a little nugget of truth

God's truth may go beyond reason, but it can never go against reason (2 Cor. 1:18)

Destroying Pride Through The Sovereignty of God

Destroying Pride Through The Sovereignty of God

I am currently reading through Deuteronomy right now and I have been in awe of how Sovereign God is. The text is literally screaming GOD IS IN CONTROL OF ALL EVENTS!!!

In Deut. 7 Moses begins by telling Israel that God will destroy their enemies when they cross over the Jordan into the promise land. 7:2 says "the Lord your God gives them [referring to their enemies] over to you."

7:6 says "God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession." Israel did nothing that was deserving of God to choose them; God chose them out of his grace and mercy."

7:18 says, "remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt." God is the one who delivered Israel from Egypt.

7:22 The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little." God is the one who will clear the nations.

8:7 "For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land." Israel is not bringing themselves into the Promise Land, it is only through the Power of God.

As I was reading last night the passage that really jumped off the page was Deut. 8:11-20. The first part of Deut 8 is talking about how God has led Israel through the desert and that he has humbled them that they might depend and love Him. God tells Israel that he has disciplined them in the past that they might "walk in his way and by fearing him" (8:6).

But then verse 11 says, take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes." Previously God has just said that everything he has done was so that Israel would know they could trust Him completely. But even though God has disciplined them, sin is still active in this world and it works in such a way that it would try to make us forget God. Verse 11 is very clear, when we forget God we do not keep his commandments. Verse 14 says, "your heart will be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God." When do we forget God? When we begin to think more highly of ourselves then we ought to. Verse 17 says, "Beware lest you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth.'" When we think more highly of ourselves then we should, inevitably we forget to obey God and we forget that He is the one who has provided everything for us.

Verse 19 shows us ultimately where all this "forgetting" has taken us. It says, "if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them…" Ultimately when we forget about God we are elevating something else, whether it is us, someone or something over and above God. We become idolaters!

So how do we prevent ourselves from falling into this "forgetful" path of destruction? If by forgetting we become idolaters, then by remembering we become God-exalters. We must continually remember all that God has done for us and all we have is because of Him. However, it would be easy to stop right there. The problem with stopping right there is that it would be easy to fall into the deceptive mind-set that we must "pay God back" for what he has done. If we ever try and "pay God back" we pervert His free gift of grace into a yoke that we become enslave to. The purpose of remembering what God has done is not so we continue to look backwards but that we may confidently and hopefully look forward trusting in the Future Grace of God that He will continue as always and remain our All-Sufficient Provider. By looking forward and trusting in the Sovereignty of God we treasure God above everything else.

What The Bible Says About Baptism

Mode and Meaning of Baptism:

We believe baptism in by immersion for the following reasons:

The Greek word baptizo means "to plunge, dip, immerse" something in water.

Mark 1:10 tells us that after Jesus was baptized he came up out of the water

In Acts 8 we read the story of Philip leading the Eunuch to Christ. When they came to a body of water they went down into the water and the Eunuch was baptized. It then says that when the Eunuch came out of the water Philip was taken away and the Eunuch did not seem him again.

In John 3:23 we are told that John the Baptist was baptized at Aenon near Salim because there was much water there. If baptism was only by sprinkling then why would they need "much" water?

Colossians 2:12 says "you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead." Here the text clearly shows that baptism is by immersion because it symbolizes going into the grave and being buried and then coming out of the grave in newness of life with Christ.

Wayne Grudem a theologian refers to baptism as the amazing truth "of passing through the waters of "judgments safely, of dying and rising with Christ, and of having our sins washed away " (pg. 969). It is a beautiful depiction of the death and removal of our old self and the new life we are given in Christ.

 
 

Who should be baptized:

In Acts 2:41 after Peter's sermon it says "those who received his word were baptized." In Acts 8:12

But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women." In Acts 10:47-48 Peter says, "Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ."

Clearly the Bible teaches that only those who have received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior should be baptized. I am not going to address infant baptism here but if you read Galatians 3:27 which says, "

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ", it clearly indicates that "putting on Christ" or receiving Christ is necessary for baptism.

 
 

Is Baptism necessary:

The answer here is yes and no. No in the sense that baptism is not necessary for salvation. If you were to say that baptism was necessary for salvation, then what you would be saying that the death of Jesus Christ was not sufficient for your salvation and in order to complete your salvation you must not perform an act. In Luke 23:43, Jesus told the man on the cross next to him, "today you will be with me in paradise." This man had no opportunity to be baptized but yet Christ was able to look at his heart and see that this man truly believed in Him as Savior and Lord. The apostle Paul would have been adamantly against people teaching that baptism would be required for salvation just as he would adamantly against the Judaizers that tried to teach circumcision was necessary for salvation (Galatians 5:1-12).

On the other side, baptism is something that all Christians should do. Jesus commanded the his disciples in Matthew 28:18-20 to go teach and baptize people. The books of Acts has numerous examples of people coming to faith in Jesus Christ and then being baptized. To not obey Christ in baptism is to reject one of his commands. I was listening to a preacher on the radio a couple of weeks ago and he was so bold to say that if a "believer" refuses to be baptized then they might not be truly a believer. I was struck by his statement at first but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that he was right. If I received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and I say as Paul did, "to live is Christ, to die is gain" then how could I disobey and reject Christ's command to be baptized. While baptism is not necessary for salvation, it is a command of Christ. When we obey Christ our faith will continue to grow and we will be able to live more righteous Christ-exalting lives.