“Have You Been Baptized”
Baptism is controversial! I do not know why. People want to be saved as long as they don’t have to be baptized. If they can just let Jesus come into their heart, they will accept Him all day long; but the minute you mention baptism they will immediately become defensive and quote: the response Paul gave to the Philippian jailor when he ask, “Sirs what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:30-31).
A recent tract given to me about salvation says that “Nobody else can save you. Trust Jesus today!” Here is how the tract tells you to do that:
Romans 10:9 – “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.” Then the following four things are to be done:
1. Admit you are a sinner. See Rom. 3:10
2. Be willing to turn from sin (repent). See Acts 17:30
3. Believe that Jesus Christ died for you, was buried and rose from the dead.
See Rom. 10:9-10
4. Through prayer, invite Jesus into your heart to become your personal Saviour.
See Rom. 10:13
WHAT TO PRAY
“Dear God, I am a sinner and need forgiveness. I believe that Jesus Christ shed His precious blood and died for my sin. I am willing to turn from sin. I invite Christ to come into my heart as my personal Saviour.”
If you trusted Jesus as your Saviour, you have just begun a wonderful new life with Him. Now: The tract goes on to tell you to read your Bible, pray, be baptized, worship, etc.
Now examine the Bible about salvation.
1. There is not one single example in the Bible of any man being told to pray the above prayer. Zero! Not one! Not a single example! Every Bible example taught them to be baptized and then they were saved. On the day of Pentecost when the people cried out to Peter and the rest of the Apostles and asked what to do, they were not told to pray and let Jesus come into their heart. NO! They were told, “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38). Same with the Ethiopian Eunuch. Why then do denominational preachers not want to follow the New Testament pattern but put something completely different in their message?
2. Saying this prayer does not have you coming into contact with the blood of Jesus. The blood is what saves, not the prayer (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:13-14). The gospel saves you (1 Cor. 15:1-4). The gospel is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. How do you obey the gospel? By being baptized. Paul said, “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you” (Rom. 6:17). How do you obey that form? By following the Holy Scriptures which say, Romans 6:3-5 – “Know ye not, that so many of us as were 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. 5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:”
You can pray a thousand prayers, but you are not saved until the blood is applied and, there is only one way to apply the blood of Jesus and that is through obedience to the gospel. Paul said, “By which also ye are saved…” (1 Cor. 15:2), and that obedience includes baptism.
Recently, I performed my granddaughters wedding. A beautiful wedding (if I do say so myself). Please note: they were not married the day he asked her to marry him (come into his heart), they were not married when they dated (go to a worship assembly, pray, sing, read books about marriage), they were not married when they had a counselling session in preparation for marriage, they were not married when they got a marriage license, nor were they married when all the guest arrived for the ceremony. When were they married? When they said their vows? No! They were married when I said, “By the authority vested in me as a minister of the gospel by the state of Georgia, I do pronounce you husband and wife!” THEY WERE MARRIED!! When you go into the watery grave of baptism and come up out of that water you are saved. You are not saved getting dressed in the baptistery room, you are not saved praying on the top step of the baptistery, you are saved when “they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him” (Acts 8:38).
3. Search these scriptures: Acts 2:38; Acts 9; Acts 10; Acts 16; Acts 22:16; 1 Peter 3:21, Gal. 3:27. Not a single example of someone’s prayer to ask Jesus to come into their heart.
We must be biblical in all matters. We must be biblical in the plan of salvation. Feelings do not save us. Sincerity does not save us. We are saved by the precious blood of Jesus when it is applied to our sin-sick soul.
Larry