Baptism and Freedom From Sin — Zac Poonen

Remembering God's Goodness and the New Covenant Body

See that song we just sung? I mean, I never heard it till Ian mentioned it to me a week ago or so. But it's very important to remember the past. God forgets our past sins, it's true. We don't remember our past in condemnation, never.

We don't remember the evils that other people have done to us, never. We must remember the good that God did for us in the past. We must remember the cup of water somebody gave us 20 years ago. The good that others have done, we must remember.

The good that God has done, we must remember. And Lord, remind me where I could have been. It always moves me when I think of that. Where I could have been, even in relation to our own history, if 42 years ago church had not thrown me out.

Where I could have been. And I believe that Ian Robson is a very important part of that because in the old covenant they had lone prophets. Elijah, he didn't need anybody. All the prophets were Jeremiah, Isaiah, they were all lone prophets.

John the Baptist. But once you come to the New Testament, as soon as you open the pages of the New Testament, you see that Jesus sent his people two by two. Because there is no such thing as a lone prophet in the New Testament.

He may be a mighty man like Paul, but he needs a Barnabas to do the ministry. Otherwise, he can't do it. So that's the lesson God taught us from day one. That he was not building a ministry through some great prophet.

You know, there are great preachers today who build mega churches. I never wanted to be one of those. But the Lord is building his body and for a body you need two people who are totally different, but who can still be one.

Because Christ is in the middle. Just like he builds a family. One man can't build a family. He needs a wife who may be completely different from him. But with Christ in the middle, they'll have a family.

A family that glorifies God. So that's how this church began. There's not an old covenant prophetic type of congregation. It was a new covenant body from day one. And I praise the Lord for that. And then through the years people came and went and came and went and came and went and finally God added more and more.

And all through the years till today, there is a core in the midst of this crowd. There is a core of a few people who are one body. That's what keeps this church going. It's not the big crowd. It never is.

I never believed it was. And that inner core becomes more and more slowly. And God adds to that core people from other parts of India and now other parts of the world. But that inner core is the real body of Christ.

It's something like the Old Testament tabernacle. There was a big compound. Outside were the unbelievers. Inside the compound were the believers. But not all the believers were in the most holy place.

Most of them were taken up with the offering, sacrifice, and the basin of water which symbolizes forgiveness of sins and water baptism. And they stay there. And then there are a few who move in to the holy place where there's a incense and lamp symbolizing baptism in the Holy Spirit and serving God.

And a few come in there, but very few go beyond the veil into the most holy place. Most people don't even know that the veil has been rent. You can go there. And that veil is the flesh of Jesus in which he crucified his self-life and has opened a way for anybody else who wants to crucify their self-life to go in.

There are very few. Because in that most holy place, there's not activity. It's God. Holy God. And only those who are interested in God himself go there. Those who are interested in Jesus himself, not activity, not doctrine, not even singing, but Jesus.

There are people who come to a church for the singing. There are people who come to church because people are very helpful and kind. There are people who come to church for the fellowship with good people.

Welcome. Hundreds. But there are a few who are interested in Jesus. They are the ones who become part of the core, whose personal devotion is to Jesus Christ. Christ means more to them than even their own wife or husband or relatives or their job or anything.

You can be a part of that core if you want to go that way. But it's through the veil of death to self every day. Those who choose it consistently become a part of that core and they become free. Jesus said, you shall know the truth.

The truth shall make you free. I'm very aware that God's given me a gift of speaking. I'd be telling a lie if I deny that. And if I deny that, I'll be taking the credit to myself. It was a supernatural anointing of God that God gave me years ago to preach the Word that He continues to give me.

And I know that many people are attracted by that. I know. Many people on the internet, many people who hear me, I go to some conferences in different parts of the world and there'll be hundreds of people there.

They want to hear Brother Zach, but they won't become part of the local church. There they have to pay a price. I say, I'm interested in building the church. I'm not interested in building a crowd of people who admire good preaching.

There are thousands and thousands of people who listen to my messages on the internet. There are about a thousand sermons on YouTube. Many people who outwardly oppose us as a church, secretly they are listening to my message at home because they know it's the only thing they get when they get spiritual food.

They're not willing to be a part of the church. They find so many things to criticize and find fault, but look at the million things wrong in their own life. They don't see that and so they remain outside the core, even though they come into the so-called Church of C .O .C.

There's a church within the church here. I want you to know that. A church within the church and that's the real church. One is what the world considers the church. The other is what Jesus sees as the church.

That's in the most holy place and I encourage all of you who are serious to come in there. It's the central message we have preached. Death to self and freedom from sin. It's not right to keep on sinning.

Freedom From Sin and the Full Gospel

No. It's like we tell a child, I mean, not we don't tell, but we see in our little baby born, it's not right for you to keep on falling. It is accepted. When you are 10 months old, 11 months old, one year old, one and a half, you're still struggling to find your feet.

We don't get disturbed if a one-year-old child falls a hundred times a day. Quite okay. But if he's 10 years old and he's still falling a hundred times a day, you'd be concerned. If he's three years old and he's falling a hundred times a day, I'd be concerned as a father.

If he's two years old and he's falling a hundred times a day, I say, hey, it's not normal. So I'm not going to encourage any believer here to say it's okay if you keep on falling. The blood of Jesus will cleanse you.

Either you're not properly converted, which is probably the reason, or you're not filled with the Holy Spirit, which you think is an optional extra. It's not an optional extra. It's an essential necessity in the Christian life.

So I'm going to say to you, it's okay for the first one year to keep falling after you're born again. Maximum one and a half years or two years. Let's say two years. Two years after you're born again, if you're still falling, falling, falling, falling, something is wrong.

I can show you that from Scripture. Two years after the people of Israel left Egypt, God brought them to the promised land and said, go! Defeat all the giants now and occupy this land. Come into a life of victory.

Two years and they turned back and said, no, no, no, we can't overcome this. We have to keep being defeated, keep being defeated. God said, it says he was angry with them and said, okay, you will never enter in.

You will wander for the next 38 years. Your entire generation will perish. Your children will enter in. This is the one of the main stories in the Old Testament. When did he bring them to the promised land?

Not the day after they came out of Egypt. Very clearly, two years. You read that in Deuteronomy 2 .14. They turned back in the next 38 years. They wandered in the wilderness. So a child learns to walk after two years.

I read in the Bible that the Lord brought the people of Israel to the borders of the promised land in two years. But there's hope. I did not come into a life of victory after two years. It took me more than 16 years.

But that's because I never heard the full gospel. There's no excuse if you have heard the full gospel. I never heard it. Everywhere I went, they always told me, it's alright, you'll sin as long as you are a believer, you'll sin.

It'll be like that. But the blood of Jesus is there. The blood of Jesus is like, why are you not afraid to get your hands dirty? Because water is there. If water cost 1 ,000 rupees a glass, I'd be very careful not to dirty my hands.

But because water is cheap, I don't mind dirtying my hands any number of times a day. I don't mind sweating. I don't mind sweating 5 -6 times a day and having a shower 5 -6 times a day because water is cheap.

And when you treat the blood of Christ like tap water, your attitude to sin will be the same. It doesn't matter. If you dirty yourself with sin many times a day, the blood of Christ is there. It's a false gospel.

It's a counterfeit. It comes like an angel of light, but it's the devil behind it. We have stood against it for 41 years and we will stand against it till Jesus comes. This is the gospel preached in many Babylonian denominations.

Does it mean we don't give hope to people who fall into sin? Yes, we do. But we do it the scriptural way. 1 John chapter 2 verse 1. 1 John chapter 2 and verse 1. My little children, please see this verse.

I'm writing these things to you to tell you that you will keep on sinning? No. I'm writing to you that you don't sin. And is that the end of the message? No. Some will fall. If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father and he's the propitiation for our sins.

We can be forgiven. That is the balanced message. Now I'll tell you what the imbalanced message is, which sounds similar. Okay, the imbalanced message, the wrong message, the angel of light message is this.

My little children, I'm writing these things to you that you will sin. But if you do, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he's the forgiveness of sins. But I'm asking you not to sin.

It's the same word. The only thing I've reversed, put the second sentence first and that is error. You see the difference that just reversing those two sentences makes? What is preached in other churches is the reverse of this.

I call it the reversed version. There's a revised version, there's a reversed version of the Bible. This is it. It's not what we preach. We preach, we are preaching these things to you that you don't sin.

Ever. But if you do slip up, it's like I tell a boy who's learned to walk, I say you shouldn't be falling. You've learned to walk now. You're two years old. But if you do fall down, don't lie down on the ground.

Get up. Isn't that sensible? That's exactly what the Bible says and don't let the devil deceive you. So John chapter 8. There are many churches that preach what is called the full gospel. They call themselves full gospel church and what they mean is we preach that Jesus is forgiver of sin.

They call it Savior. He's not Savior really because he's not saved them from their sins. They say Jesus forgives our sins and he baptizes us in the Holy Spirit and then we keep on being defeated. No. That's not the full gospel that you get your sins forgiven and speak in tongues.

I thank God for all of that. The full gospel is what Jesus preached in John chapter 8 to a woman caught in adultery. You know in all the people whom Jesus encountered, one of the most embarrassing and awkward.

Imagine being caught in adultery. Not that somebody heard you committed adultery yesterday. No, no, no, no. Caught in the room where you were committing adultery and pulled out from there. Put on your clothes.

Come on, we're gonna take you to Jesus. It's one of the worst cases I read in the Gospels. Even the thief on the cross was a little better. He wasn't caught in the act. Zacchaeus, he had cheated years ago.

He wasn't caught in the act. There was one sinner in the Gospels who was caught in the act. Even the woman of Samaria. She had divorced a long time. I was sleeping with some other man, but one woman was caught in the act.

John 8 4. This woman has been caught in adultery in the very act. It's not something we heard reported. We pulled her out of the room, told her to put on her clothes and we brought her to you. What do you do with such a woman?

The old covenant said stone her to death. But Jesus did not come to stone people to death. It was Jesus who gave Moses that command from heaven on Mount Sinai. That was the same Jesus. He was not known as Jesus then.

He was the second person of the Trinity. When he came to earth, didn't he remember the command he gave to Moses 1 ,500 years earlier? Sure. But that was to make people aware of the seriousness of adultery.

But Jesus did not come on earth to stone people. He has no stones in his pockets. He didn't have stones in his pockets then and he doesn't have stones in his pockets today. Any preacher who throws stones at people, not following Christ.

But he speaks strong words. Oh, there's nobody who preached as strongly as Jesus. You serpents, you generation of vipers, how will you escape the damnation of hell? You who exploit others, you who are hypocrites, your inside is all dirty.

What does he tell this woman? Where are these people who condemn you? Verse 10. There's no one here, Lord. They were all gone. Jesus drove away every person who dared to condemn this wretched sinful woman.

That's what he does today. And then he says, this is the full gospel. Two sentences, that's all. I do not condemn you, number one. Don't sin again, number two. That is the full gospel. John 8 11. And that is what we have preached in this church for 41 years.

Not only don't sin again. First, I don't condemn you. If you don't begin there, you will keep on sinning. You must know that condemnation is gone. Because Christ died and paid the price. That is not even one cent I have to pay of my debt.

It's completely cleared. There is no condemnation. I stand with no condemnation in my life over my past life. If you don't begin there, you'll never come to a life of victory. You have to begin with Jesus saying to you, I do not condemn you.

Let the whole world condemn you. I don't condemn you. If you haven't heard it, you need to hear it now. And we preached it strongly in this church. But from that foundation, that's the foundation. Then we put the building up.

Don't sin again. Not, well, I know you had this bad habit of adultery. Don't worry if you slip up once in a while. Maybe once in a month you may slip up. Don't worry, my girl. It's okay. Just make sure it's not too frequent.

You'll gradually get over it. It'll gradually, you'll commit adultery once in three weeks. And then after some time, you'll commit once in two weeks. And you will slowly start committing only adultery once in a week.

Is that what he said? Don't sin again. And today he gives us what he could not give that woman on that day, the mighty power of the Holy Spirit. I'm sure she became a Christian who was filled with the Holy Spirit later on.

Today, we don't have to wait. The Holy Spirit has come. So this is the full gospel. Whenever you hear of the full gospel, remember John 8, 11. It's not just speaking in tongues. No. It's not being healed.

It's not even being healed of cancer. I'll tell you honestly, if I had sin and I had cancer, I'd say, Lord, deliver me from sin. Cancer, I don't mind. Even if I die of cancer, I'll go to heaven. But if I live in sin, I'll never go to heaven.

So it's amazing how people, I've often said in this church, if you are more afraid of cancer than of sin, you haven't understood the gospel. You haven't. You haven't understood Jesus dying on the cross.

If you're more afraid of cancer than yelling at your wife, something is fundamentally wrong with your understanding of the gospel. If you're more afraid of cancer than watching pornography, something is fundamentally wrong with your understanding of the gospel.

And that's what we're trying to correct in this church, where we hate sin more than sickness. Why did Jesus tell people who may heal, don't tell anybody. Today healers will say, go and tell everybody, publish it in the papers, and here's magazine, bring your photograph, how you were healed.

Jesus said, no, don't tell anyone. Because he said, then people will come to me for healing. I'm not interested in that. I didn't come for that. I came to call sinners to repentance. That's what we preach.

We pray when we are sick, and in the Lord's will, sometimes he heals. Sometimes people are not healed, like Elisha, the prophet, he became sick, he prayed, he was not healed, and he died. You read that, 2nd Kings 13.

But sin, we can say, there'll never be a sin from which you pray, Lord deliver me, and he said, no, I won't deliver you. Even the Apostle Paul prayed for an eye problem he had. Lord, heal me, heal me, heal me, and the Lord said, no, I won't heal you.

But the Lord never told Paul about any sinful habit he had, I won't deliver you from that. Never. There's not a single sin that God will not deliver us from. I don't know what sin you're a slave to, but I want to tell you in Jesus' name, you can be delivered from that sin 100%.

I was a slave to sins. The Lord delivered me, that's why I can say that confidently. But, I can't promise you the same when it comes to healing. I'll tell you the truth. When we're sick, we pray, and if the Lord is merciful, he heals us.

But he also tests us. When we are sick, do you pray for deliverance from sin as much as you pray for deliverance from high blood pressure and diabetes and being overweight? You cry out as much to be delivered from anger and from dirty thoughts and from telling lies.

You're so concerned, regularly checking up your blood pressure and your blood sugar and all those things. What about checking up your heart condition? So God tests us through sickness to see whether we are more concerned about that.

Oh, my child is sick. What about the sin in your life? There you discover if you're honest, if you're honest, and there are very few who are honest, Lord, I'm sorry. The sickness means more to me than sin.

I'm really ashamed of myself, Lord. So God tests you when you're sick, and if you take it seriously, you can be delivered from sin, which will be a greater deliverance than sickness. I don't know how much longer I'm gonna live, but I'm not afraid of sickness.

I want to be careful. But I don't want to sin. I'll tell you honestly. To me, I've come to see so clearly that's the only thing that will matter when I stand before the Lord. I don't want to sin in my conversation, in my thoughts, my attitudes to people, the way I live at home, in my private life, in the way I handle money, everything.

Romans 6 and Baptism Into Christ's Death

And so that relates to baptism, coming to baptism. Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6 is the first place in the Bible where baptism is explained. You read all the way from Genesis, baptism is mentioned many, many times, but explained for the first time only when you come to the letter to the Romans.

And that's in Romans chapter 6. And this chapter on baptism begins with this statement, okay? Baptism is mentioned in verse 4. We have been buried, all of you are being baptized, all who were baptized, please listen.

We've been buried with him through baptism into death. What is the meaning of being put into the water? It's a picture of burial. This thing that they sprinkle in some churches, they sprinkle water on a baby's head and call it baptism.

How do you bury a man? You don't just sprinkle some sand on his head. Nowhere in the world do you bury a man who's sprinkling some sand on his head. They put him six feet under the ground and cover it up.

Buried with him in baptism. There's only one type of baptism and the word baptism in the Greek means immersion. I don't know why the translators did not have the boldness to translate it as immersion.

The first Bible, the well-known English Bible that was translated as the King James Version, it was translated in 1611 under the command of King James of England and Scotland. And he told the bishops of that time, they were God-fearing people, translate the Bible.

That's why it's called the King James Version. But he told them, don't disturb church traditions. I don't want to have problems with the church leaders. Because the king wanted to have peace with the church leaders.

So don't translate the Bible in such a way you have a problem with church traditions. In the Anglican Church of those days, just sprinkle water on the head. And so the translators were God-fearing men and they came to Romans chapter 6 and in other places.

The Greek word baptizer. Hey, we got to translate that as immersion. What did King James do to us if he translated it as immersion? And everybody begins to question what the priests are doing in the church.

We can't translate it sprinkling because that would be a lie. These were God-fearing translators. So they did a very clever thing. The devil said, invent a word. Call it baptism. Nobody will know what it means and your conscience is clear.

You wrote baptism. So they put it as baptism. And the people of the God King James Version, they said baptism. What's that? Never heard that word in English. Oh, that must be what they do when they sprinkle the children in the head.

That's how child baptism started. And it's continuing for all these years. Immersion. Buried with him through immersion into death. And when you come out of the water, you're saying just like Jesus was raised from that grave where he was buried.

You've come out to walk in newness of life. Not in the old way you used to live in the past. And so, verse 6, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him. That our, you know, when we had a baptism tank in the old church building, we had this verse up there, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.

What is a person getting baptized saying? My old man has been crucified. I'm buried. Now I no longer want to be a slave to sin. Whether you know it or not, that's what you testified when you came out of the water and you got baptized.

And that's what you guys are getting baptized today are saying. I no longer want to be a slave to sin. When I got baptized, nobody told me that. I wish I had known. I wish I had spiritual fathers who cared enough for me.

Not just to dip me in the water, but to tell me what it meant. That's what I want to tell you here. So this whole chapter on baptism begins with verse 6. What shall we say then? Shall we keep on sinning so that grace might increase?

It's all right. It doesn't matter if you keep on sinning. It's normal. Shall we listen to that message? May it never be! In some translations, it says, God forbid! How shall we who died to sin live in it again?

And again a second time in case you missed it the first time. Verse 15. What shall we say then? Shall we sin? If you read the Bible carefully, you'll see a difference between verse 1 and verse 15. Remember, we are talking about baptism.

The whole of chapter 6 is talking about baptism. Chapter 6 verse 1 is, what shall we say then? Shall we keep on sinning? The answer is definitely no. Good. You got past step 1. Now step 2 is shall we sin?

Shall we sin even once? That is the question in verse 15. So the question I ask people who want to get baptized is, do you want to sin again? All who are getting baptized now, all who have been baptized, do you want to sin again?

Do you want to sin even once? You say, how can I say brother Zach, I may fall. You haven't understood my question. You don't listen carefully. I did not say, will you sin? That's not my question. Please listen carefully.

Do you want to sin? Not, will you sin? Do you want to sin? Do you want to sin even once? If you say yes, I would urge you, don't get baptized. But if you can say, I don't want to sin even once from now on, that's my desire.

I may not come to it in a day, but definitely I'm not going to take advantage of the blood of Christ. I don't want to continue in sin. I don't want to sin even once. With that attitude, I move on. You don't have to live in condemnation if you slip up, but get up immediately and say, Lord, I'm sorry I slipped up.

I don't want to sin again. You keep battling. It says the children of Israel cried and cried and cried and cried. They were delivered. So I just want to show you two pictures of baptism given in the Bible.

Baptism as Separation From Pharaoh's Slavery

This is the theology of baptism in Romans 6, but there are two illustrations given of baptism. One is 1 Corinthians and chapter 10. It's good to understand this. 1 Corinthians and chapter 10. It says in verse 1, I don't want you to be unaware, brethren.

Our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea. And we're all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. So that picture is the two million. There were 600 ,000 men plus women and children in Israel, slaves.

Two million of them. Twenty lakhs people went. This red sea parted and they all went through it and came out and the red sea closed again. It was a picture that says you're a baptism. Going into the water and coming out is a picture of baptism.

And then the cloud came from above which is a picture of baptism in the Holy Spirit, which is supposed to follow immediately after baptism in water. So what was that baptism a picture of? That red sea was saying we are permanently cut off from the rule of Pharaoh now.

There was a sea between them and Pharaoh is a picture of Satan and slavery. Baptism is a picture of having been cut off from the old life of slavery to sin and fear of Pharaoh ruling you, devil ruling you, finished.

You don't have to be afraid of the devil anymore. You're going into the water and coming out and saying, Satan, I've finished with you. You had power over me till now, but I've finished. Pharaoh, as far as I'm concerned, you're finished.

You've got no power over me. I was a slave to you, those Egyptians could say, those Israelites could say. But Pharaoh and his army was buried under that sea also. The devil was defeated on the same cross on which we were crucified with Christ.

So that's the first picture of baptism that I finished with slavery to Satan. I'm not afraid of Satan anymore. I finished with my life of slavery. I'm moving on and hopefully in two years, I will come into a land of life of victory and kill the giants in Canaan.

Baptism as a New Beginning With Christ's People

The second picture is in 1 Peter and chapter 3. In 1 Peter chapter 3, it says about people who were once disobedient, verse 20, and speaking about spirits who are disobedient, and the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, 1 Peter 3 .20, during the construction of the ark.

The ark is a picture of Christ and the church in which a few, it's always a few, the way to life is narrow and very few find it. And even in Noah's time, it was few and only eight out of a world population of, I don't know how many hundreds of thousands or a million, eight people were brought safely through the water.

Here, it is a water that comes from heaven, rain, rain that covered the mountains and the whole world was covered with the flood and out of that flooded earth, picture of him, few people were inside the ark.

Who did not drown, everybody else drowned and he says this is a picture, verse 21, of baptism. So this is another picture of baptism, Noah's flood, in which people who were in the ark got saved. Not just that the dirt from your flesh is removed when you go into the water, no, but an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that Christ is raised from the dead.

Now I can live with a good conscience before God, meaning scripture is so clear. And so when Noah came out of the ark, like when you come up out of the waters of baptism, Noah looked around, all his old friends had gone.

They'd all gone. All the old places of sin which were there, were all gone, wiped out in the flood, and Noah started life afresh with those who were inside the ark. I come up out of the waters of baptism and my old friends, my connection, they're not gone, but my connection with them is gone.

And now my connection is with those who are in Christ in the church. Beautiful, these pictures in the Old Testament that in the New Testament symbolize baptism. I pray that'll be true for all of you. God bless you.