The Spirit and Power of Elijah, Pt. 2

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Doug Batchelor: Hello, friends, welcome back to Prophecy Odyssey. In our previous episode, we learned that Bible baptism symbolizes the cleansing from sin in a person's life and the new birth. Today we're going to continue our eye-opening study of baptism, and we're going to examine how Jesus, who's our example, was baptized and that his baptism identifies with his death, burial, and resurrection. Remember, if you'd like to deepen your Bible learning experience, then check out the Prophecy Odyssey Bible lessons and our free offer. We'll tell you more about how to get those resources later in the program. So, for now, thank you for watching and God bless, as you continue your Prophecy Odyssey adventure.

Doug: So a friend was telling me that in Northern California, he was baptizing, and this Spanish gentleman came to him and he said, "I need to get baptized. I've lived a pretty wicked life", and so he got baptized in a lake and the family was on the shore, big family watching. He went out a ways into the water where it was deep enough for him to get baptized and just before he got baptized, he said, "Pastor, I need you to do me a favor." He says, "I've just been out there living for the devil." He said, "When you baptize me, hold me under for a minute." He said, "Don't worry," he says, "You know, I swim, I can hold my breath a long time." He says, "I just want to have a little prayer while I'm under the water," and of course, no one in the family knew this was going to happen. So, he said, "Yes, when I'm done praying, I'll give your hand a little squeeze," and he said, "You bring me up." And so, Pastor, you know, he says, "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit."

He put him under. And the family on the shore, they're like going--I don't mean to belittle the importance, but, you know, life is interesting. Angels laugh, I think sometimes. Amen. And then he got done, he squeezed his hand, he brought him back up again. But he knew, he understood that when a baby is born--you ever been at a birth where they're trying to get the baby to breathe, and they take that first breath, and it's a sign, and that baby cries and breathes, and everyone's going, "Praise God." New life, they're breathing on their own and so it represents the death of the old person and the birth of a new person, so it's like not only a resurrection, it's like the new birth, being born again.

Number 8, how important is baptism biblically? Now I touched on this, but let's look at some of the verses. These are the words of Jesus. John chapter 3 verse 5, Christ said: "Unless one is born of the water and of the Spirit, he--" what? "--CANNOT enter the kingdom of heaven." How many want to enter the kingdom of heaven? Now you need to be born of the Spirit. And a lot of pastors will go out and they'll baptize people, they'll come back and someone will say, "How many were baptized?" They don't ever say how many were born of the Spirit. But you need more, both.

Now, being born of the water is talking about water baptism. There are some churches that say that means when a woman is pregnant and the water breaks, you're born of the water. And they say that's born of the water, but you also--that would be, why would Jesus say that? The whole context of this is in John the Baptist and baptizing people. I mean, let me see, how many of you out there were born of a woman? Just checking. These days, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on that I don't understand, but I mean in the old school everybody's born of a woman, so why would Jesus say, "Unless you're born of a woman and born of the spirit," well, the first part's easy, right? He's not talking about born of the woman, he's saying, "Unless you're born of the water baptism, you get to choose to be baptized and born of the Spirit." God chooses when to pour out the spirit unless you have both.

Now, let me explain this: some people are baptized with the Holy Spirit before water baptism. Have you read Acts chapter 10? Cornelius and his family, Peter's preaching, and the Holy Spirit falls upon their Italian soldiers and his servants and their Gentiles. Holy Spirit falls on them, and Peter says, "Wow, you're getting ahead of the game. You should also be baptized in water." Jesus is baptized by the Holy Spirit and water at the same time. The apostles are baptized by John the Baptist, but they're not baptized by the Holy Spirit until Pentecost. So, God chooses when that's going to happen, but you want your heart to be open to that. And one more thing about the baptism of the Spirit, or maybe two more things.

The Holy Spirit comes in different degrees. You all have the Holy Spirit right now, or you wouldn't be here. The Holy Spirit convicts the sinners of their sin. The Holy Spirit works in your heart to guide you, but there's a special filling of the Holy Spirit that comes, and God, when you decide to live the Christian life, you need extra power. Because you're in enemy territory, right? God's not going to give weapons to his enemies. He gives weapons to his allies. And so, once you commit your life to the Lord, He promises a special filling of the Spirit and God gives more of the Spirit, when you need more help. Some of you saying, "I don't know how I'm going to make it through the last days, I don't have enough faith." Well, you don't need it yet, but when you get there, He'll give it to you. Amen. Jesus says, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." And so, God, where sin abounds, grace abounds.

God will give you more as you need more. Why did He pour out the Holy Spirit at Pentecost? Because Jesus said, "I want you to go to the world." They needed a baptism of the Holy Spirit in a special way. All right. Little another. I told you one verse, here's another one. How important is it? Mark chapter 16:16. Jesus speaking here. "He who believes and is baptized will be SAVED; but he who does not believe will be condemned."

All right, number nine. What blessed ceremony can be compared to baptism? The Bible says, "For as many of you--" this is Galatians 3:27, "--for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have PUT ON Christ." The Bible often compares it to a marriage where a bride puts on her wedding garment. Now this is a perfect analogy and let me explain why. Sometimes a person will come to me, and they say, "Pastor Doug. You know, I'm really struggling with smoking right now, but I think if you could baptize me, I could quit." And I go, "No, no, no. God will give you the Holy Spirit to quit before." They came to John the Baptist. They said, "What do we need to do?" He said, "Bring forth fruits, meat for repentance, and then I'll baptize you."

Repentance and turning away from sin happens first. What would you think? This is a question especially for the ladies, because they get it right away. If a guy you're dating, so when you're not married, he comes to you and says, "I love you and I'd like to marry you, and I think, if you would marry me, I could stop dating the other girls." How many of you would accept that proposal? Oh, you're crazy. You got to stop dating them first, so you stop dating the devil before you get baptized. God will break the chains and set you free.

You repent, you turn from your sins and then you come, and you get baptized. Amen. And then I meet people, and they say, "You know, I read about baptism, it's clearly biblical. I'm not so sure that I want to follow Jesus, but, you know, I think if you'd baptize me, I would love Him," and that's kind of like a guy coming to a girl and saying, "You know, I don't really love you yet, but if we get married, I think it would happen." As though the wedding ceremony is going to make the difference, the baptism ceremony is not going to make you love Jesus.

Now I have seen people come out of the water after baptism, and they are smiling from ear to ear and jumping up and down because their faith, they know their sins are washed away, they know they have eternal life. They definitely feel something because of their faith, not because of the water. See, and so it's like marriage; marriage is a covenant. And when two people get married, they have special rights. You might hold hands and hug and kiss a little, don't do too much. Or you know Mother Nature will get you carried away.

These days, let's face it, friends, the morals are not the same. It used to be like, you know, on television, Lucy and Desi slept in their separate beds. I mean, things were different. Now sex is like shaking hands on television. And so Christ said, "In the last days, love would grow cold." But it used to be that you didn't have certain rights until you had the covenant and you had the ceremony and it was often public.

Baptisms, now I've been to countries where if you get baptized in public, you're killed. I've been to countries where they need to do it with some secrecy or you just--they execute you. But in most cases, you want your wedding to be public. Ladies, what would you think? If a guy came to you and said, "You know, I love you and I'd like to marry you, but do we have to tell everybody about this?" Wouldn't that be a dubious proposal? You'd say, "Aren't you wanting to tell everybody?" Karen got upset with me because I invited everybody to our wedding. She said, "You know, we got to pay for that." I was so excited. I said, "Hey y'all, come on." I went to all my evangelistic meetings and invited everybody to our wedding. We had a big wedding. It was expensive too. So, you know, but you want people to know because you love someone, right?

Number ten. What command did Jesus give to His people just before He ascended to heaven? Was it a priority? Jesus said, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, BAPTIZING them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." How important is baptism to Jesus? The last words of Christ, as he ascends to heaven, he says, "Go, teach, baptize." By the way. Do you have to know everything before you get baptized? You'll never be ready. Because you need to know everything about a person before you get married? But you ought to know something, right? There's a risk, you know, some people wait until they know everything. They never propose, and girls say, "Look, we've been dating six years. Either you get with it or we're- I'm out of here," right? I mean, at some point you got to say--and he's going, "But I'm waiting to get to know you a little better." No, you know, how long does that take? So, there's going be a time where you kind of know, but you don't want to be like, you know, Dennis Rodman gets married in Las Vegas and he looks at the person and said, "Now, who are you? Oh, we got married last night." Those weddings don't do very good, right?

And so, you need to know the fundamental teachings of the Bible because Jesus said, "Go make disciples, baptizing them, teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you." So, there's teaching after also; we keep coming to church, we keep learning. Amen. How many learned some things about your spouse after you got married? How many were surprised? I still say things--Karen said, "I didn't know that."

Number 11. What biblical qualifications should precede baptism? So, what are the things you need to know before baptism? Well, here's a list. You want to understand the teachings of Jesus. Now, wait, wait, you know, probably at this point I ought to say something. There's a lot of dear Christian people out there that confuse baby dedication with baptism. And they baptize babies. Jesus was dedicated as a baby, but He was baptized by his choice as an adult. When we look at this list, I want you to tell me if a baby is able to make these decisions and might even have the two that will appear up here, and you'll be able to help figure that out.

All right, first of all, A, you need to understand the teachings of Jesus. Can--where's the baby? Over here. Can a baby understand the teachings of Jesus? No. That means these are foundational teachings. Mark chapter 16 says, "You must believe." Can you believe the teachings of Jesus if you're a baby? No. Jesus got baptized at 30. Of course, He understood the fundamentals of the Jewish faith. You need to repent of your sins. Does the baby have sins to repent of? No, baby can't repent of sins. Answer D, you must be willing to confess your sins to God. Repent and confess. Does a baby confess their sins? No. Answer E: you must believe with all of your heart those teachings. Can a baby believe with all their heart? No, and you must accept Christ as your personal savior and desire to experience a new birth. Well, baby's just been born. He hasn't gotten used to the first birth, let alone a second birth.

You know somebody said once: "Unless you're born twice--no-- yeah, unless you're born twice, you'll die twice." You need a physical birth, and you need the spiritual birth, otherwise, you have the second death, right? If you're only born once, you die twice. So, you don't want to have the second death. If you don't want the second death, you need to be born twice.

All right, let's get on with question number 12. Where did all these counterfeit forms of baptism originate? So again, I'm not trying to criticize; some of you were baptized as babies, and your parents meant well, and it was probably a lovely spiritual experience, but it biblically it's not baptism, it's a dedication; is that clear? Jesus as a baby was dedicated, and especially with baby boys, they would often be circumcised and they were dedicated and sometimes there was a sacrifice that went along with that and the mother would go through a cleansing when she brought the baby boy and another, a different time period for a baby girl, but that's when they got their names and it was a special occasion. But it's not baptism.

Where did these other forms come from? "For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the TRADITION," the what? They're man-made traditions. Jesus said, people are putting aside God's commandments to follow traditions. Mark 7:8: "And in VAIN--" you know what vain means? It's a waste. "In VAIN they worship Me teaching as doctrines." They say, oh, it's a doctrine, but it's nothing more than the what? The commandments of men, man-made commandments. God does not want us to go by man-made commandments, but to follow the "thus sayeth the Lord" in His Word.

Now just a little history in case you're interested in. How many have heard of the Tower of Pisa? In Italy, a leaning tower, right there in the courtyard by the tower of Pisa is a church that is built for the sole purpose of baptism. The middle of the church is a large baptistry. It dates back to 1300 AD. Even in the Catholic Church, they baptized by immersion for over 1,000 years, but gradually over time they said, "Well, it's a symbol, and these people are sick and they can't get baptized. So, what we'll do, we will dip this sheet in water. We'll pray over the water, call it holy water, and we'll wrap them up in a sheet." Or then they said, 'Well, since the water's just a symbol," they started using less and less of it. Sometimes monarchs would go through baptism and they'd say, "I'm not getting immersed in front of everyone, that's not dignified," and they said, "Well, it's just a symbol, we'll pour a little on you, then we'll pour a little less, then we'll just sprinkle," and over it happens slowly, like a lot of compromise in the church.

And gradually the church drifted away from the example of Jesus and the Commandments of God started following man-made traditions. But the Bible is very clear: if you want to be a Bible Christian, and granted, sometimes baptisms may not look dignified when a person's wet. You know what I do if I baptize a couple, husband and wife. I always baptize the man first for a couple of reasons. One, technically he's the priest of the family. For the other reason, the woman does not want to stand there in the water with wet hair. And so, she can get out a little quicker that way. But births are not always dignified either. Have you ever seen that? A little bit of screaming, blood, and pain and so, but it's a new birth, baptism.

Number 13. Doesn't baptism of the Holy Spirit replace baptism by immersion? No, we need both baptisms. The Bible says, Acts chapter 2, "Repent, and let every one of you be BAPTIZED in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sin." How many want their sins forgiven? And you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. You need both: born of the water, born of the spirit, you know, back in the days of Noah our world was baptized in water. And when Jesus comes again, it will be baptized in fire. Water baptism, fire baptism. Children of Israel came out of Egypt. They went through the Red Sea. John Paul tells us 1 Corinthians chapter 10: "Baptized in the water through the sea." Holy Spirit came down in the pillar of fire on the nation of Israel, baptized in the fire. Then he led them into the promised land. They needed the water baptism. They needed the spirit baptism. We need both baptisms, friends. Amen.

Number 14. Is rebaptism ever appropriate? Yes, it is. Now you have to go to Acts 19 and you'll read a passage here. This gives you one example. Paul is meeting with 12 Ephesian believers. They heard about John the Baptist. They were baptized by John, baptism by immersion. They left town. They had no internet or news back then. They'd not heard about the Ministry of Jesus. Paul is up there preaching to them about Christ and his death and his resurrection and all that means. And he said, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" They said to him, we've not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. They've not heard about Pentecost. He said to them, into what then were you baptized? They said, into John's baptism, John the Baptist, and Paul said, "John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying that the people should believe on Him who would come after him, that is on Christ Jesus. When they HEARD this, they were--" what? Baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, baptized in that, so they were rebaptized.

Now, there's three reasons to be rebaptized. One is if you are not baptized biblically, maybe you were baptized as a baby, we've learned that's not really immersion, biblical baptism. You should be baptized as Jesus was. Amen. You want to follow Christ, and you may have been following the Lord all your life and you didn't know. Then there's people who maybe they were baptized but they divorced themselves by the Lord. That doesn't mean they sinned, and you just you do communion service to take care of the little things, but they turned from God, they stopped going to church for years, they lived for the world. They've publicly disgraced the Lord. They may need to be rebaptized. If you divorce the Lord, you need to be remarried.

Third reason is you come into a whole new understanding of the truth like these 12 Ephesian believers I just talked about, and you want to get a new-- you've learned all the truth, these things, things you didn't know and, and you want to have a new beginning. I was baptized twice. I was living up in the cave. And I'd go days without seeing anybody. And some hikers came by. They sat to rest there by my cave, which was by, right by the water, had a big pool and a waterfall, beautiful place, out there in the desert mountains, and they said, "Are you a Christian?" I said, "Well, it just so happens I've been reading the Bible, and I asked Jesus into my heart and I this had just happened," and they said, "Were you baptized?" I said, well, no, I hadn't really taken that all in yet, and they gave me a quick Bible study and said you need to get baptized. I said, okay.

And so they went, took me out on the water, which by the way was from Milford snow, and they baptized me by immersion, and I'll tell you, I came up out of the water. I felt born again. And then they hiked off, they didn't teach me and they--I said, "Praise God." We baptized another person, they were some Baptist Christians and they left me, and I said, "Wow. I got to go celebrate." I went to town. I found my friends, we got some beer, we celebrated my baptism. Smoked a little pot. I was in jail before the sun went down. And I was in jail witnessing to people about Jesus. And they hadn't taught me very carefully before, so later an old pastor, he studied with me and I was rebaptized and it stuck. And I quit my smoking and my drinking and all that before that, and I've never done it since.

So, there it is appropriate, and the Bible says, let me read the question again. Is baptism--question 15 --connected with joining the church? Absolutely. Those who gladly received his word were baptized that day and 3000 were added to them, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. Ladies, what would you think of a guy that said, "I love you. And I've stopped dating the other girls and I want to marry you, and we'll do it publicly. But do we have to live together?" Why would you want to join the body of Christ and not be part of the body? You say, 'Well, there's hypocrites in the church." "Yes, friends, and there's always room for one more." So don't stop going to church. That's where we learn to love each other, amen. "You were called into one BODY." A lamb out there in the woods by itself, the wolf will get it.

We need to be part of the family. 1 Corinthians 12:13: "For by one Spirit we are baptized into ONE body." Amen. If we refuse baptism, whose counsel am I refusing? But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him. John the Baptist. Friends, baptism is very important.

Doug: Friends, I hope you've been blessed by today's message, but really the reason we do this is so that people might know Christ, you know, information is not going to save us. It's a relationship with Jesus, the one who died on the cross for your sins. You must personally accept Him. And that's the most important thing and why we do these programs. If you've not asked Him into your heart before, then I'd encourage you to do it right now. His arms are open wide, just come to Him as you are and ask Him.

Doug: Hi friends, I trust you are being blessed by what you're watching. If you want to be doubly blessed, then you're going to want to get the Prophecy Odyssey study guides that go along with these presentations. There's 15 study guides. They're beautifully illustrated, and they will greatly enhance your Bible comprehension. So, if you'd like to get them, simply follow the instructions that you see on the screen. You will be glad you did.

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Doug: After our study today, you might have some questions about baptism. If so, you're going to want a copy of our lesson called Purity and Power. This Amazing Facts study guide answers many important questions about the Bible ordinance of baptism that was practiced by Jesus Himself. To get your free copy, simply follow the instructions on the screen, and we'll send it to you.

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