that after you've called people to be disciples, to follow the Lord, to obey the content of the Gospel, then we are to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Mark 16, 15-16, the Great Commission says, Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned. And we see this going through the Book of Acts. We find all these occasions of the Spirit of God empowering the believers, these disciples, to go out and to preach, and then people responding to the message about Christ, and they are being called to belief and then to baptism. And in Acts, we see Peter there in that day of Pentecost, Peter's preaching and saying, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And we see later Acts 8, Philip is preaching in the city of Samaria and they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ and they were baptized, both men and women. And of course we know also that this one named Simon also was baptized upon a profession of belief. And so we see throughout the book of Acts, we see over and over this reference to there was the faith, the response in faith and belief, and then baptism followed that. But also we see that baptism closely followed belief. If we were to look at other references here in Acts 16, we see that Lydia, the Lord opened her heart, she believed and she was baptized. We see also that the Philippian jailer said, what must I do to be saved? And Paul and Silas said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved in thy house if they believe. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord and all that were in his house and he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes and was baptized, he in all his straight way. And so there is baptism that is closely following belief. And I don't say it's like the next moment, because we know that as we disciple our children, we want to see the fruit of that. But there should be a close following of baptism, following belief. But as to exactly when that would be, that is good for parents to discern where their children are. And so I'm not saying this is just, it immediately follows belief, but it closely follows belief. And thirdly, baptism is entirely in keeping with the Lord's call to every person to become his disciple. It's really interesting, this past week, we had the Fraser Evangelistic team at our church there in Belding, and so for a week, we're hearing preaching on discipleship. Luke chapter 14, in fact, Jeremy Fraser said, I want you all to go away from here, and after the week's over, after all this preaching on Luke 14, that if someone were to cut you, you would bleed, Luke 14. You know, so there was really a heavy focus on the discipleship. And I thought, as I'm preparing for this message, as I'm thinking about it coming up, thinking this is, the Lord's call to us to baptism is in keeping entirely with His call to be a disciple. That the Lord would say to As he preached, he would say, If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. Mark 8, 34-38, When he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospels the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul? What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" And so the Lord is calling to wholehearted following of the Lord, and that includes baptism. In fact, baptism is intended as the first significant public announcement of unashamedly testifying that I have become a disciple of Jesus Christ. What an opportunity, not only to that person, but to share that with others as that person displays that testimony. Baptism is a wonderful offering of disciples giving and the Lord receiving the honor, the glory, and the power. Baptism is intended by the Lord to be the disciples' launch into an unashamed identity with Him, freeing the conscience and liberating the soul to follow the Lord day by day. You've probably heard the statement that the New Testament does not know an unbaptized believer. It seems that we can add that those who heard the gospel in the New Testament world were not hearing a gospel that was disconnected from baptism. Rather, we hear Peter saying, repent and be baptized. The Ethiopian eunuch, as well as he was returning in his chariot and reading in Isaiah, he needed guidance about who the passage was referring to, but he seems to have a clear understanding that baptism was the expected thing for anyone who would become a disciple of Jesus Christ. The Ethiopian certainly welcomes the opportunity to publicly identify with Christ following his belief. And you've probably heard of the story of Krishna Pal. This was the first Bengali convert in the work that William Carey and John Thomas, Joshua Marshman, and William Ward were doing in India. And Krishna Pal believed. Of course, he began to face persecution about that. And there would be in question, is he going to go through with this? Is he going to be baptized? There were others who had responded as well in belief, but they backed out of the baptism. Well, Krishna Pal did not back out and as he proceeded to be baptized, of course he experienced great persecution and that of his own family, but within really weeks he was already writing hymns The fruit of his faith in Christ has already taken root, and he was writing hymns. There is a hymn that is recorded in some of the Baptist Society magazines or newsletters. This was a hymn that he wrote. Of course, it was in Bengali. It was translated into English. O thou my soul, forget no more. That's the name of it. Nor him forget, who left his throne, And for thy life gave up his own. Infinite truth and mercy shine in him, And he himself is thine. And canst thou then, with sin beset, Such charms, such matchless charms forget? Ah, no, till life itself depart, his name shall cheer and warm my heart, and lisping this, from earth I'll rise to join the chorus of the skies. Ah, no, when all things else expire and perish in the general fire, this name all others shall survive and through eternity shall live. In fact, we even have actually, Brother Mark, the music was kept as well of the song that he composed and wrote. This was the first fruits of that work in India, and do you think that he would have been able to write all of that had he not gone through with baptism? What about the other ladies who pulled out? Well, fourthly, baptism is an important external expression of an internal and spiritual reality. We see this, of course, taught in Romans 6, this picture of our being baptized into Jesus Christ when we believe. we have been baptized into his death and then raised in the likeness of his resurrection. And so there is this picture of our death with Christ and then raised back up as is pictured in the waters of baptism. In fact, this concept of An external right, something physically that we see, someone being baptized, this is an external expression of an internal reality. They believe, and so now they're expressing it. And these often go together, do they not? This happens in salvation. Romans 10, 9 and 10 says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. There's belief in the heart, there's confession with the mouth. It goes together. Christ's authority to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, you know, your sins are forgiven. And they're like, how does he have authority to forgive sins? He says, well, let me show you. And he shows them something externally to show what was reality that he could do. Faith and works, James says, what does the prophet, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, have not works? Can faith save him? So the idea is not that, and of course you will see in James there that it's not a matter that the works is saving, but the works is expression externally of the internal faith that's actually there. And so these go together. There must be both belief in the heart and externally identifying with Christ in baptism. And then fifthly, the reference to baptism in the Great Commission provides a clear statement of the Trinity. And we see this, that we're baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And we see as we read through Acts, we find that there were those who had been baptized according to John's baptism, John the Baptist, a baptism of repentance, but then later we see that now we're to to proceed in what God's revelation was, to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And how would John feel about that? Well, we know that John would rejoice, right? John, every time we looked at John the Baptist, what's he doing? He's pointing to the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. So even though he had a part in a certain baptism of repentance, yet now he's transferring people's understanding of faith, of course, as it ought to be in Jesus Christ. And so we see this baptism of repentance that was initially there as John being the forerunner to the Messiah, then we see now, of course, the fulfillment of baptism in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit. And then we even come to the potential of baptism in the name of Paul. If we come to Corinthians, we see that Paul was saying, he's addressing the Corinthian divisions, and he's saying, were you baptized in the name of Paul? Paul's saying, of course not, you weren't baptized in the name of Paul, you were baptized in the name of Christ. And so, he says, I thank God that I baptized none of you, except certain ones. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. So what was happening was, there in the first century, a misuse of baptism on the part of the peoples being baptized, using it as a status thing against others in the church. But, and there could even equally be the potential of using it against Paul and accusing him of doing it for his own glory. But we do not want to misuse baptism, like that was a potential. Even so today, we do not want to misuse baptism in the sense of not preaching a gospel that is separate from baptism, but that we actually do call disciples to belief and to the expression of that belief in baptism. I don't think I'm going to look at this study the same now that I've been studying more on this concept of baptism. Of course, we know that baptism does not save, but it is an attendant expression of the faith and of identity of a disciple with Jesus Christ. And so we do well to present the gospel not apart from baptism. Let's pray. Lord, we ask that you will give us clear understanding about these things and the significance and the weight of these things. And we pray that if there be any here who yet needs to identify publicly with you, we know that you again call us to come follow you. that you will give us rest, that you will help us in this matter of publicly identifying with Christ. So we do ask your enabling for each one the need that there might be for courage, for trust and faith in you in this, and that you will be glorified through our seeing those in the church identifying themselves publicly with Christ. In Jesus' name, amen. It's a very good study on the topic of baptism. And you say, why are we covering this? Well, it's part of the Great Commission. You see how important it is? It was important to the Lord to include this in the Great Commission. He said, go make disciples and baptize them. Let's not leave that part out. And so yes, we're a Baptist church and we are going to bring this up, but so should every Bible teaching church, right? Because baptism is part of the Great Commission. I really appreciate how Jim covered this, gave us some very good principles, good things to remember from the scriptures. The book of Acts just reinforces this message again. And again, and especially how closely baptism should follow that saving faith. And so, if you have not been baptized, I really want to encourage you, perhaps, to pray about this. And this becomes a matter of obedience. Obedience to the Lord Jesus to fulfill that part of the Great Commission that He's given to us.