Sermon Central
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The Cost For Preaching The Truth About Baptism
Contributed by Dr. Larry Petton on Feb 22, 2024 (message contributor)
Baptism is identification with Christ. Baptism allows the believer in Christ to openly identify
with Christ who died, was buried and who rose again on his behalf. It is a public testimony to say I have
identified with Christ. I will live for Christ.
On October 15, 1517, an Augustinian monk nailed his ninety-five theses on the church door in the town
of Wittenberg. When Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door it marked the significant spark of the
protestant reformation.
Eight years after Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door something happened that was considered the
most revolutionary act of the reformation. What happened too place at the home of Felix Manz (the
home of his mother) on January 21, 1525.
A group including Felix Manz held a baptism service as a result of their convictions from their Bible
study. This was baptism was believers’ baptism. This was the beginning of the radical reformation or the
Anabaptist movement in Zurich, Switzerland.
One year later there was a mandate made that performing believer’s baptism was a crime punishable by
death. Felix Manz was delivered to an executioner with his hands tied and beaten. His hands were tied
together below his knees, and he was held down under the water with a stick.
Just before he died becoming the first martyr for believers’ baptism and the first martyr to die at the
hands of protestants. Felix Manz said just before his death, “believers’ baptism is true baptism
according to the Word of God and teaching of Christ.”
These radical reformers insisted that personal commitment to Christ is essential to salvation and a
prerequisite to baptism. They affirmed their conviction of believer’s baptism as the sign of membership
in the true Church.
It might seem hard to imagine that people paid with their life simply because they wanted to form a
church after what they conceived to be the New Testament pattern. They insisted that personal
commitment to Christ is essential to salvation and that faith in Christ is a prerequisite to baptism. This
all came through their study of the New Testament alone.
- Unknown
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