Believe And Be Baptized Series

The Bible tells us that… at the tower of Babel, God confused the people’s language so they couldn’t understand each other. Language is how we communicate with each other, and how we communicate is VERY IMPORTANT. How we say things; the kind of words we use; and even the punctuation we use in our sentences is important.

• For example: punctuation saves lives "Let’s EAT KIDS" ... OR "Let’s eat, kids "

• How you punctuate a simple sentence can make all the difference. If you take the sentence: “A woman, without her man, is nothing” and change the punctuation it will read “A woman: without her, man is nothing.

(Punctuation changed the meaning)

• Punctuation can even influence our theology. I found a comic strip about Abraham and Isaac where (in the first frame) Isaacs says “Here’s the wood for the sacrifice, Dad.” Next he says “Here’s the dagger for the sacrifice, Dad.” And then Isaac looks around and asks “WHERE’S THE SACRIFICE?” Abraham replies “God will provide the sacrifice Isaac” to which Isaac responds: “Did you say God will provide (comma) Isaac?” Or “God will PROVIDE ISAAC?” Abraham says “Come here son.” And ISAAC says: “I ain’t budgin till you put IN a comma.”

Punctuation can make great deal of difference in what is meant. (PAUSE) And so can the order of the words in sentence.

For example, there’s an evangelist in our brotherhood named Harvey Hacker who told about a Revival where a lady in the audience approached him after his sermon and complained about his view on baptism. So he asked if she had a Bible. She took one out of her purse and he asked her to turn to Mark 16:16. Then he asked her to read that verse… and this is what she read: "Whoever believes shall be saved and be baptized…” “WAIT” he cried… “read that again.” She started again and repeated: “Whoever believes shall be saved and be baptized…” Harvey stopped her again and said: “Read that one more time, slowly this time.” And so she slowly began read “Whoever believes (PAUSE) and is baptized shall be saved…” I never saw that before.”

WHY had she not seen that before? She hadn't seen it because, WHAT she’d been taught, contradicted what she read. So she transposed/ rearranged the words of the sentence to fit what she believed. She’d always believed “Whosoever believes is saved… then baptized!” And that’s the reason she read it the way she did.

How we communicate is VERY IMPORTANT. How we say things, the kind of words we use, the punctuation we use, and even the order of words in a sentence is very important. It’s especially important to God - when we’re dealing with his bible, because you don’t mess with His message.

Now, people have been messing with God’s message for centuries. People will rearrange the wording of Bible verses - almost subconsciously - because their theology demands another interpretation than what they read.

For example, there are churches that baptize babies FOR salvation. Essentially, their theology is “Whoever is baptized shall be saved… and THEN they can believe.”

Now these churches don’t necessarily warp Mark 16:16 on purpose, but they might as well. Children can’t believe, but these churches baptize them anyway for salvation. Then later – they put the child through confirmation classes - to teach them what they didn’t know before they were baptized… because they were infants

But there’s an interesting passage in John 1:12-13 that tells us this is wrong.“But to all who received him, who BELIEVED in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of BLOOD nor of the WILL OF THE FLESH nor of the WILL OF MAN, but of God.”

Now let’s take this passage one step at a time.

NOT OF BLOOD means – you can’t become a Christian by being born of a Christian. Jews essentially became Jews because they were BORN of a Jewish family. Now, you could convert from being a Gentile to being Jewish, but the major way people became Jews was by blood - being born of a Jewish parent.

But you can’t do that to become a Christian. Without faith/believing… you can’t become a Christian.

So, you can’t be born of BLOOD (born of a Christian parent) to be saved. And (the next phrase says) you can’t be born of the WILL OF THE FLESH. That means that there’s nothing in my FLESH that makes me deserve salvation. In John 6:63 Jesus said “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. That is: there’s nothing I can do (in my flesh) that will impress God.

Paul said it this way - Romans 7:18 “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my FLESH. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” Now, that’s just a fancy Biblical way of saying that you can’t be good enough to be good enough to get into heaven. So, essentially – the good things you DO to try to impress God… DON’T. They don’t impress Him. I mean, God appreciates good deeds - it’s just that they just don’t impress Him. They won’t buy you a ticket to heaven.