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Preacher: Ross Macdonald
Scripture: Genesis 17:1-14
Well, this morning we will conclude our time in Genesis 17 and begin Chapter 18 next week,.
Lord willing.
Of course, this has been somewhat of a topical detour as we've considered covenant theology. And we've been doing this really not just for the past several weeks, but throughout our time in Genesis. Back in Genesis 3, or in Genesis 9, we've considered the covenant that God made with Adam and with Noah, and also with Abram in Chapter 15, and then the elaboration of that in Chapter 17.
Over the past two weeks, we've been really focusing and using Galatians 3 and 4 to better understand the Baptist rejection of a mixed covenant of grace founded, or identical to, the Abrahamic covenant.
That is what we reject as Reformed Baptists. That is what our confession rejects in comparison to the Westminster Confession of Faith. We cannot see any biblical warrant for holding Abraham's mixed posterity together for Scripture forcefully contrasts the children of the flesh and the children of the promise.
And so we spent some time last week considering the implications of that for the church. Galatians 3 -7, therefore know, only those who are of faith are the sons of Abraham. Now this morning, we're going to look again at the implications or the outflow of our approach to covenant theology as Baptists, largely in terms of family.
So last week we considered it in terms of the church and baptism and identifying the body of Christ, the New Covenant community, but now we're going to consider the implications for the family. And this is because, of course, our Paedo-Baptist friends, our Presbyterian and Congregationalist friends, they speak of their children, if they're believing parents, or at least one believing parent, as children of the covenant, or covenant children.
Baptists do not use that kind of language because we don't believe that their children are in the covenant of grace, whether internally or externally, until they have a circumcised heart and they have received the Spirit of God and have been born again.
As we've said, as Baptists, we hold to regenerate church membership. Only those who are in the body of Christ are truly children of the covenant, sons of God.
By faith.
Again, just to give an out view, outside of being united to Christ by faith, all fleshly children remain in darkness and under the curse of the covenant of works. But when God calls a sinner to faith by His Spirit, they are reborn as children of faith.
They receive the second birth, the new birth, and they're adopted by the Spirit of God to be beloved sons and daughters of God. Thereby, they are united by faith to the true seed of Abraham, which is Jesus Christ.
They become heirs with Him to the promise. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God, Romans 8 .14. For you all are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise, Galatians 3 .26 and 29. Whoever does not then have saving faith is not a child of promise, but rather a child.
Of the flesh.
Even if that flesh is a very godly parent, unless they have come to saving faith in Christ by the Spirit of God being born again, they are none of His.
So this is the vital issue.
Every human being is either in Adam or in Christ. You're in Adam by being born. You're in Christ by being born again. Every human being is either in Adam or in Christ, which means every human being, per their covenant head, is either in a covenant of works or in a covenant of grace.
There is no neutrality, no third area, no gray, no mixture. This is what we've been pursuing now for several weeks. Every human being is either in Adam, dead, in trespass and sin, or in Christ, made alive by the Spirit of God.
When you belong to the new covenant, which is the covenant of grace, fully manifest, fully concluded, it is not possible to be cut out of it as it was with the old, for you are in Christ. Your covenant of grace was His covenant of works.
He fulfilled the fleshly dimension to bring about the promises. Only those who are of faith belong to Christ. As we've said from Acts 2, chapter 39, and it's the title of our message this morning, only those who walk by faith have been called by His grace into His grace.
And this is what Peter teaches in Acts 2, verse 39. One of the favorite verses, and a verse we want to tackle head on, of our Paedo-Baptist friends. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord God will call.
The promise, as we said last week, is for you, and it's certainly for your children, and it's certainly for all who are far off. The promise is for everyone who God will call. It's as many as the Lord God calls that receive the promise.
And this is why we essentially deny that children of believers should be baptized apart from a credible profession of faith, because the promise, which is for us and for our children and for those who are far off, belongs to those whom God has called, effectually called.
Peter says, if we go back a few verses in Acts chapter 2, Peter says that this promise is the remission of sins and the receiving of the Holy Spirit. What we saw last week are these are emblematic of the new covenant blessings, that we receive the Spirit of God who circumcises our hearts.
We equated Ezekiel 36 with Deuteronomy 30. And the forgiveness of sins, the lavish, abundant, free, and unconditional forgiveness of God's people's sins, which we saw in Jeremiah 31. So these new covenant realities, Peter is saying, this is for you, these promises, this reality that you're beholding, this is for you and for your children and for all who are far off being Gentiles, as many as God will call.
That same word, far off, same phrase, makron in Greek, we find it in Ephesians 2, verse 13, and you who were far off, God has brought near by the blood of Christ. You see, we or our children or those who are far off remain far off, in other words, remain estranged from the grace of God until they're brought near by the blood of Christ, which is for Paul emblematic of salvation itself.
And so, who is this promise for? Is it for us?
Yes. Is it for our children? Yes.
Is it for any who are far off?
Yes.
As many as God will call. And if they respond to God's call, if they respond to the Gospel call, then the promise is for them, just as it is for you, just as it is for those who are far off. Repentance and faith is the fruit of this call, this effectual call.
Baptism is the public profession of this repentance and this faith. We should no sooner baptize our children before they've shown this effectual working of repentance and faith than we should baptize those who are far off before they show repentance and.
Faith.
We don't go grab a Gentile off the streets and baptize him and say, maybe now you'll start showing faith and repentance. No, we wait until they've done so, until it's become manifest that they have answered the call of God's grace.
Then and only then do they receive the sign of the covenant they've entered into by faith. The covenant belongs to the children of promise, not the children of the flesh. There is no mixture. There is no fleshly inheritance.
When Presbyterians use the term covenant child, we ask, a child of what covenant? What covenant could possibly open up this gap, this gray area, this third alternative between Adam and Christ? A covenant child is not a physical, fleshly, blood-related descendant of a believer any more than Ishmael was a covenant child, according to promise.
Any more than the sons of Keturah via Abraham were children of the covenant. Those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God. The children of the promise are counted as the seed, and the children of promise are only those of faith.
So that's the overview. Now how does this bear out in terms of family life? Well, from the past several weeks, it should be evident that our view of baptism does not rely upon exclusively proof texting from the New Testament.
A Presbyterian, a Congregationalist, they might say, well, we can understand. You've looked at baptism in the New Testament. You don't see any clear examples of infant baptism. We can debate about household baptisms, and we understand that's how you come to your conclusions as a credo-baptist, a believer-baptist.
But once you come to understand covenant theology, then you begin to understand how all these things relate and why it's proper for the children of believers to receive the sign and seal of baptism. Well, I hope now you have at least some grist in your meal that you could say, no, actually it's because of covenant theology that I would never baptize someone who doesn't have a credible profession of faith.
So Douglas Wilson, one of my favorite Presbyterians on most things, not on everything, he says this, and this is generally true. Many Christians come to Baptist solutions because they simply took a Bible and a concordance and they looked up every incident of baptism in the New Testament.
So that's the charge, right? New Testament only, a lot of Baptists are dispensational, so they're already fixating on the New Testament, and they're just looking up baptisms and they're going, I don't see any babies, therefore we're not going to do it, sola scriptura, case closed.
And Wilson says, this is objectionable, not because they studied the passages concerned with baptism, but because they did not look up all the passages that address parents, children, generations, descendants, promises, covenants, circumcision, Gentiles, Jews, olive trees, and countless other important areas.
In other words, the subject is bigger than it looks. To that we say amen. And that's why we've spent now several weeks looking at parents, children, generations, descendants, promises, covenants, circumcision, and the like.
We have not relied on proof texting baptism in the New Testament. Our covenant theology leads us to these conclusions about who belongs in the body of Christ and the sign they receive thereof. So the first point this morning, I've titled Erring with the Baptists, and you'll see why momentarily.
Erring with the Baptists. In other words, walking in error with the Baptists. It's a little tongue-in-cheek, folks. Erring with the Baptists. But before we unpack that, let me turn to a passage that I think is vitally important for us to discuss.
First Corinthians 7, beginning in verse 12. Paul is addressing marital issues in the church at Corinth. So much of what he's addressing is topical, issues that are either brought to him by the church, reported about the church to him, or issues that he is seeking to address to the church.
And in chapter 7, largely he's dealing with issues related to marriage and relationships. He says this, beginning in verse 12. If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her.
And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband.
Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in this case. So this is another passage that Presbyterians turn to to say that there's some distinction, there's some way in which the children of at least one believing parent is made holy.
They're not unclean. They're somehow standing in this grace of God, even if they haven't pressed into the substance of it, even if they haven't actually laid hold of Christ by a faith of their own. So how are we to understand this?
One of the points that I want to make throughout this morning is that our children are, according to 1 Corinthians 7, if we're believers, if at least one parent is a believer. You certainly can't deny that.
That's clearly taught in Scripture. What we would deny is the implication of Paedobaptist theology, that the children are holy because of their parents' faith, if by holiness we mean receiving salvific grace, or being sealed into a grace they will inevitably conclude.
And the reason we say that is we have to understand what Paul says also about the unbelieving spouse. In English translation, this is harder to see. It's not hard to see at all in the original. The word sanctified, which here is a verbal action, is in root the same word as what's being used as a noun, holy.
But now they are holy. Sanctified and holy come from the same root, hagios, hagiosmus. And so if you could understand the connection in this way, the unbelieving husband is made holy by the wife. The unbelieving wife is made holy by the husband, otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.
Now once you establish that connection, you realize that you could say nothing about the children of at least one believing parent that you should not also be able to say about the unbelieving spouse.
Clearly we're not talking in terms of salvation here. Paul says already that the spouse is an unbeliever, and yet the spouse is made holy. In other words, we're going back not to salvation understanding of holiness, but rather what it means to be holy as set apart, distinct.
There is something distinct about being in a Christian marriage or growing up in a Christian.
Family.
In a certain way, you are set apart. In a certain way, you are restrained from certain things, put on a course in a certain way, exposed and held to and urged to things that if you weren't in that marriage or if you weren't in that family, you wouldn't be.
We're not denying that for a moment. In fact, that's crucial to where we're going this morning. So the key that I want to point out is that we too, and this is not something that's always granted to us, we too believe what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, but we're a little more consistent with what it means because the children being holy is not any different from the unbelieving spouse being made holy in the context.
And so if you're not going to baptize the unbelieving spouse, neither should you baptize the child. That's not what holiness is meaning in this context. But let it be said, there is something different about being a child or being a spouse with a believer and praise God for that, that God uses these things.
Now it should be noted, we've had some, you know, some fire, I guess, some friendly fire over the past couple of weeks. Let me try to be a little more ameliorating, a little more welcoming to our friends.
It should be noted that apart from the issue of baptism, children of believing Baptists and children of believing Presbyterians are by and large taught the same scriptures in the same way, disciplined in the same way, loved in the same way, taught to pray, encouraged.
In the faith.
By and large, day to day, these things look identical, praise the Lord. Certainly, as Baptists, we are not surprised that God often determines to call His elect from within believing families. It is no surprise, in a certain sense, that because no one can come to faith in Christ except through the hearing of the Gospel, that those who are constantly exposed to the Gospel, day by day in their homes, Lord's day by Lord's day in their churches, may indeed be called unto saving faith.
We don't see that as an anomaly, we see that as part of God's design. Now, this makes it hard sometimes for us to discern, and we'll talk about this momentarily, whether our children are consciously, actually walking in a faith that God has given them or whether they're mimicking in their curiosity what they see their parents saying and doing.
It's going to be really hard for me in another five years, but already with Elsie, who's only five, I find it very hard if I'm driving and she's in the back seat, and she starts spontaneously talking about why Jesus had to die on the cross, and I say, well, why.
Is that, Elsie?
Well, it's because of our sins, Daddy, and I'm thinking, could it be that she has the gift of faith, and she goes, I love chicken fingers, and I'm like, okay, I don't think she really understands yet.
Presbyterians, thank God, reject presumptive regeneration. In other words, Presbyterians, according to their confession, according to their understanding of Scripture, unlike Catholics, unlike Lutherans, they reject the idea of an infant automatically being born again through baptism.
Sometimes this is called baptismal regeneration. So they don't administer the sprinkling of water, which we deny is a proper mode, but that's a separate issue, they don't administer that thinking this now is saving the child, this now is making them regenerate.
That's how Catholics and Lutherans approach the issue, they hold to baptismal regeneration. Part of a long history in the church, beginning especially in the third century, of a terrible misunderstanding and misapplication of 1 Peter 3, and the baptism that now saves you.
So at least on paper, our Reformed friends, they would deny that baptism somehow brings about the new birth, or that you can presume upon your children's regeneration. That's a wonderful thing, that they assert that, and an honest Presbyterian will be very clear about that.
They're viewing their child as a child of the covenant, but they're not assuming their child is regenerate, if they know their traditional doctrine. They certainly understand that ordinarily God works through families.
Sometimes they press this ordinary way a little too far, and they see Esau's and Ishmael's as the very rare exceptions, Isaac's and Jacob's are going to be the rule, and so even an Esau and an Ishmael who's 40 years old is still a covenant child, keep praying they're going to come around.
Now here's something striking to me. I can't verify this with hard data, because the churches that would be included, you don't know if they're really true churches, and every case is different, but by and large, there's fundamentally no quantitative difference between the baptized children of believers who fall away, versus the unbaptized children of believers who fall away, whether you're Presbyterian or Baptist.
Baptists baptize children after a supposed profession of faith, and those children end up falling away very often at the same rate as baptized infants in the Presbyterian churches, and so there's really no quantitative difference between the two.
If the Presbyterians had a 99 retention rate of baptized infants, we all might be going, maybe there's something here, but they don't, and neither do we, and hence there are some differences, and the consequences of these differences are very important.
Alan Strange, who is a Westminster Presbyterian, Presbyterians, he says, do regard baptized youth as in the visible church, they make a distinction between the visible and the invisible church. Remember, Baptists, we too understand that there's mixture because of false professors and deceit and ignorance and limitations on those who are discerning, but we say, no, there really is, in truth, only the regenerate church membership, right, that's who belongs in the church, whereas both Ishmael and Isaac belong in the church according to Presbyterians, according to their understanding of the visible-invisible distinction.
Presbyterians do regard baptized youth as in the visible church, and thus eligible for what appertains, however, they may not come to the table until they profess their faith in Christ, because they are not presumed inherently to believe, amen, that's exactly where we are.
Now, we administer baptism at a very different point in time, but we both can agree, until there's a credible profession of faith in Christ, you are not welcome to the table. So notice the similarity here, notice the overlap.
But where we're saying amen, we immediately have to say no. They may not come to the table, however, until they profess their faith in Christ, for they are not presumed inherently to believe, amen, but by virtue of their birth, no, to have an interest in and a right to the covenant of grace, no, you're not born in Adam with a right to the covenant of grace.
Rather, Strange says, we treat baptized youth as those to whom the promise is given, again, something we would reject, but at every point, we are encouraged never to be presumptuous, but to rest and to trust in Christ alone, so amen.
Notice there's so much overlap here, but there's these differences that a splash in the water eventually becomes a tsunami in the church. Put in more approachable language, Douglas Wilson, this is recent, in his church he says, we can accommodate differences on baptism, but we don't want to accommodate ungodly extrapolations, in other words, what comes out of them, whether from Baptist premises or from Presbyterian premises.
An example of the Presbyterian would be, yes, he's serving five to ten for armed robbery, but he's a good boy, he was baptized once, and hopefully that grace will kick in. An example of the former would be, daddy, I love Jesus, let us be the judge of that kid, don't you remember that lie you told three years ago?
So obviously these are extreme examples, but both are real problems among the Baptists and among the Presbyterians. Now where I'm staking, notice that I titled this point, airing with the Baptists. If I'm going to air between those two, I'm going to air with the Baptists.
I'm not going to have the covenant child serving five to ten for armed robbery, I'm going to have the little girl saying, daddy, I love Jesus, be a little more patient until that faith becomes a little more manifest and evident in her life.
If I'm going to air between those two, neither of which are ideal, I'm going to air with the Baptists. Now let me make a case for that. Presumption easily follows the Presbyterian view. This is what one minister stated, and this is an example to me of the presumption that I'm warning about.
Grace is a sovereign implanting, amen. The wind blows where it wills. So is everyone that is born of the Spirit. Surely Scripture gives examples of the Spirit's work even in the womb. Children of believers are under the umbrella of the covenant.
No, no, no, remember, we're rejecting this idea of this covenant that welcomes Isaacs and Esau's indiscriminately. Children of believers are under the umbrella of the covenant. What covenant? Remaining so even to adulthood until they prove to be covenant breakers.
Do you see the presumption that follows that? You're in it until you prove otherwise. You're in it until you break it in some very obvious, very open and public way. You're in it. You're assumed to be in it.
You're regarded in it. You're treated in it. So you can have a room full of polite, well-taught, catechized, unregenerate unbelievers. And as long as they don't do anything too outlandish, they're treated as covenant keepers.
And they live and move and have their being as though they're within this covenant of.
Christ.
That's a tremendous problem. As we reject a covenant child status apart from being united to Christ by faith, we consistently believe that children are born unregenerate. And that doesn't matter if their parents are Baptist missionaries or OPC missionaries for that matter.
They may well be elect, but parents have no guarantee that their children will come to.
There's no right automatically by birth to the covenant of grace. Of course, as we've said, God works within families. He's often pleased to do this because He's a good God and He's a merciful God. Children raised in believing households are more likely to be exposed constantly to the means of grace, exposed to the gospel, having heart-searching concern from their parents and hopefully their siblings and brothers and sisters in the church of God, having a witness before them at all times of a faith being lived out.
That's a blessing. That's a tremendous blessing. It's not a right and it's not a guarantee. We remember the truth of Tulip beginning with T, total depravity. Children are born in Adam. If you're born, you're born in Adam.
You're only born again when by faith, by the Spirit of God, you're united to Christ. Children therefore are born at enmity with God because they're born in Adam. In Adam, David says as much, in sin did my mother conceive me.
While they are in Adam, no amount of teaching, no certain upbringing can give them saving.
Only God can give saving faith and He gives it where and when He will. Every Presbyterian would say amen to that if they rightly understand their doctrine. The problem is when they tiptoe toward presumption because their theology is a little blurry.
Now why would I want to err with the Baptists? Don't we all want to say if you believe in Jesus, come then five-year-old daughter and be baptized? Of course we do. But if I already know that faith is a gift from God and I've been trying to fan that faith into flame and though there's wonderful fruits and buds and signs of His grace, I don't know that it's fully credible yet.
I don't know if the Gospel's been fully understood and I'm more concerned about her soul becoming falsely assured than I am about a genuine gift being delayed. A genuine faith being temporarily put on hold.
If I'm going to err, I'll err there. I don't believe that any child that is truly born again by the Spirit of God will ultimately be turned away from that grace if it's been given by God simply because we do not know fully the hearts of men.
Because we must witness that profession, we must be convinced that it's right for them to be baptized and welcomed into the visible covenant community. We understand what hopefully that child understands is baptism means nothing.
It's signifying what has already been true and it's our job to discern if it is indeed.
True of you.
And so wait and pray with patience. Pray that this faith that God has given you will begin to flower and manifest fruit. Work it out. So it's evident and manifest. See this as a great opportunity to find that full assurance even as you approach the baptismal.
Waters.
As a church, we want to weed out false professors. We want to prevent false assurance. Now this is an extreme. I almost don't even want to bring this up because I think it paints the picture in a way I don't want to.
But I hope you appreciate the sentiment and the reality of this and keep in mind if this seems harsh, this man is concerned about his children's souls.
His name was J .C.
Philpott.
We would disagree with some of his theology. He was a variation of Baptists that we don't really go with but he was a good godly man. And his son J .H. Philpott wrote a book, Banner published it some years ago, called The Seeders.
And J .H. Philpott was recounting how his father raised him and his siblings. He said, by early influence and example, you can bring up a child to be a little patriot, a little Catholic, a little Calvinist, a little Bolshevist, a little citizen of the world.
No power on earth he would have maintained, he's saying dad, no power on earth can make him a child of God unless his name has been written in the Lamb's Book of Life. He took care that we, as his children, attended the means of grace, never missed chapel or family prayer, but he was never expecting anything more than for us to be little heathen.
Now that's the part that might seem a little harsh to us, but you see the man's concern. Attend to the means of grace that you might be saved. You're born in Adam and until you're showing that faith and that repentance, we cannot say that you've been born again in Christ.
And so we do not baptize unbelievers, whether they're little babies or full-grown adults or elderly folks, we do not baptize unbelievers. It doesn't matter the size of the sinner, we only baptize believers when there's a credible profession of faith, when they've begun to exhibit the reality that baptism is a sign of then they receive the sign of baptism.
So the reason I titled this first point, Airing with the Baptists, comes from an article that was written some years ago by David Murray. Some of you have heard of David Murray. He's Dutch Reformed, he's a Paedo-Baptist, and he's a very good and godly man and a very good writer, and he's written some wonderful books.
And he too titled his article, Airing with the Baptists. And this is a point that he saw growing up in a believing family in a Presbyterian church. He was aware of the fatal danger of presumption and how as a parent he was very keen to air with the Baptists.
And so this is what he has to say, while most Reformed believers will shudder at the thought of saving faith being imparted at baptism, an increasing number seem to believe that baptism plus Christian parenting will automatically do the same thing.
You know, let's all realize that this is cutting pretty close to home. We all can very easily creep into a certain presumptive mindset that because we're doing certain things that other churches, other Christians, the culture's not doing, that this equals regeneration.
Because we're sacrificing to homeschool, because we're using certain curriculum, because we're putting in the work, we pull the lever and out comes a regenerate child. So listen very carefully to what David Murray is saying.
Some, an increasing number seem to believe that baptism plus Christian parenting will automatically do the same thing, lead to regeneration. As long as children are baptized, raised by Christian parents, taught by Christian teachers, trained in Christian behavior, and don't reject Christianity, it is presumed, presumed, that they are Christians.
I don't see too much difference between baptismal presumption and parenting presumption. Both presume that the baptized children of Christian parents are born again. They only differ in time. This presumption makes a huge difference to our parenting.
Instead of repeatedly telling children that they are born dead and trespassed and sinned and must be converted to Christ, my own childhood experience of Presbyterianism, they're told, you are a Christian, now just act like one.
You're in.
Just act like it.
Don't do these behaviors that are causing undue attention. Suck it up and act like a Christian. Increasing amounts of external discipline and rules are then used to conform the children to Christian norms, and as long as, notice, as long as they match up externally, they are told and assured that they are believers.
Sounds a lot like the Judaism of Christ's day, doesn't it? And we know that he preached about presumptuousness then, don't we? But what if these baptized children are still in the flesh and of their father the devil?
The parents have a great confidence, though it's often more in their parenting skills than in the grace of Christ, but the children are unregenerate and they're going to hell. They may look, they may act like true Christians, but they've never been told that they need a new heart and that they must be born again and that they must be converted.
That's for those unbaptized heathen outside the church. That's why I, David Murray says, I would rather err with the Baptists. During my parenting years, I may not enjoy the same degree of confidence in God's promises, but at least my children don't suffer eternal torment through my false confidence in my parenting skills, giving them false confidence that they are saved.
He would rather err with the Baptists.
So would I.
Now, let me say as a caveat to that, God forbid we set the bar so high that children that are professing faith and showing some of the fruit of that profession are kept outside of the church and away from the waters, God forbid, my heart, and I'm sure Tony and Marty would agree with this, as soon as it becomes apparent, even where there's still shades or shadows of doubt, if there's something credible there, our heart would be to baptize and to welcome and to build up that faith, even where perhaps there's little pockets of shakiness due to age or ignorance.
We don't want to set the bar so high that at age 34, they can finally be baptized. They've been professing Christ for 20 years. No, certainly not. We don't want that child to be discouraged in a faith that God has given them.
But if we're going to err, we'd rather them be temporarily discouraged and led along and discipled a little bit further than to be filled with false confidence and proven time to have been a false confessor, to have baptism because of their parents' faith and their mimicry of it rather than their own.
And so we don't set an age limit. Baptist churches that do that, that is so foolish and ahistorical. You know, we won't even consider baptism until age 12. A six-year-old, a seven-year-old could be brought to saving faith and manifest some understanding of the gospel, show some sorrow for sin.
That would be no reason to withhold baptism. We also have to be careful that we don't expect conversion, especially in Christian households, to always be after a pattern of so-called crisis conversion until they have that breakthrough, that one night where they've totally surrendered and they, from that moment on, know that they belong to Christ.
That is not often the normal pattern for believers that grow up in Christian homes, where because the means of grace were not like lightning strikes in the sky, it's a lot more gradual. They believe, but they don't quite understand.
They understand, but they don't quite believe. It takes time to work these things out and say, what's really mine rather than what I've seen or what's been given to me? What's mine? What is my life about?
What does my heart confess? And so we, as a church, we want to take time. As parents, you discern these things. You look to the heart as much as God enables you to do so. You consider the trajectory. As the years have gone by, how has the training transformed?
Does it seem to be evidence of saving grace? Does there seem to be a sorrow for sin? Does there seem to be a love for Christ? Does there seem to be a hunger for the Word, whether that's punctual or gradual?
And if there seems to be these things, as elders, we would not bar any child of any age from baptism if there's this kind of credibility. But God forbid, God forbid we give our children a false assurance that they may never be stripped.
From.
God forbid. If they show up and their lives have been restrained from evil, but they're unregenerate and they don't even know it. God forbid we raise up a generation of Pharisees that condemn everyone who's coming to the kingdom ahead of them, tax collectors, prostitutes, drug addicts, and they're entering the kingdom being saved by grace and faith.
And we have our little Pharisees who were baptized 10 years ago, and they know nothing of these realities, God forbid. So then how do we parent in light of this, right? We're erring with the Baptist because we are Baptists, and of course what I mean by that is I agree wholeheartedly with what David Murray's concern is.
He understands my theology, my tradition, it lends itself to presumption, and as a parent that's the last thing on earth I want for my kid, and we say amen. Come err with us, David Murray. We're leaving the light on for you.
Come all the way. So secondly then, how do we parent our children? If we don't want to parent them in presumption, but we want to urge them to the things of Christ, help them to work out their salvation, how do we do that?
So the second point I've titled the pressure of no pressure. Of course we don't want there to be presumption, we don't want them to be forced into a conversion that the Lord isn't doing, and so that's where we're talking about no pressure.
But our whole life as a church, our whole lives as parents is the pressure of winning them over to Christ, of having a concern for their soul. So what is the pressure of no pressure? How do these things relate?
There's a balance between pressing the truth of the gospel consistently, daily, in prayer, in deed, in word, but also that relaying, that relenting where you don't want a hastily drawn profession. You don't want ticked boxes and yeses without there being a heartfelt reality and sincerity.
So you don't pressure so as to coerce or so as to manipulate. It's not, well it seems like all your other 12 year old friends are being baptized, aren't you ready to be baptized? No, no, no, no pressure, we don't know what the Lord's going to do or what his time is.
You know I was baptized in the midst of 10 other kids growing up at the Baptist church and we were all age 10 to 15 being baptized over a period of two years. Six years ago I could have said there was at least one out of a dozen that was still walking with Christ.
To this day, so far as I know, I'm the only one. A lot of those baptisms, if I'm recollecting rightly, were just pressure from the parents. Aren't you ready? Your friends are ready. Aren't you ready? I think you're ready.
We'll go tell pastor you're ready. Aren't you ready?
You're ready.
Or the kid, Mom, I'm ready. I don't want to be left out. I'm ready. Now the eyes are really on me. I'm the only 13 year old that's unbaptized in this church. All the eyes are on me. I'm feeling a little different when I go and scoop lasagna onto my plate.
I'm ready to be baptized.
No pressure.
But then the pressure, the pressure, right? You must be born again. You must have a faith of your own. You must have a new heart. So how do you balance these things out? Let me give a few things here.
The first point I want to make is it's not mechanical. This presumption comes into pressure when we view it as mechanical. We control the levers of salvation in the lives of our children. And as long as there's enough input and it's consistent and we're striving, God is almost obligated to do that salvation.
Martin Lloyd-Jones, he recounts this. There was a woman in the congregation at Westminster Chapel who was troubled because she felt like her own children were not exhibiting faith and she was surrounded by examples of children who were.
But she felt like she was being as earnest, if not more earnest, than some of these other parents and it was discouraging to her walk and to her soul. And so Martin Lloyd-Jones says, I went to stay with some friends while I was preaching in a certain place and I found the wife, the mother of the family, in a state of distress.
In conversation I discovered the cause of her distress. A certain lady had been there that very week and she was giving lectures on how to bring up all your children as good Christians. And it was wonderful, this woman said.
She had five or six children and she had so organized her home and her life that she finished all of her domestic work by nine o 'clock in the morning, wow, that's a Proverbs 31 woman, and then gave herself to various Christian activities.
All her children were fine Christians and it was all so easy, so wonderful. The mother talking to me who had two children was in a state of distress, feeling that she was a complete and utter failure.
What had I to say to her? This, I said, how old are the children of this lady? I happened to know the answer and my friend knew also. Not one of them at the time was above the age of 16 or thereabouts and I said, wait and see.
This lady tells you that they're all Christians and that all you need is a scheme that you regularly carry out. Wait a while, the story will be different in a few years. And alas, it turned out to be very different indeed.
It's doubtful whether more than one of those children is a Christian today. Several of them are openly anti-Christian and have turned their backs upon all. You cannot bring up children to be Christians in this way.
It's not a mechanical process. And in any case, it was so cold and clinical. A child is not a machine and so you cannot do the spiritual work mechanically. What stands out to me in that is Martin Lloyd-Jones saying it was all so clinical, so cold, so calculating.
We're ordering this, we're pressing on, and this will be the result. We're making new strides, we're working harder than before, we've got more organization, more control, more response, more effectiveness, and it's clinical and it's cold and it's calculating.
And so Lloyd-Jones, and remember he's an evangelist, in the midst of the 60s and 70s and 80s when all evangelism is is pressing for decisions.
Have you decided? Have you decided? Have you decided?
Come forward, come to the altar, make a decision. And Lloyd-Jones in the midst of that as an evangelist is saying, don't raise your kids that way. What trouble and havoc has been wrought by this? This is what parents say, isn't it marvelous?
My little so and so, a mere youngster decided for Christ. Pressure had been brought to bear in the meeting. That should never be done. You're violating the personality of the child. You're displaying a profound ignorance of the way of salvation.
You can make a little child decide anything. You have the power and the ability to do so, but it's wrong, it's unchristian, it's not spiritual. Don't force them to a decision. So then what is the true way?
This is Lloyd-Jones. The important point is the impression should always be given that Christ is the head of.
The home.
How is that impression given? By your conduct and example, not by the words that are spoken right before a meal when they're being tucked in at bedtime or when they're on the way to church or on the way home from.
Church.
By your general conduct and example. Is Christ being displayed as the head of the home, as the king of the family? And are you his priests? The parents should be living in such a way that the children always have this feeling that they are under Christ as a head.
The facts should be obvious in their conduct and behavior. Above all, there should be this atmosphere of grace. The fruit of the Spirit is love, and if the home is filled with this atmosphere of love produced by the Spirit, many of its problems are solved.
This is what does the work, not direct pressures, not appeals, but this atmosphere of Christian.
Love.
J .C. Ryle, interestingly, 100 years earlier, he had the same advice because he had the same concern. He was watching children in the Anglican churches being raised in a very clinical and calculating.
Manner.
You already are Christian, so just act like it. We're going to keep you in line. The only time we ever discipline you is not necessarily for hard things, but just things that are embarrassing to us. You get corrected for things that will keep you in line externally, which is enough to say, we're not concerned about your heart, we're not concerned about what's going on inside of you, what the Lord is going to teach you or convict you of, we're only concerned that you don't blow this all up for us.
Keep it in line, Pharisee. And so J .C. Ryle says, train up your child with all tenderness, affection, patience. You never represent Christ more to your child than in that way, never, not even close. I do not mean that you are to spoil him, but I do mean that you show your love to him.
Love is the silver thread that runs through all of your conduct, kindness, gentleness, long-suffering, forbearance, patience, sympathy, a willingness to enter into the most childish.
Of their troubles.
Oh, I'm so sorry that your stuffed animal is missing its button, you know. A readiness to take part in the most childish of their joys. These are the cords by which a child may be led most easily. These are the clues you must follow if you would find your way to their heart.
And so Ryle says, and I say this to you, especially you fathers, because I say it to myself, try hard to keep a hold on your child's affections, and it only gets harder. I mean, I have a five-year-old, and if I give her a sideways look, she melts, but I know that always won't be.
I know five is a very different age from 15, and on the banner of my mind, I need to have that emblazoned. Work, work, work to lay hold of her affections.
Work.
It is a dangerous thing to make your children afraid of you. Anything is almost better than reserve and constraint between you and your child.
Anything.
And this will come in with fear. Fear puts an end to openness. Fear puts an end to transparency. Fear leads to concealment. Fear sows the seeds of hypocrisy. It leads to many lies. There's a mine of truth in the apostles' words to the Colossians.
Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. You see what he's saying? Work, work to lay hold of their affection. And this is because, and this is where Ryle goes in this sermon, you must train them with this thought continually before your eyes.
The soul of your child is the first thing to be considered. I know what it's like on a Sunday. I'm a dad. I've got toddlers. I know that we're mostly concerned about their external behavior on a Sunday.
I know what it's like to hear and look up and go, whew, it wasn't mine this time. Or they'll have that panic like, oh, it was mine this time. We spend most of our, especially when they're younger, we spend most of our Sunday worried about whether they're being an irritation or an obstruction to others in the church body and how that's reflecting upon us.
And Ryle says very wisely, what needs to be even beyond that? It's a good thing to be concerned about your child's conduct, to exercise them towards self-control.
Amen.
But behind that better be not the raising of a Pharisee or the honoring of me in an earthly way, but my love and concern for their soul. If you love them, Ryle says, think of their souls. No interest in their life could weigh on you as much as their eternal interest.
No part of them should be as dear to you as this fact. They will never die. They will never die. The world with all of its glory is going to pass away.
The hills will melt.
The heavens will be wrapped up like a scroll. The sun will cease to shine. But these little creatures whom you love will outlive it all, whether in unending bliss or unending misery. This is the thought that should be uppermost in your mind in everything you do for and to your children, every step you take about them, every plan and scheme and arrangement.
That involves them.
Do not leave out this mighty question. How will it affect their soul? And so as a Christian, what do you do? You try to demonstrate the reality of salvation being the call of God upon one's life. They ought to know as they get older that they're not born into it.
And they're not halfway in straddling the kingdom until they're ready to commit just because they're surrounded by the means of grace. If anything, they're held to a higher account. The stakes are infinitely high.
They're severe.
There'll be no mercy, no glint of mercy for the straddler, for the lukewarm on that day. God will say, do you know how many children never had the influence of the gospel in their.
Lives?
And you, I flooded, I flooded with the gospel every day you were raised, not perfectly, but faithfully, not not perfectly, but genuinely, sincerely and consistently. And you spurned it all. And so your guilt, your blood is on your head.
You show them that the call of God must come to them. It's an intensely personal call. It's a call that demands all that requires all and is worthy of all. And your life and your home, it manifests that it's worth it.
He's worth it. Mom and dad pray for you without ceasing that he would call you. We don't know. We don't know if he will or if he will, when he will. And so we pray and we urge until it's clear that he has.
And until our dying breath, we will continue to point you to the way you let your calling show. And then you show them what that calling is like. That's how you raise them. It's not clinical, it's not calculating.
You're not raising a Pharisee, there should be a warmth in the home. The home should be the display case of every Christian grace. I want my family, I want their hearts to well up, I want them to see and to taste every.
Day that the Lord is good.
And I want them to see me despondent or detached or passive. Or see mom and dad pursuing Christ separately, hobbling along in these different areas of life. And so how do you conduct yourself? You let your honor show that it's a noble calling.
Let your joy show it's a merciful calling. Let your humility show it's a mighty calling. Let your holiness show it's a high calling. Let your perseverance show it's a hard calling.
Few there are who find it.
Let your hope show it's a glorious calling. The last point, and it's just brief, but bear with me because it's important. This last point I've titled, When the Ship Has Sailed. There's not as many present as I thought there would be, but I'm conscious of several.
Some that are perhaps here, some that will be listening, who are in very different seasons of life. Some have no children, some have grown children. Some of those grown children may, at some point in time, have shown to be straying from.
The truth.
I'm conscious of that. Of course, it's natural to feel a certain responsibility as a parent, even guilt for their current state of unbelief. It's natural. How could you not, right? And while our faith reminds us that salvation is a sovereign gift beyond our control, our conscience stings us with failures.
There that parental presumption sneaks in again. If I had just been a little more consistent, if my act was a little more sanctified, if my life was a little more clear, if I had known then what I know now, if I had lived then like I live now, maybe they wouldn't be straying.
Maybe they wouldn't be rejecting Christ. Well, let me say, first off, there may well be a need to repent of such things, and God will lead you to repent of it. And if He leads you to repent of it, then embrace the full and free forgiveness that.
Christ offers.
That's the first thing I would say. But then, to keep the enemy at bay who won't allow you to feel forgiven, but will keep pressing you to feel responsible and guilty, remember, remember this. Remember that there are many parents whose failures and examples were exceedingly worse than yours, nonexistent even, negative in every conceivable way, and yet God chose to bring their children to faith.
By the same token, remember that there's many parents whose labors and prayers and example were more consistent, were exceedingly greater than yours in almost every way, and God has also stripped away their children from the faith.
Remember, as Matthew Windsor says, there is nothing in the raising of a child which naturally will make that child a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is absolutely nothing at all. Think on the parents' teaching, example, humility, patience, discipline, self-sacrifice or diligence, all these things that we ought to hunger for and strive after and repent of missing the.
Mark.
And yet, even these things have no inherent power to make the slightest spiritual impression upon the unregenerate heart. No parent is perfect, but if they were, if they were, there would still be nothing that a perfect parent could do to put grace into the heart of someone dead and trespassing.
Sin.
As much as we are to love our children, we're to love God with all of our being, and so we resign ourselves to His purpose. Ultimately speaking, you entrust your own soul and the souls of your most loved to God and to His purposes.
It might be that His purpose is to save our children. It's what we labor for. It's what we pray for. But let's remember that we've only done our duty and we're unprofitable servants. All is to the praise of His glorious grace.
It might be His will that they're permitted to wander for a time, and He has an intention of calling them to Himself later in life. It may be His will that He leaves our children in their sins like Esau and intends to make them a display of His justice, which will break our hearts until He Himself wipes away.
Our tears at the last.
And then we too will bow down with all who praise His justice along with His mercy. It may be that He will use your unbelieving children to humble you, to mortify pride in your life, to bring a holy rebuke to you.
He might make use of unrepentant children to do that. We cannot say we deserve any better. All we can say, all we should say, is it is the Lord. He does what seems good to Him. Remember this. While there is breath, there is hope.
Remember, even in passing, my grandfather, in the last year of his life, lived to see his daughter baptized and brought to faith. In the last year of his life. God may bless your lifelong witness to fruition even when you pass, and you won't know of it until your child passes.
So be consistent.
Be hungry.
Don't lose hope. William Plumer says, be fervent in your prayers. Monica, the mother of Augustine, it was said of her, this is what she said, I had greater travail and pain that my son would be born again than that my son would be born.
It was more labor, more pain, more agony that my son would be born again than it was for.
Him to be born.
And if you know the story of Augustine, Augustine wasn't converted to Christ until he left his mother on a ship to Rome, which for him meant like going to live at large in Las Vegas. For her, it was this infinite sorrow in her heart, and it was God's plan to save him.
John Newton tells of a mother of 11 children, and they were all known for their Christian faith, and he asked her, how did you come to be so blessed? She said, I never took one of them into my arms to give it nourishment.
Without praying, I might never nurse a child for the devil.
Do you pray for your children?
Do you pray for your adult, unbelieving children? You never stop praying until you can't pray anymore. Never despair of salvation, wrestle with God like Jacob, never by unbelief hand a child over to sin and damnation, pray, pray like Elijah.
And in the midst of that, remember this, Jesus knew the pain of an unbelieving family. When we read about our great sympathetic high priest, we often don't think of, as a human, as a man, how family relationships would have borne heavy upon him, filled him with all sorts of grief and all sorts of sorrow.
His family rejected him. His brothers, his half-brothers, they didn't believe him for almost his whole life on the.
Earth.
So when you go to the high priest in prayer, wrestling for your unbelieving children, you're going to a high priest who's sympathetic to you. He knows what it's like to have unbelieving family. But inasmuch as he found a spiritual family, so also God has called you into a spiritual.
In his wisdom and his grace, he's given you both victories and failures in your life, but the key victory is in Christ, your persevering in faith to this day. And because of that, whether you've been a train wreck of a parent in your youth or a godly parent or, like all of us, a mix in between, you have the God-given opportunity to be a spiritual parent here among us, as Peter was, as Paul was.
Peter says, Mark, my son. Paul says, Philemon, my beloved son. So maybe your grown children are this sorrow and this shame in your life, but let me tell you, brother or sister, you have the opportunity to be a spiritual parent to us here in this body, to share your wisdom and your grace and your encouragement and your urgency as we join with you in praying for your unbelieving family.
I was watching, and I'll close with this. I was watching the animated remake of Pilgrim's Progress, which is very well done. Some scenes are a little scary for five-year-olds, but very, very well done.
And of course, they took a lot of liberties with the storyline and the script, which that's a betrayal of Bunyan, but if your target audience is, you know, ten and under, I get.
It.
And one of the liberties they took is they tried to really sew together the first part of Pilgrim's Progress, which was the whole movie, with at least a hint of the second part with Christiana and the family.
And of course, Bunyan had not intended originally to write a companion volume, but others were being passed off as though they were companions, and so finally he said, I'm just going to write my own sequel to this.
And so they tried to sew this together toward the end, and actually it was quite beautiful. I spent some time reading through Pilgrim's Progress, and I was like, is this here? Because it's really good, but I couldn't find it.
At the very end of the film, at the very end of Christian's journey, he's come to the brink of the river of death, and it's just this wall of water, and it's terrorizing him and Hopeful. And Christian watches Hopeful as he bounds into it.
You know, we're here now, we have but to pass the river of death. Beyond it is our celestial city, beyond it is glory. But Christian's losing heart, and he begins to fall on his knees and grieve. And he says, I must wait here, or even go back for my wife and kids.
You see, he's come to death, and now he's filled with this sorrow, filled with this regret, no, no, I can't, I must make sure that they find this way, I must hold the way.
For them.
And then Evangelist comes. This is all liberty of the script, but Evangelist comes, who from the very beginning had been pointing Christian the right way. And he says, Christian, the king has paved the road for them, and they must follow it, and so it is with you.
You must follow the road the king has paved for you. And then from that moment on, Christian never looks back, and he bounds into the river of death, and of course after travail, he's brought to the banks of the celestial city, and he's filled with joy as he sees his brothers welcoming him, just absolute joy.
And I think what they're trying to capture there is Jesus commands the children to come to him, and it's our heart's burden through our lives for our children to come to him. But ultimately speaking, we entrust them to God.
In the same place in Matthew 19 where Jesus says, let the little ones come to me, do you know what he says just a few verses later? Everyone who has left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life.
And so Christian arrives at the celestial city, and the first thing he says is, oh, that they would see, oh, that they would see, oh, that they would see. And a little invitation from the kingdom begins to fly to land on Christiana's table, and so begin the second sequel.
That, brothers and sisters, is our heart. We have a path that we must walk, and despite all of our victories and all of our failures, all of our efforts, all of our park-mocked presumption, all of our calculating and clinical ways of trying to manipulate faith in our children, we have a path, and we're walking by faith, trusting in Christ, by his grace we're standing, but as we walk into the greater glory, may our church, may our family, may our home life resound, oh, that they would.
See.
I hope your children feel that burden you have for them, not the comfort of false assurance, but the burden that you would see, that we would know you see. May we be a church like that.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for your word, we thank you for your grace, we thank you, Lord, that it's not up to us to impart the gift of faith, Lord, it's your sovereign work, it's your sovereign will, we thank you, Lord, that you do often attach great blessing to your means of grace, and so our children are doubly blessed, Lord, that they might be in the presence of believers, that they might consistently see the means of grace, that they might have examples and sound boards and prayer warriors on their behalf, Lord.
May their souls feel the urgency, the burden of all of these great privileges. May we never be presumptuous as parents. May we never be presumptuous of ourselves. May we all work out our salvation in fear and in trembling.
May Christian graces decorate our homes. May fathers be filled with Christian warmth, the fruit of the Spirit, not something cold or clinical, not something exacting or pharisaical, but something genuine, something Christ-like, something tender and affectionate.
May we all labor for the children in our midst to lay hold of their affections, not of their external behavior, more than their soul, but Lord, when we ourselves draw nigh to the river of death, may we be reminded that we entrust all to you, and you are good, and may we enter into your joy in its fullness, with or without them.
These things we ask in your Son's name.