"Baptism in the name of the Trinity"

Moore's Corner Church

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Matthew chapter three, one through three, and then 13 through 17.

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In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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For this is he who was spoken of by Isaiah the prophet, saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the

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Lord, make his path straight. Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the

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Jordan to be baptized by him, and John tried to prevent him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and are you coming to me?

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But Jesus answered and said to him, permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

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Then he allowed him, and when he had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon him, and suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, this is my beloved son, in whom

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I am well pleased. May God add his blessing to the reading of his word.

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There are Bibles in front of you in the pew, so if you didn't bring one, you can grab one and follow along, but let's open in our

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Bibles to Matthew chapter 28, Matthew chapter 28.

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As Christians, we believe in one God, the father almighty, who is the creator of heaven and earth, and we believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our

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Lord. We also believe in the Holy Spirit. This is the

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Trinity, the Holy Trinity, one God in three persons, father, son, and Holy Spirit.

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The term Trinity, as most of you probably know, you think of the word Trinity, tri, unity, tri means three, unity refers to one, so the

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Trinity is what? The three in one, one God in three persons.

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And we see here in Matthew chapter 28, a passage that is known as the

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Great Commission, we see that Christians are to be baptized in the name of the

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Trinity, father, son, and spirit. So in this sermon, we're gonna be looking at three points.

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Number one, the mandate of baptism. Number two, the meaning of baptism.

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And then finally, the mode of baptism. Let's begin by reading

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Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20. The scripture says, and Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

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Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the

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Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you in low,

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I am with you always, even to the end of the age, amen.

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So the first point is the mandate of baptism. A mandate is what?

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It's an official order. And you notice what Jesus said, that all authority, not some, but all authority had been given to him.

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And this authority was given to him by God, his heavenly father. All authority is given to Jesus in heaven, which shows that Jesus is divine.

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All authority has been given to Jesus on earth. Jesus therefore is

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Lord. He is able to give this mandate. And it includes three things.

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The Great Commission does. Number one, go and make disciples of all the nations. That is, we are to go out and we are to convert people to the

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Christian faith. And this of course is why our church and many churches support missionaries.

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Once someone becomes a disciple or a believer in Christ, then number two, they are to be baptized in the name of the father, son, and Holy Spirit.

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Then once the person is baptized, the third thing in the Great Commission is that the person is to be taught all that Christ commanded.

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And a person is taught, receives this teaching in the local church.

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So if we do all three of these things, this is the church's mission, go out and make disciples, baptize them, and to teach them all that Christ commanded, we have this promise from Jesus that he says he will be with us always, even until the end of the age.

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To put it in plain language, we are to preach the gospel, people are to believe the gospel, be baptized, and join a local church.

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So this is the Great Commission. This is the mandate. And I like to say that Jesus, he didn't give the great suggestion.

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He gave the Great Commission. So that's number one, the mandate of baptism.

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Now turn, if you would, to Romans chapter six. Romans chapter six.

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Point number two is the meaning of baptism. What's baptism all about?

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Well, it's one thing to know that we are supposed to baptize, and obviously the ultimate reason we do it is because the

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Lord commanded it. That's the ultimate reason. But God is a God of reason.

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He has reasons for commanding what he commands. So there is a meaning to baptism.

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The first time you read about baptism in the Bible is the Gospel of Matthew, where John the

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Baptist comes, and he's preaching to the Jews that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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And this really was a symbolic gesture which pictured cleansing and preparation in a very real sense.

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The children of Israel were about to meet their maker. They were about to meet their

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God in the person of Jesus Christ. The problem was, though, they were not ready.

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They were not prepared. A lot of people are not ready to meet

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God. This is why we need God's grace, and we need to trust in him.

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We need to trust that Jesus died on the cross and rose again for the forgiveness of our sins.

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The scripture says that all have sinned, not some. The world is filled with people who think they're good.

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You might think you're good, but the scripture says all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God.

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So baptism is a picture of the Gospel message, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

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Romans 6, one through five. You say, well, how does baptism picture the Gospel? We're gonna see that.

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Romans 6, starting in verse one. The apostle Paul says, what shall we say then?

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Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

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Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

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Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

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For if we had been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection.

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So this is the Gospel. This is baptism as a picture of the

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Gospel. When a person is baptized, what did Paul say? They're baptized into Christ's death.

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First of all, there is an identification with Jesus of Nazareth. When a person gets baptized, they're making a public profession of faith.

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And we're gonna be doing it publicly. Who knows how many people are gonna be there? They're gonna see it.

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And most of them, if not all of them will know that's a profession of faith in Jesus.

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When a person is baptized, they're telling everyone, I believe and I want to follow

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Christ. Baptism is the first step. It's the first step of obedience.

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So we are baptized into his death. When a person goes down under the water, that is a picture of Christ dying.

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So they're under the water, they're buried. Jesus died, he was buried, and then what?

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He rose from the grave. So a person goes down under the water, that's a picture they're being baptized into his death.

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When they come up, that's a picture of the resurrection. This leads us to point number three, the mode of baptism.

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Now turn to Acts chapter eight, verse 26. As you're turning there,

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I want to address a common misconception that people have about baptism. Some people have the idea that they are going to wait in order to be baptized.

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They're gonna wait until they have their life all straightened out, and then maybe

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I'll do it. Once I've overcome all my temptations, basically once I stop doing things wrong, then

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I'll get baptized. What's the problem with that? I think some people would be waiting forever.

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Everybody maybe would just never do it. But if you think about it, when a person comes to faith, the very first thing they are to do is to be baptized.

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So by waiting, that in and of itself really is disobedience.

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The passage that we are about to read from is Acts chapter eight. We see one man sharing

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Christ with another man. Philip the evangelist shares the gospel with the

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Ethiopian eunuch. And the eunuch believes in Jesus, and the very next thing we see is he asked

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Philip the question, what hinders me from being baptized? Like what would stop me from being baptized?

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You know what Philip said? If you believe with all your heart, you may.

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You heard me talking a few minutes ago. How can you just baptize someone on the spot?

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I just need to ask them one question. That's what the Bible says. Do you believe with all your heart?

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You may. It's not my job to come up with 50 different hoops to jump through.

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Philip didn't ask the Ethiopian eunuch 100 different questions. We don't see the eunuch signing up for a six -week baptism class with a final exam at the end.

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I understand why some people do that. The only question was, do you believe? So again, baptism is the first act of obedience.

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Before we read from Acts eight, something else that's very important, talking about the mode of baptism.

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What is that, the mode? Baptism, we believe, is by full immersion.

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If we just sprinkled or poured, this is all I would need. I could just come up and that's all we would need.

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You know what the word baptized means? It means to immerse.

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The word baptized literally means immersion. And it is a picture, again, of Christ's death being under the water.

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All right, look at Acts chapter eight, starting in verse 26. "'Now an angel of the

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Lord spoke to Philip saying, "'Arise and go toward the south. "'Along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza, "'this is desert.'

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"'So he arose and went. "'And behold, a man of Ethiopia, "'a eunuch of great authority under Candace, "'the queen of the

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Ethiopians, "'who had charge of all her treasury, as he did, "'had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning.

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"'And sitting in his chariot, "'he was reading Isaiah the prophet. "'Then the spirit said to Philip, "'Go near and overtake this chariot.'

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"'So Philip ran to him and heard him reading "'the prophet Isaiah and said, "'Do you understand what you are reading?'

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"'And he said, how can I unless someone guides me?'

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I'm reminded of what Paul says in Romans 10, 14. He says, how then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?

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How shall they believe in him in whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

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People need someone to tell them and explain it to them. We all need instruction.

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Verse 31, again, he says, how can I understand unless someone guides me?

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And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. The place in the scripture which he read was this.

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And this is from Isaiah chapter 53, a chapter that prophesied the death of the

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Messiah, the death of Jesus 700 years before it happened. It says about Jesus, he was led as a sheep to the slaughter.

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And as a lamb before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

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In his humiliation, his justice was taken away. And who will declare his generation for his life is taken from the earth?

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So the eunuch answered Philip and said, "'I ask you of whom does the prophet say this, "'of himself or some other man?'

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Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning at this scripture he preached

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Jesus to him. Amen. Now, as they went down the road, they came to some water.

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And the eunuch said, see, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?

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Remember point number three, the mode of baptism. Back in chapter verse 26, we read that they were where?

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They were in the desert. Why is that significant?

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First of all, anyone who travels through the desert, whether it's today or back then, there's probably something you're gonna be carrying with you through the desert, right?

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What would that be? Of course, obviously they'd be carrying water. Back then they would have clay pots or skins that would hold water.

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So they certainly had water. Here's the point. If all they needed to do was just drip or pour a little bit of water on the eunuch's head, they could have done the baptism long before this.

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He waited till they got to a body of water. The eunuch said, see, here is water.

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What hinders me from being baptized? And Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, you may.

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And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.

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But to that question, what hinders me? What was hindering him up until that point? There's no water or no water that could immerse him.

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Now they have a body of water and that's what they do.

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They take him and they baptize. The word baptized means immerse.

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They baptized him right then and there. Jesus said in Matthew 16, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

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He who believes and is baptized will be saved. Saved from death and hell.

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He who believes and is baptized will be saved. But he who does not believe will be condemned.

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These are the words of Jesus. Peter, while preaching the gospel in Acts chapter two, verse 38, he said something similar.

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He said, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.

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And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And someone will say, and you can see there's a little quote in your bulletin on the opposite side, that you are not saved by being baptized.

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If you were to die today and go to heaven and the Lord was to ask you, why should

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I let you into my heaven? Saying I'm a good person, that doesn't cut it.

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You're not good enough. Saying, well, I was baptized, that's the wrong answer.

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There's only one answer. I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.

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So people will say, well, then you don't really need to be baptized to be saved. Well, this is not necessary.

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It's optional, right? You tell me, is it optional? No, it's not optional.

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Repent and be baptized for the remission of sin. Jesus is the Lord. If he says something, we do it.

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That's the way this thing works. We don't always obey. Again, we all fall short, but Jesus is

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Lord. He says, be baptized as Lord, we obey him. Acts 8 .38,

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and they came to a place where there was water. So he commanded the chariot to stand still and both

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Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and he baptized him. Now, when they came up out of the water, which shows you they went down, now he's coming back up.

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Now, when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord caught Philip away so that the eunuch saw him no more and he went on his way rejoicing.

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Highlight, they went down into the water, came back up. So that's the mode.

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One last thing. They went on their way rejoicing. After the baptism, 15 minutes from now, whatever, hopefully we will all go on our way rejoicing that three people have made the decision to be baptized in the name of the

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Trinity. Let's close. Father, we thank and praise you that 2 ,000 years later, you are still on the throne and the great commission is still being carried out and that the gates of hell shall not prevail against your church.

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We thank you and praise you for all that you've done and for all that you are going to do.

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And Father, as this act is done publicly on a public beach, may it serve as a witness to those who may be watching.

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May it plant a seed and may Christ and his gospel be proclaimed.