The Baptist Distinctives, the reason we are Baptists.

Saved Church Membership.

(Mat 28:18-20) "And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. {19} Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: {20} Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen."

This verse and Mark 16:14-16, Acts 8:5-40, 16:14, 15 all show Biblical baptism. As Baptists, we believe that baptism is immersion in water after salvation, and done in the name of the Father Son, and Holy Ghost.

The principals that the word of God show concerning the "Church" in the Bible is built upon Christ, as are all things that were created.

Baptism has been a subject of controversy throughout all ages. It is an undisputed fact that every church historian agrees to this: There was only one mode of baptism and that was immersion.

Why was it changed? It was changed by order of the Bishop of Rome and changed to sprinkling, and so the design of showing the Lords death and resurrection was lost.

The catechism of Rome reads, and I quote from exact language "Baptism is a sacrament which cleanses us from original sin, and makes us children of God and of the church".

Sometimes Christians can be so ridiculously uncooperative that their behavior actually becomes humorous.

In the late 1800s, there were just two deacons in a small Baptist church in Mayfield County, Kentucky. These two deacons hated each other and always opposed one another. On a particular Sunday, one deacon put up a small wooden peg in the back wall so the minister could hang up his hat. When the other deacon discovered the peg, he was outraged that he had not been consulted. The church took sides and the church eventually split. To this day, the story goes, you can find in Mayfield County, Kentucky, the Anti-peg Baptist Church.

Saved Church membership has to do with Gods order. In Matt 28:18 we see that teaching all nations is first. This command is given to the individual in the Church.

In Acts 2:41 we see that when some one has received the good news of salvation, and been saved that they are to be Baptized, and added unto the Church.

In Acts 2:47 we see again where the Lord adds to the church such as should be saved.

God adds to the Church. When churches stop doing what Jesus wants, eventually they are not His Church; He removes His candlestick. When they do not belong to God then He naturally stops adding to them, so when the membership drops they need to figure out how to grow, so they add to themselves, and have to by pass some Biblical principles in order to do that.

God gave many principles so we can tell what is from God and what is from man. He loves us and wants to protect us, so these guides are in place to keep us from danger, but we have to respect those rules in order to have protection from them.

 

Only the Baptist down throughout history has kept the order of Salvation, Baptism and Church membership.

(Acts 5:14) "And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.)"

 

(Acts 4:4) "Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand."

 

(Acts 6:7) "And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith."

Therefore, we find that in order to have people added into the Church membership they must be baptized, and before they are baptized they must be saved. So we have a law of order that only Baptists follow today. Many today do not follow the distinctive of saved Church membership.

PRAYER FOR RATTLESNAKES:

Once upon a time there was a family of wayward church members who had once been active, but had lost all interest and had fallen away. There was the father and three sons, Jim, John, and Sam. The elders had talked to them about their lost condition, the preacher had visited them, and many of the brethren had tried to get them to come back to church--but all this did not seem to do the least bit of good.

One day when the boys were out in the pasture, a large rattlesnake bit John and he became very ill. The physician was called and after an examination, he pronounced John to be in a very critical condition. Said he, "About all you can do now is pray." The father called the preacher, and told him of John's condition. He asked the preacher to pray for John's recovery, and this was his prayer:

"O wise and righteous Father, we thank Thee, for Thou hast in Thy wisdom sent this rattlesnake to bite John, in order to bring him to his senses. He has not been inside the church house for years and it is doubtful that he has in all that time felt the need for prayer. Now we trust that this will prove a valuable lesson to him, and that it will lead to genuine repentance.

"And now, O Father, wilt Thou send another snake to bite Sam, and another to bite Jim, and another BIG ONE to bite the old man. We have all been doing everything we know for years to restore them, but to no avail. It seems, therefore, that all our combined efforts could not do what this snake has done. We thus conclude that the only thing left that will do this family any good is rattlesnakes; so Lord, send us bigger and better rattlesnakes. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen." (Taken from a John R. Rice Scrapbook)

Churches today are compromising because of a lack of soulwinning.

We want our church to grow so we have two ways that that can happen:

WE ARE BAPTISTS BECAUSE WE BELIEVE IN SAVED CHURCH MEMBERSHIP

Send questions or comments about this site to preach@twcny.rr.com

This page was updated on 03/23/00