NOTES AND QUOTES FOR TODAY:
Why We Believe What We Believe III
“If The Baptists are right, why not join them, and suffer small inconveniences? If they are wrong, why not prove them so?”
One needs to have a foundation for what he believes. What can the believer say to the unbelieving, words that will make sense to them in their everyday lives? Our non Christian friends and neighbors are looking for something real. What we offer them must be genuine enough to withstand a carful probing. They are not fooled by a person whose religion goes only skin-deep. Nor are they attracted by a wishful thinkers who are not ready to face up to life’s harsh realities. Non Christians carefully examine believers to see if they really have found an eternal dimension in life. A superficial profession won’t convince them. They are looking for the real thing – genuine living faith.
Faith in Christianity is based on evidence. It is based on reason and logic. It is a reasonable faith, and it goes beyond reason but not against it. There is a clear biblical command for the believer to be intelligent in their faith; In 1st Peter 3:15. we read, “….. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” if we are unable to give reason for our faith and that the same questions defeat us in conversation time after time, we are being only disobedient, and willingly ignorant. By our own ignorance we are confirming unbelievers their unbelief. Many non believers fail to consider the Gospel simply because no one has ever presented the truth of the Gospel to them in simply plain way. They associate faith with superstition based primarily on emotional considerations.
Why We are Baptists- Why we adhere to Baptist Doctrines?
1.We are Baptists Due To The Words of Jesus: In Matthew 16:18 Jesus said, “I will build my Church; and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” It is quite clear that Jesus built His Church first in Jerusalem. Then, His disciples went into various places throughout the world, and where people were saved, they were baptized and organized into local churches. The Lord said the gates of Hell would not prevail against His Church. If all you have is the denominational churches, which have been built by men, the gates of hell did prevail against His church for many centuries. Where was the church for more than a thousand years Romanism during the dark ages, if not in the small groups of Anabaptists scattered here and there. We also believe also Jesus when He said, “ Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” (Matthew 28:19)
There is little point in arguing about the method of baptism! The word means “to immerse.” If you read in the book of Acts, you find that wherever people believed the Gospel, they were baptized and then went down into the water to do it!
. For the first century or so, nearly all the churches remained comparatively pure in doctrine and practice. With the growth of error concerning church and government, doctrine, ordinance, etc.; there came a widening of the separation between those churches departing into error- apostasy; and those remain loyal. The churches who remained loyal were called “Anabaptists” from the very beginning. One of the great errors that divided the churches was ‘baptismal regeneration,” and “infant baptism. It is an established fact of history that as far back as the fourth century those refusing to go into the hierarchy of the Catholic church, and refusing to accept the baptism of those baptized in infancy, and refusing to accept the doctrine of “baptismal regeneration’ were called “Anabaptists”- rebaptizers.
As all the groups who bore many different names held true to “believers baptism” they were all called “Anabaptists.” Near the beginning of the 16th century the “Ana” was dropped, and the name shortened simply to “Baptists” and gradually all other names were dropped. With no connecting link of communication and with no history to go by, these churches scattered all over the world and in every age all fit into the same pattern of doctrine and practice. All this was accomplished without any centralization of authority, establishment of hierarchy, etc. This is miracle of the fulfillment of God God’s promise, “The gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church.”
2.We are Baptists Because of Bible Truth: We are talking about a line of churches that can be traced back to Christ and the Apostles. A line that is consistent with the New Testament teaching. First of all the Baptist Churches never held the doctrine of “salvation by works” which most churches hold in one form or another. Baptists insist on Salvation, “ By grace alone, through faith alone, and in Jesus Christ alone!” They never baptized babies. No other church has consistently held to all the fundamentals doctrines of the Bible. No church has been more faithful in proclaiming the true Gospel of Christ.
It appears that gospel ministries have no authority to teach Christians, that their children should be baptized. Christ no where commanded them to teach infant baptism at all, or baptism upon the faith of another. Is there any other group that has constantly preached that salvation is through repentance and faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ? Baptists don’t believe in sacraments for they find no such teachings in the Scriptures. They hold to the two ordinances, memorials, given by the Lord; Baptism – upon the profession of faith in Christ; and The Lord’s Supper. What other churches has been consistently premillennial, separated, rejecting the idea of priesthood or clergy.
3.We are Baptists Because of the Testimony of Non-Baptist: Non-Baptist who are knowledgeable and truthful have over the years acknowledged that Baptists are the only ones who can show succession of Bible doctrines and the mode of baptism to Jesus and the apostles. Joseph Belcher, who died in 1900; writing in Religious Denominations in England and America said, “ It will be seen that the Baptists claim the high antiquity of the commencement of the Christian Church. They can trace the succession of those who have believed the same doctrine, administered the same ordinances directly up to the Apostolic age.”
Another writer by the name Clark Redpath, a Methodist by persuasion (denomination) wrote, “ I should not readily admit that there was a Baptist church as far back as 100 AD. Although without a doubt, there were Baptist churches then as all the churches were then Baptists.”
Johann Mosheim who is no doubt the greatest of Lutheran historian; he died in 1775. He stated, “The sacrament of baptism was administered in the first century without public assemblies in places appointed and prepared for that purpose and was performed by an immersion of the whole body in the baptismal fount.” Bishop Taylor, the learned Episcopalian, said, “ The custom of the ancient churches was not sprinkling, but immersion.”
Another distinguishing mark of Baptist Churches has been the independence of each church. Miall, in his Memo of Early Christian Churches says, “ that each Christian Church was in the earliest period of ecclesiastical history individualized and unassociated except by the religious feelings, which alike pervaded all, is admitted by most candid historians.”
Never in any age, did the Anabaptists form any hierarchy, that bound their churches together, that is; no one leader ever spoke for all of them. In every age they remained free, independent churches governed by the rule of democracy. Yes, and no doubt each and each locality had its own deflection and errors, but it is marvelous how the truth was preserved through these churches.
To be continued..…………….
From The Staff of The Peoples Gospel Hour
How to be Saved …and KNOW it – your most important stop on this site.
Audio Sermons *updated Last Month’s Broadcasts in mp3, Bible Studies.
The Bible reveals two ways which people are following to get into heaven. One way, the true way, is God’s way. God’s way into heaven is the way of peace and truth and righteousness. It is the only way approved of God. This way centers in the Lord Jesus Christ who said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). The Bible declares that there is another way. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 14:12).
There are so many popular ways today filled with lost multitudes all over the land, such as the way of morality, the way of respectability, the way of religion, the way of churchianity, the way of baptism, the way of christening, the way of confirmation, the way of penance, the way of confession, the way of “doing the best I can”, the way of self, the way of education, the way of philosophy, the way of false isms and cults that crowd the street. Little wonder then when we speak to people about the way of salvation, that so many have asked, “How can I know which is the true way? There are so many different ideas and so many religions.”
But there is ONE difference between God’s way of salvation and man’s way, and that difference is found in a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ. You will notice that man leaves Christ out of the center of his way. You will discover that the modern false cults and isms demote Christ to a mere man and add something to what He has already done for your salvation and mine. We become children of God through a supernatural birth. Jesus said to Nicodemus: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Jesus also said, “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again” (John 3:7)
“May the Lord bless you, and make you a blessing!” – The PGH Staff.
!