Beyond The Basics 8: The Church, misc (part 2)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Father, what a blessing it is to be here this morning, to have just the opportunity, the privilege to gather together to look into your

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Word, to see what you've said in your Word about the Church, about how it is to function, about how you will build it.

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And Lord, we praise you for that and just ask you to bless this time in Christ's name. Amen. Well, last week we began talking about the

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Church. Mostly, I think, we talked about what the Church is, who's in it, who should lead it.

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I didn't give you a full history of the popes, but that was by design. I will say, though, it is kind of interesting, if you look at enough

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Catholic sources, you will find that they don't even agree on the unbroken line of who the popes were.

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There are different Catholic sources have different lists of who the popes were, and you go, well, that's interesting.

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By the way, what was the maximum number of popes that were alive at one time? Three is correct.

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And they spent all their time running around trying to kill one another. Being Christ's vicar on earth, you can't have more than one at a time.

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So, you know, it was like Highlander, there can be only one. Never mind.

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All right, we talked about who the leaders should be. We talked about why women can't be in leadership of the

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Church. Basically, not because they're not good. Here's an argument that I hear from time to time.

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Well, if you have a woman who's gifted to teach, how can you not let her teach? What a waste of that gift.

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What's her response to that? What's that? Teach women.

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That's exactly right. But what if she's more gifted than a guy? You know, let me just put it this way.

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Let her teach women. I've heard this argument.

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Well, you know, my wife can make more than I can, so I want to stay at home with the kids. There is a created order.

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And when we start tinkering around with that, we are heading for trouble. All right, so we're down.

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We're at page 32, talking about leadership. And I ask the question here, why not congregational rule?

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What's wrong with congregational rule? After all, we're in Massachusetts. Every man, woman, and child should get a vote, and this is the heart of congregationalism.

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What's wrong with congregational rule? Look what it's gotten us. Charlie. It's not in the

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Bible. I mean, I would love to see that, you know. Where is the verse that says we should have congregational rule?

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Let's see. You know, some other problems. I mean, the next question, unregenerate leaders. Well, what happens when you have congregational rule?

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Is everyone saved? And the answer is usually no.

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And the answer is especially no when you kind of suggest that everyone in a church should have voting rights.

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You're kind of almost pressing people into church membership so that they can assist in the decision making.

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Not only that, a lot of or some congregational rule churches might even be, some might be infant baptizing.

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But beyond that, the point is, if you take people, let's say there are even new believers, you are thrusting them into, in effect, a leadership position by putting them on par with more seasoned saints, as it were.

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People who are more knowledgeable in the word. New converts, question mark.

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Well, that was ruled out in 1 Timothy 3. You shouldn't have new converts. How about those who cannot teach or exhort in sound doctrine?

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We know that not everyone can teach. Not everyone is, as we said last week, is gifted to teach, excels in teaching.

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And not everyone can exhort in sound doctrine. It takes time to learn sound doctrine. And what about this?

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I asked this question too. I just, it's a one word question, so it wasn't really phrased all that cleverly.

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But what if you have somebody who is rich and you have congregational rule? What happens? I mean, there's like a gravitational shift.

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Everything in the church just kind of goes, right? What does the rich guy want?

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What does he say? And he kind of can take things over.

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Now, what about homosexuals? Homosexuals in leadership.

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Episcopal church has, what is his rank? Is he a bishop? Homosexual. Is there a problem with that?

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They shouldn't even be a member. That's exactly right. Why? Because homosexuality is a sin.

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I don't have to tell you that, but let's look at it. Anyway, 1 Corinthians 6, verses 9 and 10.

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And who has that?

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Go ahead. Thanks, Becky.

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I mean, none of these people, since they're not saved, why would we put them in leadership?

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Imagine we take the town burglar, put him in leadership in the church. Or the drunk.

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You know, we take Otis the drunk from Mayberry. Make him, you know, put him in charge of the church.

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Well, we wouldn't do that. Homosexuality is not worse than anything else, but it's certainly not any spiritual qualification.

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In fact, it is a disqualifier. It says right there, will not inherit the kingdom of God, let alone lead the church.

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Not going to go to heaven. But somehow we're going to make them bishops, leaders.

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And if we looked at 1 Timothy and Titus, clearly, you know, above reproach. Well, I don't think so.

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They should be church disciplined. We want them to repent. The whole point of becoming a Christian is not to add the name

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Christian to whatever sin you might have. I mean, imagine this.

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Well, you know, he's the first bishop of whatever church who is an idolater. You know?

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Well, we've never before had someone who was an adulterer be a leader of the church. A thief.

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Someone who covets. What's a reviler, by the way? A contentious person?

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Someone who makes a lot of personal attacks? Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, it has to do with a more of a personal level, but yeah.

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It's that idea. Somebody who causes division, certainly. Yeah. So we wouldn't put them in.

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Now, sometimes they'll say, well, this is a... I think I've covered this before, but I'll just briefly talk about it.

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That this was addressed to the Corinthian church. That this is for the Corinthian church only.

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That Jesus never taught, you know, about homosexuality. Never condemned it.

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That he was very loving and accepting. To which we say, yes, he was very loving and accepting.

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But why would Jesus not have addressed homosexuality? Because they already...

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I mean, it would be like coming here and saying, you know what? I want you guys to know something.

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I mean, we'll do this, certainly, and he could have done this. I want you to know something. Marriage is between a man and a woman.

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Children are a blessing. Hymns with good theology ought to be sung.

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I mean, these are all truths. But Jesus... Here's a bigger issue. Was there a big problem with homosexuality in the

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Jewish community? No, because under the law, they stoned him.

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So he didn't have to run around doing a lot of that because they weren't really... I mean, there was no West Hollywood.

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You guys wouldn't really know West Hollywood. Yes, he did.

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He definitely did. He used Genesis to support God's plan for marriage.

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Go ahead, Charlie. Well, I think it's certainly...

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I think it would be more like a symptom of a society in a downward spiral, but we can look at that here momentarily.

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Romans 1, getting towards the end of the chapter. Yeah, I mean, really,

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Paul is just describing the downward arc, the flow of society or the flow of mankind down step by step by step by step.

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We have this, therefore, and God gave them over. God gave them over. God gave them over. In verse 26, for this reason,

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God gave them over to degrading passions for their women, exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural.

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And in the same way, also, the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another.

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But this is already after idolatry. So it's just like one step after another after another, and they just go further and further and further into the abyss, as it were.

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But, yeah, Pam. Yes, he did deal with sexual lust.

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Again, I just don't think we won't find a lot of teaching about that particular issue because it's not something that people would have been, so to use the vernacular, out of the closet about.

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They just wouldn't have. That's just not something they would have done. What did he do? He exhorted people to faithfulness in their marriage.

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He condemned them for sins of the heart. So, yeah. But the whole idea of homosexuals in leadership is absurd.

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I mean, it's just biblically untenable. Absolutely, great point,

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Bob. Yeah, it was a big problem in the Roman culture at large, just not in the

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Jewish community. Okay, so Roman numeral number two. What is the function of the local church?

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Let's look at Ephesians 4, 11 and 12. Ephesians 4, verses 11 and 12.

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And who has that? Daniel. Okay.

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So what can we learn from that about what the function of the church is? Jesus gave the church certain gifts.

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For what purpose? Equipping of the saints for the work of service.

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They're the ones who are supposed to do the work of service, the ministry.

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Right? We prepare, Pastor Dave, Pradeep, Mike, we prepare you to do the work of service, the ministry, the actual, you know.

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Here's the picture. If the four of us, if we included all the deacons, if the, how many deacons are there, 11?

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If the 11 of us had to evangelize the entire area, that would be probably more than we could do.

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Now, if we equip everybody here to do that, that's a lot more effective. What is the function of the local church?

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It's not, here's what it isn't, to have a place to check off Sunday attendance. What do

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I mean by that, Carmen? Yeah, it's not a to -do list, it's not a religious duty, it's not just a thing so that you can come here on Sunday, you can visit the building, you can fulfill your obligation and go about your work.

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We're not to be Sunday -only Christians. The function of the local church is to do the work of the ministry, to evangelize the lost, to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

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The function of the local church, it is not a place to attract seekers. It's the exact opposite of that.

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We just said that it is equip you for the work of ministry. We come here to hear the word taught.

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The pastors, elders come here to teach the word. So, if unbelievers come here and they sit here, we welcome them.

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But the function of the church is not to gather in all the lost, to have them come here, have their ears tickled or whatever.

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I mean, if people come here and they go, Oh, you know, I couldn't understand that. Okay. I don't have a problem with that.

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Come back next week and we'll see how you do. Well, I didn't understand that either. We'll keep coming back. And someday we'll pray that the

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Lord will open up your ears that you might understand it. How many seekers are there, by the way?

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Everybody says none. How many seekers are there? Paul says one and Paul is right.

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There is one seeker. What did Jesus say? I've come to seek and save that which was lost.

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God seeks, but there is no single person. There is no man who seeks after God.

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Roman numeral number three. What should a church service contain? We'll get to the rest of it here in a minute.

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But first of all, there are two ordinances. And obviously, we like to have a baptism every week. That would be really nice.

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Every Sunday a baptism. Good motto, except for we'd probably have to baptize some people three or four weeks in a row.

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Who's on baptism duty today? Charlie, you got that? Yes. Okay, Charlie being baptized again. We don't do that.

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Would be nice, though. It is the first step of obedience. First step of obedience.

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Let's look at Acts 2 .38. Something tells me I'm not going to... I think that was the best one.

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I think this is a controversial passage. All right. I'm just mumbling to myself.

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Oh, yeah, there it is. Acts 2 .38. Who has that? Paul. Okay, so what's just happened here in Acts 2?

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A lot has just happened. We have the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit rushing on the believers there.

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And so they were able to speak in the languages of all these people who were gathered. We're talking about this

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Thursday night, who were gathered literally from all around, from Asia Minor, from out in Mesopotamia, from down in Egypt, all the areas surrounding

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Israel. And they'd come in because there were three times a year where all the Jews were to come into Jerusalem.

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And so they were there. And all of a sudden, here are these... With all apologies to any

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Galileans we might have here this morning. All these dopey Galileans who are speaking in known languages to the people who had come into this area.

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And they're going, wait a second. These Galileans should not be able to speak to us in our languages. They're dumb.

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These are dopey fishermen. How can they do this? Well, it was an act of God, and it prepared the way for Peter to preach the gospel to them.

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And so then he said, or they said, brethren, what shall we do? Peter said, repent, be baptized.

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So, turn away from your sins, receive Christ, be baptized. That is the issue.

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Now, when you get baptized, does that wash away your sins? Is that for the forgiveness of your sins?

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As it might say there, really didn't come prepared to talk about the four...

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Let's see. Oh, prepositions. But it's more like, each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ because of the baptism, or because of the forgiveness of your sins.

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So, in other words, it doesn't... The preposition there would not suggest that being baptized will cause the forgiveness of your sins because that would be a work.

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That's not what we do. Verse 41 says,

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So then those who had received his word were baptized, and that day there were added 3 ,000 souls.

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Pretty good sermon. Not a bad day's work there.

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Baptism is the first step of obedience, and it is for believers only. I just read that.

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We don't baptize unbelievers. There's no place where it says, take your babies and baptize them.

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I mentioned it before, but one of the early

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Ligonier conferences we went to was in Los Angeles, and R .C.

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Sproul had wanted to baptize, or wanted to baptize, wanted to debate John MacArthur. He wanted to baptize

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John MacArthur. He wanted to debate John MacArthur about infant baptism.

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He'd already debated one man and felt like he did very well, and so he wanted to baptize.

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He wanted to debate John MacArthur. I'm really stuck on the baptism thing this morning. He wanted to debate

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John MacArthur, and so John said, yes, I'll debate on one condition, and that's that I get to go first.

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And so John went on for about an hour, and R .C. got up and kind of chuckled and said, well, now that my good friend,

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John MacArthur, has explained why the Bible doesn't teach infant baptism, let me tell you why

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I believe it anyway. That was not the best opening statement ever.

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But he liked to have that one back. Let's talk about what the word means, baptize, baptizo.

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Let's see there, you've got it in your Greek font right there, baptizo. You'll cherish that forever.

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It means to dip. Picture the dying, not killing, but dying, you know,

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D -Y -E, dying, of clothing, lowering a bucket into a well.

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Well, you don't sprinkle a bucket into a well. You don't sprinkle a garment unless you're doing some funky kind of tie -dye thing.

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The idea would have been to immerse it entirely into a fluid.

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So when the idea of baptizing means to dip somebody completely under the water, and I have to, while I'm talking, even turn to this passage to see if this is what

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I think it is. I hope it is. I hope my notes are better than I think they are. It is, what does it mean?

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What does it mean to be baptized? It is strictly a matter of obedience and identification with Christ.

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Would somebody read Romans 10 .9, please? Romans 10 .9. Where is baptism in that verse?

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Nowhere. Yeah, it's in the white spaces. So it is strictly a matter of obedience and identification with Christ.

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It is a public declaration that I want to be known as a Christian. That's why we don't do, you know, secret baptisms.

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It is to be a public event. You make a public profession, a proclamation, a declaration of being in Christ.

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Again, there is no mention of baptism being necessary for salvation in Colossians 2 .12.

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Now, I do want to say a couple of words about infant baptism. And I was hoping my notes had this verse right.

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So, what about infant baptism? Let's look at John 3 .23. Oh, I'll never forget the day

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I came across this. And I just, you know, it's not very often that you're reading the Bible and you just start chuckling. But this struck me as pretty funny.

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And I don't know. It's probably just me. John 3 .23. I'll go ahead and read this. John also was baptizing an anon near Salim because there was much water there and people were coming and being baptized and were being baptized.

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Now, why does that make me chuckle? There was much water.

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How much water do you need to sprinkle people? I mean, you could go out there with a couple goat skins and just, you know, run it all around the desert, right?

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Water was a vital commodity there. John was also baptizing in a specific area because there was much water there.

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Not so he could sprinkle a lot of people at one time. You know, he didn't have some kind of, this wasn't fire hose baptism.

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He was dunking people. There was a lot of water there. And he goes, you know, this is a good place to baptize people. A lot of water.

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Yes, Fred. Yeah, and I would agree completely with that.

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I mean, you know, people say, what about Luther? And I go, what about Luther? I think Luther had bigger fights to fight than infant baptism.

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And we'll certainly see that in a few minutes here that he had a few erroneous conclusions,

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I think. But yeah, talking about, they would do this ritual baptism and it was symbolic of like a rededication kind of thing.

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I mentioned this quite a while ago when I was preaching at First Peter that Cappadocia, a place that's mentioned in First Peter early on, and it's a mountainous community.

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In fact, the rock formations there are so unusual that they actually carved their homes in the side of these mountains.

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I mean, it's pretty weird. I saw a History Channel thing on it a couple of years ago. And now they've excavated a bunch of it and they go in there and they actually had very sophisticated kind of air conditioning and all this venting and everything going on.

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And they were so persecuted for their faith because they were Christians that they put everything, not only in the mountains, but they tended to go underground and fairly deeply underground.

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And so they found some churches in Cappadocia. And one of the interesting things to me is they had baptismal fonts.

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And guess what? They weren't just places where you could lay a little baby. They were big enough to be, you know, to submerge adults in.

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So, Daniel. Yeah.

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I mean, well, I don't think Fred's saying that... I don't want to speak for Fred, but in other words, there's a debate about whether, you know, standing in the water and having somebody dump water over your head is a legitimate form of baptism.

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Charlie, do you want to speak to that? Well, it was like they got sprinkled.

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That's right. Yeah, the thief on the cross was, you know, was not baptized.

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Let me ask Mr. Roman Catholic apologist here, Brian Casey. Do the Catholics say anything about the thief on the cross?

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Yeah. Michael. You know what?

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I will look forward to reading your doctoral thesis on that one. So... I have no idea.

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Yeah, I couldn't tell you. I really couldn't. Fred. Right.

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Good. Yeah, so to get back to Daniel's original question. You know, some people may not do it that way.

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Some people still sprinkle. There are a lot of different things. The question is, what does the word mean versus what traditions have kind of sprung up?

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I will tell you this, that infant baptism, if you go back and study church history, really wasn't mentioned until about 180

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A .D. and really wasn't popularized until about 220 or so A .D. So it's really a late...

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I mean, it doesn't seem late to us, but if you think the last apostle probably died about 95

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A .D., you know, so then it's about 100 years later that infant baptism comes into vogue.

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So really kind of a late starting tradition there. Many traditions have crept up.

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We're going to talk about another one here in a minute. Traditions aren't inspired, in spite of what some churches might teach.

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Traditions are traditions. They're faulty sometimes. Okay. Okay.

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Repent and be baptized is the command. Oh, first repent and believe. Mark 115.

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Yes, Pam. Good question.

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What benefit would R .C. or other Presbyterians say comes about through infant baptism?

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They say that that makes you a child of the covenant. They believe.

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They would not say it is a means. It doesn't guarantee your salvation if you're baptized as a baby, but they would say that that brings you within the covenant, and I don't even know.

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I don't want to use the term make it more likely, but they would still say that you need to prove out.

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In other words, that doesn't make you a Christian. However, think about this. It does make you a member of the church, which is problematic.

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Bruce. So then you could be, if you're baptized, you go to church.

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You could take communion. Who was to say you weren't a Christian? Imagine you combine those things and congregational rule, and what do you wind up with?

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Well, you said it. I didn't. I mean, you end up with a lot of problems, Pastor Dave. Right.

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I mean, there almost is a contradiction, because certainly

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Presbyterians believe in election, and so the concept that infant baptism somehow,

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I mean, it's hard to even frame it in biblical language, but somehow makes it more likely or increases the chances of them being saved.

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You just go, well, that doesn't seem consistent. So they wouldn't exactly say that. I mean, it's kind of confusing, but a great point you made about how they equate, they make the same circumcision of the

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Old Testament being assigned with the New Testament baptism, and that's one of the justifications they have for it, and they also say, well,

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I'll get to the other point that they say here in a minute, but if you just take that, I think it's rather odd for a number of reasons, not to get too graphic, but the

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Old Testament, you would circumcise little boys, so logically to me, in the New Testament, you would just baptize little boys, but they baptize little boys and little girls, so I'm not really sure how that works, but yeah, that is the comparison they make.

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You know, that is the sign of the covenant. You know, some problems again, because just as all

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Israel was not the true Israel, just because you were circumcised didn't mean you were a believer in the Old Testament, just because you're baptized doesn't mean you're going to become a believer in the

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New Testament, and so you wind up with unbelievers in the church, and then what? You know, at what point do you go,

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I mean, they chide us over the age of responsibility. At what age can a child get baptized?

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Well, there's no age given in the Bible, so here's my question. Kind of reverse it. At what age do you kick somebody out of the church for not being a believer?

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You know, you let them in. They're not a believer. They live their lives in a pattern of sin. They're never repentant.

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Do you just let them stay in the church forever? Well, that wouldn't be in keeping with Matthew 18, would it?

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So, you know, a guy gets to be 12, 13, 18, 20, 30.

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Wouldn't you say, you know what? You're not a believer. You don't even profess to be a believer, and we're going to kick you out of the church.

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I mean, and just, you know, just keeping with how Presbyterian churches, you know, baptize everybody.

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I mean, imagine that. They would have to have, what, 20, 30, 40 excommunications a week, a month.

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I don't know, you know. Okay, this week, the excommunicated parties are, you know. That would be pretty tough.

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Okay, we're going to Mark 1, 15. Before I so rudely interrupted myself. Let's read 14 and 15.

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Who has 14 and 15? Daniel, go ahead. Okay.

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Interesting, because what's the first thing Jesus said? He said, repent and believe.

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He didn't say be baptized, then believe. It's always repent and believe.

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We need to turn from relying on ourselves and place our faith in Christ and him alone.

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Repent and be baptized, we already kind of talked about that. What about households? Because this is another argument for Presbyterians.

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Let's look at Acts 16, 15. In fact, we're going to back up just a little bit here so we can get more of the, yeah.

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Let's read 14, starting in 14. Who has that? Go ahead, Pastor. Yeah. Okay, now it says, her and her household had been baptized.

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And they would say, well, you know what? Household could include children. Yep, certainly.

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But, I mean, just because a household would include children doesn't mean, or could include children, doesn't mean that it necessarily did.

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I mean, there's nothing here that would compel us to say infant baptism is legitimate.

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These could be kids who are old enough to hear. There could be no children at all. This could just simply mean her and her servants, the other people in her household.

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We can't really say. Let's look at verse 33 of Acts 16.

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Yeah, exactly. There's nothing that says that there are children there or that the children weren't believers, if there were any children there.

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In fact, we're going to have to back up a little bit more here. I'll start reading in 25, talking about the

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Philippian jailer. But about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God.

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And the prisoners were listening to them. And suddenly there came a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken.

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And immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened. When the jailer awoke and saw the prison doors opened, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped.

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But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.

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And he called for lights and rushed in. And trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas.

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And after he brought them out, he said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

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This is every pastor... Well, actually, it should be every Christian's dream to have somebody come up to you and say,

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What must I do to be saved? Verse 31, they said,

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Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. Well, there you go.

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He just has to be saved, and the whole household will be saved, right? Let's keep reading.

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Verse 32, And they spoke the word of the Lord to him, together with all who were in his house.

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And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds. And immediately he was baptized, he and all his household.

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And he brought them into his house and set food before them and rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with his whole household.

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Now there we have a little more clarity. Why? And not just him, but his whole household.

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I mean, it says here, verse 34, And he brought them into his house and set food before them and rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with his whole household.

43:21

The whole household believed. Okay. Yeah.

43:31

Sure. Right.

44:00

That's right. That is absolutely right. And the clear point that I think that we can glean from that second passage there is that we can tell that everybody in this household, everyone that was capable, certainly not animals, but they all became believers and then they were all baptized.

44:23

There's no kind of, well, some of them weren't and we baptized them anyway. There's none of that in there.

44:30

And to read, it's like my Thursday night class about charismatics. I argue, you know what?

44:35

If you have to go, and Pastor Dave is exactly right here. If you have to go to Acts to prove your point, that's the only place in the scripture you can go to prove your point.

44:44

You're pretty much saying that and I don't have a leg to stand on. Because if infant baptism were such a vital necessity, much like if the ongoing nature of speaking in tongues or whatever were such a necessity, do you think

44:59

Paul might have instructed people on how to do it and someone will say, well, 1 Corinthians, he did tell them how to speak in tongues.

45:07

Not exactly. What he did was he put limits on it because that was a church out of control.

45:14

But in any event, I don't want to get into the whole tongues debate right now. What I do want to say is that Pastor Dave is exactly right.

45:23

What we do is we look at the prescriptive scriptures, in other words, the scriptures that tell us what to do.

45:29

Paul writes to Titus and to Timothy and to the different churches and he says, listen, this is how you need to run a church and that's where we get our theology, not from the descriptive passages in Acts, but what we do when we look at Acts and we look at it carefully, we see nothing that violates the idea of repent, believe, then be baptized.

45:54

Not baptized first and hope that they repent and believe. That is not the biblical concept.

46:00

So we will start next week and we have a lot to talk about concerning communion. You might say, well, what's to talk about?

46:06

Oh, believe me. I've got eight pages of notes on communion. So, all right.

46:14

Let's close in prayer. Father, we would thank you for this time this morning.

46:23

We thank you for forgiveness, for sins in your son, Jesus Christ. Lord, we would pray for the rest of our morning, especially want to pray for our pastor that he would be physically able to preach the word and that he would do so with much power and boldness.

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Lord, would you bless the rest of our time here in fellowship, communion around your word. Lord, would you stir our hearts to focus on you, to focus on the greatness of all that you have provided for us.