Sermon: Baptism - As Many As The Lord Our God Shall Call

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Well, it seems like I was just here.

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Some of you may have seen the dividing line this week, and I had Jeff on from Nashville, I think on Wednesday.

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Toward the end, I decided, so Jeff, who's preaching on Sunday? Because I don't know if you noticed a pattern, but Jeff takes a trip,

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Jeff gets sick. Jeff gets sick on trip. I preach Sunday. I get a call on Saturday.

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So I said to him on Wednesday, he said, no, no, no, I'm going to have time on the plane to finish up the last point, and I'm just sitting there going, uh -huh, uh -huh.

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So after we hung up, I said, I think I better have something ready, and got the call. I don't remember if it was

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Friday night or Saturday, but there you go. So I'm very thankful that I'm here.

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Some of you know that that's not going to be the case coming this fall. You'll be doing a lot of traveling, and it's a, the long -term type traveling because it's going to be in a vehicle, like rolling down the road type thing, and so I'm glad to have the opportunity of doing this.

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And I figured, well, last week we finished up with John the

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Baptist, so what's the next thing we need to do? Well, if you go back to where we started in our series on baptism,

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I said what we need to do is we need to define the term carefully. We've done that. We've looked at the background, the history, its use in history, et cetera.

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We need to look at John the Baptizer, and we need to look at his role in the

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New Testament. Did that last week. And so now what we need to do is we need to look at every instance, not today, don't worry,

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I heard some gasps from people who are feverishly fanning away. And I don't understand, if you've been, you know,

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I won't mention anyone, but just talking with somebody who's been, lives here for 35 years, they're going, oh, it's so hot.

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I'm just sort of like, what? I mean, yeah, it's June, but if any of you have

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Facebook, I noticed that on Facebook and Twitter, everybody was reposting memories from like five years ago where you're posting the picture from your phone with how hot it's going to be for the next week.

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It's sort of like, that's June, welcome to Phoenix. That's just how it is. Don't know why we keep getting so excited about it every year, but hey, look, my home thermometer says 123.

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Yeah, I did that five years ago too. It's like, don't worry about it. Anyway, so what we need to do is we need to look at each and every instance of baptism taking place in the

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New Testament, and that doesn't actually take forever, but we need to look at them carefully, and then look at the specific teaching on the subject, because there are a few passages that bring this out.

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Sometimes it's mentioned in passing, sometimes it's the focus, and then look at our own history, our confessions of faith, and then obviously once we're done with all that, look at the specific controversies that exist between ourselves and our other

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Reformed brethren, most of which don't think we're actually Reformed because they disagree on this subject anyways, but… and that's how we'll wrap things up.

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So obviously it'll take a little more time than the Lord's Supper series did, but that is understandable.

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So when you consider the first baptisms after the resurrection of Jesus, we already know after the resurrection

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Jesus commands His disciples to go out into all the world, making disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.

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So we know the Great Commission. We know the commandment is to baptize them.

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So this is central to what it means to be a Christian. If you are a follower of Christ but you have not been baptized,

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I'm not sure what New Testament you're reading, because it's plain that the very first thing that takes place when people profess faith in Jesus Christ is they are baptized.

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This is Jesus' command, this is the apostolic command, and so as we think about the book of Acts, and we think about what happens in the book of Acts, what happens when the

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Spirit comes on the day of Pentecost? Well, what you have, just looking at it in an overarching fashion in Acts chapter 2, is the disciples come forth, they are proclaiming the

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Word of God, and they are doing so to a primarily Jewish audience.

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When we look at the book of Acts, there is going to be a transitionary point in the eighth chapter where the

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Lord begins this process of pushing the early church out of their comfort zone.

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It is a Jewish church at the start, but the

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Lord's going to very supernaturally – I mean, think about it. You have

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Philip, and Philip gets to use the very first transporter. Now, if you're not a

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Trekkie, you don't know what a transporter is, but there seems to be a miracle that takes place where Philip is supernaturally transported from one place to another just so he can proclaim the

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Gospel to a man who's going into a far land that's not a Jewish nation. And then, once it comes time to get

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Peter involved in this, God does the outdoor film thing where he's dropping the big old sheet out of heaven and giving him divine revelation from God saying, don't call that which

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I have called clean, unclean, to break him out of his traditions. God has to do some pretty supernatural stuff to start pushing these

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Jewish believers out of the comfort zone that is theirs in only going to Jewish people.

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But in, on the day of Pentecost, this is a primarily

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Jewish audience. We don't have any evidence of non -Jews being involved here. And so you have the apostles coming forth, and they are speaking in foreign languages.

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They are understood. No one's sitting there going, what's going on? Now, there are people who don't understand some of those languages, but there are other people there that do.

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They are foreign languages that are being spoken. The Word of God is being proclaimed in all these languages that would represent the people who are in Jerusalem to worship.

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And what's fascinating to me is if we look very, very carefully at the sermon in Acts chapter 2, we get a very good indication of what verses it was that Jesus went over with the apostles after His resurrection, demonstrating that from Moses through all the prophets, they spoke about Him.

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So if you just take a look at that, those first few sermons, you see all these Old Testament passages, including the one we just had read from Psalm 89, are used by the apostles in proclaiming to a

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Jewish audience a rather stunning message. A stunning message.

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And so, turn back with… turn with me to Acts chapter 2, and let's look back, beginning at verse 29.

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So it's in the middle of the sermon. It would be well worth doing the whole sermon, but this is a series on baptism, so Acts 2 29, "'Brethren,

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I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.

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And so because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants upon his throne, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the

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Christ, or the Messiah, the Anointed One, that he was neither abandoned to Hades nor did his flesh suffer decay.

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This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.'"

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So immediately, the centrality of the resurrection to the

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Christian message is being proclaimed. This Jesus God raised up again.

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And we are all witnesses to this resurrection.

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Now, to the Jews that seemed strange, because even those who believed in the common understanding of the

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Pharisees that there would be a day of resurrection, a judgment, that was still in the future. This is breaking things up.

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This is… this is bringing about resurrection before they expected it to be. But even more so, the idea that the

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Mashiach, the Messiah, the Christos, the Christ, the one they've been looking for, had to be raised from the dead.

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Why? Because he had been crucified at the insistence of themselves.

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The Jewish people had crucified their own

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Messiah. And here you have men saying,

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God raised him up again, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore, having been exalted, verse 33, to the right hand of God.

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Now, notice this phrase here. Mark it well. And having received from the

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Father the promise of the Holy Spirit. Having received from the

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Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured forth this which you both see and hear.

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Now, we could develop this much more, but please make a note. Notice the Trinitarian character of this proclamation.

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Jesus is exalted to the right hand of God, and he is received from God, that is,

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God the Father, the promise of the Holy Spirit. John 14, 15, 16 lays this out very, very clearly.

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He's received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, and it is Jesus now who has poured forth this which you both see and hear, that is, this miraculous promise of proclamation of what

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God has done in a manner so that everyone in Jerusalem, not just those who can understand

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Aramaic, not just those who can understand Greek, but those who come from other lands can hear the message of the gospel.

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This is a supernatural event, and it is being brought about by the Holy Spirit of God.

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For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says, the

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Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies a footstool for thy feet. Oh, my.

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Psalm 110 .1, God's favorite Bible verse in the very first sermon of the early church after the resurrection, exaltation of Christ within the

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Trinitarian context, very much a consistent reading of the text.

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Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both

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Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucify. Now, unfortunately,

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Acts chapter 2 is normally read by us in the

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West, and we are never challenged to put ourselves into the minds of the

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Jewish people who know the Hebrew Scriptures, they know the promises, they know the covenants, and very rarely are we put in the position of having to hear what they heard.

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And therefore, this text is so very often applied to all sorts of modern things and modern situations that Peter would have had no understanding of or would have gone, no, you're, you're really missing my point.

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So I've heard verse 36, but notice it says, therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him the one that only a matter of days before their leaders and their people had been crying out, crucify him, let his blood be upon us and upon our children.

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God has made him both Kurios and Christos, Lord, the very word used for the name of God in the

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Old Testament, and Mashiach, the Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.

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Not whom they crucified, whom you crucified. Can you imagine?

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We know the Holy Spirit is active. The Holy Spirit is giving utterance in various languages of this message.

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So that the whole house of Israel can know for certain what God is doing, and therefore that Spirit pierces them to the heart and they all of a sudden understand they, the people of Israel, have crucified the very one that the

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Scriptures had prophesied was coming to be their deliverer. What kind of judgment must fall as a result of this?

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They well know. They well know. This is a proclamation.

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This resurrection proves that this man whom they crucified is

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Lord and Messiah. Because he has been exalted to the right hand of God in resurrection itself.

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What a message. What a message. Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart.

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This wasn't just a certain level of conviction, but there was, there was a recognition on their part that they were guilty.

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And they said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, brethren, what shall we do?

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And so often, if you're from down south, you probably know the church of Christ.

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And you know, these guys, they can have a three -night debate, three hours a night on one verse,

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Acts 238. Just one verse. They really can. But almost never, when you look at the question that is asked, is it placed in a meaningful context?

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It's not, what shall we do to get ourselves saved in a modern

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Western idea? What do I need to do to get my ticket punched? What do

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I need to do to get into the good club? These are people under conviction of having murdered the

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Messiah they were looking for. All the curses of Deuteronomy 28 and 29 are flying through their minds.

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All the history of what God has done in bringing judgment on Judah and Israel is right there in front of them.

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And when they say, what shall we do? You shouldn't be sitting there thinking that what they're, they're, they're gonna get back is, well, step

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A, then step B. They're simply going, what can we do? We killed the

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Anointed One. It's almost a rhetorical question. What could we possibly do?

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We are guilty. The judgment is ours. Brethren, what shall we do?

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And so the answer given in verse 38 is not, well, this is how you get baptismal regeneration going on.

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Peter is responding to people who do not think he is going to have anything to say to them other than get ready for the judgment, boys.

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You're doomed. But that's not what Peter says. He says, repent and that each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you shall receive the gift of the

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Holy Spirit. Now, you, it is hard for us to realize what this would have meant in the ears of these individuals.

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They are expecting absolute judgment and they accept that that's what we should get.

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Instead, they get repent, turn, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

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Now, we are so used to using the phrase Jesus Christ. In fact, sadly, we hear it in our society all the time as a swear word.

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But you need to realize Christ is not Jesus' last name.

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What he's saying is, let each one of you be baptized into the name of Jesus, the

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Messiah, who has been exalted to the right hand of the Father in heaven.

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Let each one of you be publicly identified with him, the one that there may have been men in that crowd that had both been there when

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Jesus came into Jerusalem, Hosanna, Hosanna, as well as only a matter of hours later, crucify him, give us

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Barabbas. And what

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Peter says, identify yourself, be baptized publicly into the name of Jesus, the

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Messiah. You must be identified with him.

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You shunned him once, but you have been granted the grace and the opportunity to repent.

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And having repented to be baptized into the name of Jesus, the historical figure they knew, the rabbi from Galilee, the

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Messiah, for the forgiveness of your sins.

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How many of them could have even dreamed that they could have forgiveness for the sin they committed as being a part of the very betrayal and crucifixion of the

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Messiah? For the forgiveness of your sins. Peter isn't talking about baptismal regeneration or anything of the kind.

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He's talking to Jews who think they have no hope. And he's saying you do. You do.

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Let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the

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Holy Spirit. What? We, we will…

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What we're seeing here, this miraculous thing where you're, you're speaking in these different languages and you're opening the

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Scriptures and you're proclaiming the Messiah. We get to get in on that? Yes.

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Repent, be baptized, be forgiven, receive the gift of the

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Holy Spirit. Remember earlier, Jesus has received the gift, the promise, and he's now pouring the

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Spirit out, triune action of God, and you shall receive the gift of the

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Holy Spirit. There's gonna be no distinction. We're not gonna be better Christians than you because we weren't calling for Jesus to be crucified.

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And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now, just briefly, who's being baptized?

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People who've repented and people who will then receive the Holy Spirit of God.

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We know… What would baptize have meant? Well, we've already established that. We've looked at meeting the

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Word. We just looked at John's baptism. Baptisms were taking place.

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The Jordan River, water, immersion. So there's really no question here.

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He's not saying repent and let each of you be sprinkled in the name of Jesus Christ.

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That's not what they would have understood. Instead, he's talking to people who have an understanding of what it means to be baptized into the name of Jesus Christ.

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But then, of course, the key issue, verse 39.

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Now, if you've not had the joyous experience of debating baptism in a

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Facebook group, which is the new definition of what tribulation means.

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All that stuff from Jerusalem and all the Tim LaHaye stuff and…

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No, that's nothing compared to the tribulation of baptism… Of debating baptism on Facebook. That is a crusade in and of itself.

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If you've not had that opportunity, then you may wonder why verse 39 is so important.

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But it is. But it is. So, his answer continues,

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And with many other words, he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, be saved from this perverse generation.

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Now, lest I forget, he said, When we think of perverse generation, maybe you don't, but when

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I hear that, in my background I have the idea of, well, you know, this generation filled with lots and lots of sinners who are doing perverse things, sort of like what we're seeing in our society today and things like that.

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That's not what it would have meant here. Instead, when you look at Jesus' own words, as we have seen very carefully in Matthew chapter 24, this generation is that generation that's going to see

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God's judgment fall upon it in the destruction of Jerusalem. He's addressing

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Jews here. Be saved from this perverse generation.

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This generation that is claiming to be so close to God and claiming to be so zealous for God, but it's perverse.

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It's so perverse, it crucified the Messiah. God came in the person of His Son, and they committed the unpardonable sin.

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He's casting out demons by Beelzebub. Perverse generation. Be saved from this perverse generation.

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You can't just continue in it, you can't just continue on as things have been. Be saved from this perverse generation.

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But, verse 39, for the promise. Well, what would this promise involve?

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Well, we saw the promise earlier. He had received the promise, pouring out of the

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Holy Spirit. You can go back to Ezekiel, the whole beauty of the new covenant.

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For the promise is for whom? Now, I'll be perfectly honest.

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I'm not trying to be unduly harsh, but in my experience, interacting with those who call themselves

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Reformed, as I do, fully understanding that there are many Reformed who will not allow me to be

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Reformed. These days, the Reformed Baptists don't want me to be a Reformed Baptist.

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Whatever. But in my interaction with Reformed Pato Baptists, those who are convinced that the normative practice of the church is to baptize infants, when they quote

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Acts 2 .39, they quote it partially. I cannot tell you how many times in my hearing, either listening to lectures, listening to sermons, listening to debates, or in personal conversation, in their mind,

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Acts 2 .39 says the promise is for you and your children. Now, we love our

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Presbyterian brothers. We truly do. And in many ways, we share more of the

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Christian worldview and the desire to see the

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Kingdom of Christ extend in this world with solid, Reformed Pato Baptist brethren than we do with many

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Baptists who just think we should just crawl into a hole and, and wait for it all to end, and who are not

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Reformed in our understanding of the sovereignty of God. But I'm simply telling you, brethren, listen to yourselves.

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How many times do you quote Acts 2 .39 and your thoughts and your quotation stop by saying for the promise is for you and your children?

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And hence the idea, the, the interpretation, the understanding is this promise related to baptism is for you and your children.

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Now, most of them will not go to the point of actually trying to argue that in this particular setting, infants were baptized.

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The fundamental argument is that is going to develop as the normative function of the church over time.

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This is an unusual time, and it is. This is an unusual time. You don't have

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Christian families yet in that sense. But the idea is the promise is for you and your children.

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Be baptized. Now, the problem, of course, is if you take it in that way, then that would be the same promise that includes the command to repent.

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And so repentance becomes something that you have to do after baptism at a later point, unless you end up adopting a concept of baptismal regeneration.

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And some of my paedo -baptist brethren almost get there. There are books out there like the one by Pierre Marcel that literally say that infant baptism removes the effect of original sin and brings you back to a sort of moral neutral point.

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That ain't what Peter was saying. And so if you want to talk about this promise, the promise that was just enunciated is if you will repent and be baptized, you'll receive forgiveness of your sins and you'll receive the gift of the

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Holy Spirit. That's the promise of the outpouring of the

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Spirit upon the people of God. But that's only upon the people of God.

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And so one of the dangers that I have seen over the years is the idea that, well, just as in the old covenant, the primary function of election was found within the covenantal people.

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That's the way it's going to be even when the gospel goes out to the whole world. After that initial period of growth, it's going to go back to the old way, where it's pretty much just the children, the covenantal family structure.

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Now, that's led many to a understanding of a concept of infant baptism that in some way, shape, or form it's difficult to see is not confused with regeneration.

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Thankfully, many of my paedo -baptist brethren maintain the effort to call their children to repentance and faith.

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But there are many others who just simply assume that a covenant child is regenerate until they give evidence otherwise.

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And sometimes even when they give evidence otherwise, they continue to believe it. And part of this re… part of the reason for this is hearing, for the promise is for you and your children.

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There's a problem. I was noticing, you all remember last week we prayed for little

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Luke Wybrew. He's doing a whole lot better. The Wybrews aren't here this evening, but I'm sure they're watching.

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And Brother John was getting ready because I told him what I was going to be preaching on and so Nicoletas sent me a picture.

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Brother John had written out these two verses in Greek. And I wish

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I could project it for you to show you what you can see when you look at the original language, but I'll do my best to describe it to you.

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When you look at verse 39, it says, for the promise is to you, then put that on one line.

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The promise is to you. Now put on the next line. Chi, the word and, and to your children, and then the very next word is chi to your children.

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And to all those who are far off.

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There's three lines. They are connected together. They cannot be broken apart. They cannot be separated from one another.

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This promise of the forgiveness of sins and receive the Holy Spirit is to you.

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You may be, be absolutely blown away that despite your guilt and despite the fact that God would, could justly punish you for what you have done in regards to Messiah whom you crucified, this promise is for you and your children.

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Because you see, the covenantal mindset would be we cut off the Messiah, we and our children are doomed.

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Generational curses. We're going to be cut off from God. We're done.

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Peter says, no, this promise is for you. Amazing as that may be.

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And you are not cut off. You and your children, if they repent and are baptized, receive forgiveness of sins and the

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Holy Spirit. And this is the part that disappears.

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For all who are far off. Who's that? Well, there are some commentators who will say that for all who are far off, since this is in a

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Jewish context, refer to all the Jews of the diaspora, the dispersion of the

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Jews as they have been cast out of that land hundreds of years before and they, they're now found in all over the world, at least the known world of the

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Roman Empire. And so there are some who would say, well, all who are far off would refer to the

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Jews of the dispersion. I can't disprove that, but I think there's a much more consistent way of understanding this.

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I think all who are far off is just like when Jesus said I have sheep that are not of this fold,

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I must go and gather them as well. Those who are the far off ones, as we will see when

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Paul, for example, is defending the gospel going to the

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Gentiles, it's the same kind of terminology that's used there when they look to the Old Testament texts that substantiate the gospel going to the

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Gentiles. What are they looking at? Same text. Those who are far off, they'll receive the blessings of Abraham.

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And so I think the best reading is, for the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, three different groups, what is the delimiter?

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What is the delimiter? Well, it says for all who are far off, yes.

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But then you have the last phrase in verse 39, begins with chassus on, chassus on.

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Now, it's the only place where this particular form occurs, but that's because of where it is in the sentence and the genders and how it's functioning and things like that.

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It is an indefinite relative phrase that defines for us the category of the preceding phrases.

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Who in these preceding groups? This last phrase has a verb and it is pros kaleo.

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Kaleo means to call pros to whomever the

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Lord our God calls to Himself. Now, anyone who is

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Reformed should not have to work too hard to hear that verb and to understand what it's saying.

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As many as, as many as of you, as many as of your children, as many as those who are far off, all of them

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Gentiles, as many of them, as many of the Jews, what is the nature of the church in the

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New Testament? It's those that God calls out of Jews and Gentiles into one body.

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Here in the first sermon, there it is. The promise is for you and your children, for all who are far off, as many as the

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Lord our God shall call to Himself. And so whatever you do with this promise, it must be connected to the sovereign calling and decree of God who calls those ones to Himself.

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So this is not just some general call. This is the call of Romans 8. As many as He called, then

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He justified, right? Golden chain. For as many as the

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Lord our God shall call to Himself. Here is divine sovereignty, here is divine election, and it is defining the parameters of what the promise is.

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Yes, it's for you. You are not hopeless. Yes, it's for your children. They have not been cut off.

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And yes, it is for all who are far off, all the way to the ends of the earth.

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As many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself.

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So no matter what you do with Acts 2 .39, you cannot cut the verse in half, you cannot cut off the third group, and you cannot miss the fact that if you're going to take the promise and turn it into something that you do separate from repentance and the forgiveness of sins, you're missing the point.

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And that is why many have gone so far as to develop a theology, and we recognize it is an errant theology, that by baptizing a child, you are bringing them forgiveness of sins.

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This would then become concurrent with the scope of divine election itself. So every baptized child becomes one of the elect?

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Well, they should be. You see what happens when you don't allow the text itself to define its own parameters, its own context.

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Instead, what you have here is something that surely would have taken the breath away from all those who have been pierced to the heart.

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They have come, they have by the Spirit's work come to recognize their absolute guilt before God in the greatest evil that mankind has ever committed.

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The murder of the only innocent man, the only innocent man has ever lived.

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They're not expecting to hear these words of grace. And yet what is the foundation of everything in verses 38 and 39?

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The gracious call of God in election.

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And if you don't believe God elects a certain people into salvation, you're going to end up with a heart attack. Really weird doctrine of baptism.

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It's not going to be consistent. It's not going to be consistent. And so, verse 41, so then, who is baptized?

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It's got to be the question that we ask all the way through Acts as we look at these texts, who was baptized?

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

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Who was baptized? Those who had received his word. Not those whose parents had received his word.

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That's not said. You might, if you want to try to read it in there, it isn't there.

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Just admit you're getting that from someplace else. Those who had received his word were baptized.

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So, when we come to other examples of baptism in Acts and you're not given specific information about those who are baptized, why would you assume that this was the exception and not the standard that's continued on through the rest of the examples?

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Because that's what our paid Baptist brethren have to do. Yeah, okay, on the day of Pentecost, it was those who had received his word.

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It was those who could hear. It was those who could understand. They could understand what the message was.

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They could understand the command to repent. Obviously, there weren't any infants baptized on the day of Pentecost.

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But that changes. That's going to change later on.

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And though, even though in those instances later on, you're still going to have the proclamation of the word, our theology is going to tell us that there were people in the household who were baptized who didn't receive his word.

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But they were because of their covenantal relationship to the ones who were baptized. That's what you're going to be told.

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That's a big leap that requires a huge foundation. And the question we're going to have to be asking ourselves is, has that foundation ever actually been offered?

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Sadly, on the historical level of things, church history tells us that in the first centuries, baptism was viewed in many different ways by many different people.

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There was no one consistent way of understanding how it was to be done. And once it became a formalized tradition, it was seen as a mechanism for the removal of the stain of original sin.

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It was not viewed the way John Calvin viewed it. I don't believe you can actually demonstrate that anyone before John Calvin understood baptism the way

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John Calvin understood baptism. And I say as a person who has huge respect for John Calvin, I also know that John Calvin would have driven me out of Geneva at the best.

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I know that. Ulrich Zwingli would have drowned me. I know that.

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Luther would have chucked me in a hole and let me die. I know that too. Aware of all that, we all need to be aware of that, lest you have just a caricatured view of the

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Reformers. I understand all of that. But I'm stepping back and I want to practice

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Semper Reformanda. I want to practice Sola Scriptura and Tota Scriptura. I'm going to turn the light on and go, what happened in history, what developments led to where Calvin came down and then you have those after him filling out the details, shall we say, into the situation we look at today.

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So then those who had received his word were baptized. The first example we have of baptism after the resurrection of Jesus at the preaching of the gospel involves the baptism of repentant believers who have received his word.

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They have accepted. They have repented. They've embraced Jesus as Messiah. They know what they are doing.

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This is not an act hoping for a future fulfillment.

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There is something that comes first that makes the act representative and meaningful.

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That's your first example. Now, you have not heard me make the argument that therefore since it's the first example, it must determine everything else after that.

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Because I accept the argument this is a unique time period. I accept that. It was. There's lots of stuff that happens in the first chapters of Acts that doesn't happen by the end of Acts.

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I get that. I'm just going to challenge you to show me where who is baptized is included in the, oh, that changed over time part.

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Because I see zero evidence that it ever did. Zero evidence that it ever did.

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All right. So, what do I want to make sure that you remember? Remember verse 39 cannot be chopped up so that the promise is for you and your children and then all those who are far off is just left far off.

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That's just as much a part of the promise group. And all of those three are delimited by, defined by the phrase

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Hasus on as many as what the

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Lord our God shall call to himself. It's all divine sovereignty.

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It's all divine grace. And therefore, the text then tells us those who are baptized were those who received the word.

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Nobody was baptized that day. They did not receive the word. There's no anticipation.

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There's no hope for. It's like no one, no one's saying, well, you know, he doesn't really accept your argument yet, but we hope he will someday.

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Will you baptize him anyways? No. Those who repented, believed, were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

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And they believed that the promise of that forgiveness was found in the apostles and prophets.

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And that promise was grounded in the grace of the Lord our God calling his people to himself.

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Those are the things we need to remember as we look at the first of the instances of baptism in the book of Acts.

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All right, let's pray together. Father, once again, we do thank you for preserving your word and drawing our hearts out to a desire to love that word, to believe that word, to put that word in practice.

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So, Father, we would pray even if there are those amongst us who struggle with this issue, who have had other views presented to them,

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Lord, give us patience to work through these issues, to consider them well, and to honor your word in all things.

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We thank you for this time. We thank you for the gospel. We thank you for the freedom that we continue to have to believe it and preach it.

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May we continue to preach it with boldness while that freedom is ours, and when it's taken away, may we count the cost.

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We do pray for our brothers in Canada who have been arrested.

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One pastor even now who has refused to bow the knee to Caesar, refused the conditions of bail, even just a matter of days before these restrictions are due to be removed, we see

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Caesar in his pettiness, seeking to punish faithful Christian pastors.

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God, bear him up, grant him freedom, protect his people, and Lord, look to those people who are persecuting your church.

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Arise, O Lord, let your message go forth, grant repentance, for all these things in Christ's name, amen.