All right, in Ephesians 4 then, verse 5,
we're on the last phrase, one baptism, one
baptism.
Seems a familiar phrase to me.
Hallelujah.
I blessed the Lord when the time came
when I believed that.
And I didn't go looking for any other.
And of course you will know that there
are people who purport to believe that there
is one baptism, and only one baptism.
But they think that it's water baptism.
I could name the denomination that thinks so.
And says, well that's what it is.
But of course, those of us who've been
baptized in water, know that it isn't.
It's a tremendous thing.
I can never forget one of the times
when I was at Laura, oh many years
back now, and there was an elderly gentleman,
and he was going to be baptized.
I knew that he had chatted with the
resident there about being baptized, because he'd been
baptized as a Baptist many, many years before.
And he wanted to know what to do,
and they talked it over.
Anyway, the evening came, and he was going
to be baptized all right.
There's no doubt about that, he'd got his
all the odd clothes on that you wear
when you're being baptized.
And just before he went in, he stayed
at the edge of the baptistry there, and
he said, I want to give a little
testimony.
Excuse me.
I'm being baptized a second time, because the
first time when I was baptized, I went
into the pool, a dry simmer, and came
up a wet one.
That's what he said.
But now I know what it's about.
That's right.
And he went down into the water, and
he came up, not that the water did
it, a real child of God, because he
was one before he went in.
But what a marvelous thing it is, beloved,
to come to understanding the Baptist.
It may be that there are many of
us in this room who are following the
doctrine, you know, of a particular denomination, group,
whatever they may call themselves.
There's some people who don't like to be
called a denomination, and so on.
They go, they sort of believe and be
baptized and so on.
And it's good to be obedient, and it
often brings up contentions in the mind, or
questioning about it all.
I've heard people say, I wish I could
be baptized again, it didn't mean anything to
me first time, and so on and so
on.
So far as that's concerned, if you would
like a word from my mind about it,
it doesn't matter about how many times you're
baptized, or the amount of water you're baptized
in.
The obedience is to be baptized.
That's a tremendous thing.
Now I even know a woman that's been
baptized three times, and I think that's very,
very sad, in water, because somebody else got
hold of her, and they said, oh no,
that wasn't the right baptism, that second time,
just be baptized this way, and so on
and so on and so on.
And that's tragic.
And I'm not talking about water baptism at
all, though if you would like to turn
with me to Romans 6, I'd like to
make this comment on it, which won't be
new to many of you, I am sure,
perhaps nothing of what I say this afternoon
will be new to you, especially if you've
read a certain book.
But here is Romans 6.
All I want you to do with me
is cast your eye down to it quickly,
if you haven't got little tiny pens and
you can't quite do that very fast, and
your eyes are bigger than the print of
a thing, you go right down through this
glorious chapter, and by the time you've got
to the end of it, you must have
come to a realization, and that is that
there's no water in Romans 6.
There's no water there, obviously.
The man is not talking about being baptized
in water.
Perhaps we won't take time to go through
word by word, verse by verse, see if
we can discover even one raindrop in it,
because we won't find it if we searched
all day and all night.
So, undoubtedly, the picture of baptism in water
is in it, or at least that which,
that water baptism does set forth before our
eyes, is in the chapter.
What a tremendous thing it is, beloved, when
we are baptized.
For instance, the first word, time of water,
the word baptized is introduced in Romans 6,
is in verse 3.
Know ye not that so many of us
as were baptized in water, oh no, sorry,
I didn't say that, baptized into Jesus Christ,
were baptized into his death.
I appreciate the use of the word baptized
there.
Paul was much worried whether I appreciated it
or not, I'm sure.
But, it introduces me to a fact.
We talk about being in Christ.
There is no way that you can be
in Christ unless you are baptized into him.
That's the method of incorporating us into Christ.
Now, I know that the Ephesian letter talks
about being chosen in Christ before the foundation
of the world, and how true it is.
And, we can read this again in the
glory of hate chapter of Romans, not that
I want to spend time on it, having
done that the other day.
There is only one way that you and
I can be in Christ.
Now, you can say, well, by faith, yes,
that must be taken for granted.
And, I'm not preaching to outsiders who don't
know anything about faith.
I am preaching to those who, I assume
because you're here, are insiders of some depth
or to some extent.
Wesley uses the phrase of believe myself into
him.
That's real good, pure Arminianism.
He was an Arminian, all right.
No doubt about that.
But, of course you do believe.
But, it's rather like when you go in
for a car wash.
You do go in for car washes, because
you shut the windows, don't you, so you
don't get washed, as I recall.
But, you drive up to a certain place
very, very steadily, and then you stop, and
then something takes over.
You must cut your engine off.
You must stop.
And, that takes you in and through, cleans
you up, and sets you up the other
side.
Now, that's the believing.
You believe yourself to that position, and then
come for a take-off.
There is no way into Christ except by
being baptized into him.
And, that is the one baptism of which
the Bible speaks.
You can have a dozen other things called
the baptism, and surely the experiences that come
in some people's lives, to them, fit the
description.
I read a book by a great man
of God, many years ago, and he said,
there are many baptisms in the book.
It's out of print now.
And, in that sense, he is right, in
that we've seen contemplations in our lives, when
we have immersed into this, that, and the
other.
And, we suddenly find ourselves in the new
place of believing, or new experiences of the
grace and power of Christ.
But, there is only one baptism properly so
-called.
And, that is this great baptism into Christ.
Now, I've heard people speak of baptisms of
power, and I've heard, I've read, I think,
somewhere, of a great baptism of love, or
something like that.
Meaning, that suddenly, the whole person's self, heart,
understanding, seem to enter into something absolutely new.
Now, you must expect things like that, because,
as the Bible says, there are glorious experiences,
and I've used the word, by which we
go from glory to glory.
We love it.
We go from one state of glory to
another.
All that used to be right in the
church at one period.
It was a lovely new phrase.
I'm glad it's sort of dropping out a
bit.
The church is always coming up with new
gimmicks.
You come from one state of glory to
another state of glory.
Everywhere I went, sometimes, somebody was praying that.
I thought, well, that's another phrase, Lord.
You see?
And, this is the way it goes on.
I'm not delivering the truth to love.
I'm only saying how easily we have catch
phrases.
And, they've always been in the Bible, of
course, but they get taken up with a
whoop, and then, suddenly, you find them dropped
again.
Something else comes.
What a marvellous truth it is, beloved, to
enter into this great truth.
If we go back into that heathen letter,
we must see the whole construction of truth.
You see, he starts off, as you remember,
some days ago now, it must be years
ago, we looked at this.
There is one body.
Now, you only get into that body by
being baptised into it.
That's the only way in.
And, there's one spirit in the body, and
you've got to be baptised in the spirit
of that body, into that body.
Now, did you know that?
Let me tell you this.
I am a person.
You meet me.
And, if it's anything like me meeting you,
and I suppose it is, I do.
I impact your spirit before I touch your
body.
Yes, I warn you this.
I don't want to say it.
That still won't come near me.
I know you the first time I meet
you.
I know your spirit.
First time I meet you.
There's no concealing that.
You contact the spirit before you contact me.
And, whether you know it or not, to
some extent, and I don't want to overuse
the scriptural terms, you drink of that.
Now, that's a big thing for us to
understand.
Yet, if you think that's just about it,
you see, you have to do some thinking
when you read the scripture.
And, you find that it works out on
every level, and with every relationship.
I know your spirit.
I hope you know mine.
And yet, you're not in my body.
Here is the tragedy.
There are some people who come under the
drawings of the Father.
That's where we'll leave that for tonight.
There are some people, they have something of
the spirit.
And, in the spirit, in this state, you
know, is when sometimes we may think, and
I don't want to use it, move into
the mystical world, about people having a sort
of an aura.
All right, you can come into them, and
be affected by them.
And, people did that by the thousand when
Jesus Christ was on the earth.
But, they weren't in the body.
This is the great deception.
Oh, God, open everybody's eyes, and we'll see
what the real church is.
What a marvellous thing it is for us
to understand.
If you think, and look, and say, oh,
of course that explains this and that.
It does explain everything.
Hmm, fits in, doesn't it?
Once you begin to understand fact, I want
to tell you, beloved, that the Spirit of
God is moving on this earth.
But, you won't say everybody's in God, will
you?
Well, will you?
Once we really sit down and do some
thinking, when the mind is sanctified unto the
Scripture, things begin to take their proper shape.
And, we begin to understand.
You can't get into the body unless you
are baptised into it.
And, that is the one great baptism.
And, it will take place in everybody's life
when they will confess, let's have a look
into this section again, that Jesus Christ is
the Lord, the one Lord.
And, when you come to the one faith,
and not yours particularly, you will receive the
one baptism, into that one body.
Hallelujah.
What a glorious thing it is, then, to
see the way it all works.
Oh, hallelujah.
Other language can be used about this.
Let me turn you for a moment into
the Philippian letter.
Then, I want to come back into the
Ephesian letter and the first chapter.
In the Philippian letter, this is what we
read in chapter two.
It says, and are you going to read
with me now, behind this statement, and it's
on the mind, there is the mind of
the Spirit who constructed the Scriptures to eternal
truth, based the Scriptures upon eternal truth.
He says this, let this mind be in
you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who,
being in the form of God, prudent not,
rather, to be equal with God, of course,
but made himself of no reputation, and took
upon him the form of a servant, and
was made in the likeness of men, and
so on.
Now, you will know that that verse seven
really should be, he emptied himself, made himself
of no reputation.
What did he empty himself of?
Now, there are those who think that he
didn't really empty himself of anything, that he
really wasn't the son of God, that he
was born of Mary, or born of Paul,
but he was the great living one with
his father, glory to God.
But why, what did he empty himself of?
Did he empty himself of his Godhead?
He did not.
He, what did he empty himself of?
Just this, that before this happened, and actually,
before the foundation of the world, in Ephesians
1, we're back there, all right, in verse
four, you and I were chosen in him.
We were chosen in him before the world
was, before the foundation of the world, and
remember that the Lamb was only flamed from
the foundation of the world.
Keep that clear.
Before that, we were chosen in him, but
when he became a man, he had to
become, he had to empty us out of
him in that sense, and come down to
this earth, and win us.
Hallelujah.
Praise the name of the Lord, in the
heart of God, still chosen.
I know that whatever God doeth, says Scripture,
it shall be forever.
Hallelujah.
Nevertheless, he came down to this earth, the
chosen Christ, and something happened when he emptied
himself of us.
He lived.
He died.
All right.
And when he died, and when he rose,
this is what happened, and this is why
old Paul praises his God, in Ephesians 1.
This is hit in the end of verse
16 of chapter 1, making mention of us
in his prayers, that the God of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, we
can't get away from this link with the
fatherhood at the moment, may give unto you
the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding
being enlightened.
Now, Paul knows he's got a great difficulty
on here.
So, get people's eyes of understanding, the eyes
of the heart, open to see this.
Listen, hear this.
So, you may know what is the hope
of his calling.
There you are, it was mentioned in the
seven of the structure, in fact, the four.
All right.
The hope of his calling, and what the
riches of the glory of his inheritance in
faith, hallelujah, and what is the exceeding greatness
of his power to us who believe according
to the working of his mighty power, which
he wrought in Christ when he raised him
from the dead, hallelujah, which links with this
in verse, in chapter 2, verse 8, by
grace are you saved through faith, of course,
and that not of yourselves, it is the
gift of God, not of works, lest any
man should boast, for we are his workmanship
created in Christ Jesus.
Now, you see, we were chosen in Christ,
then we had to be created in him.
We had to be created in him.
He entered himself, okay, for when God raised
him from the dead, he inwrought us back
into Christ.
If I may use that figure, pardon the
limitation of human idea, but that's the truth.
And we are his workmanship.
Well, what a tremendous thing it is.
Of course, he had to empty himself of
the cross, and somebody would have come along,
some bright person, sometimes said, well, of course,
if we were in Christ on the cross,
we are our own sages.
No, no, he was really alone, and that's
what in one way made him cry on
the cross, my God, why, why, why have
you forsaken me?
That's right, and he was alone, that's for
one point.
And then, having, if you like, created this
glory of salvation, having brought in redemption through
his blood, having established it, what did God
work in Christ when he raised him from
the dead?
Adam.
He wrought in him, he wrought in him,
he worked in him.
Amen.
And I'm his workmanship, I'm a creation.
I'm not a copy, that's, that's it.
I'm a creation.
Adam was a creation.
I'm a creation, I'm not a copy.
Pray God I shall never be a copy.
And here, then, is the great and marvellous
truth.
That's, that's looking at baptism another way.
The, the great work, the mystery of salvation
that I mean, another way of looking at
it.
Because, you see, well, one's baptism and one's
work.
Well, go back to Romans 6, if you
like.
There was, there's work in baptism.
This is, it's only alluded to under the
figure of baptism.
It says, it says, we were buried with
him by baptism into death.
The life of Christ was raised up from
the dead by the glory of the Father.
Even so, we also should walk in newness
of life.
Something else happened there.
We were planted, in verse 5, we were
planted together in the likeness of his death.
Hallelujah.
A tremendous amount, even under the figure of
baptism.
Here, in Ephesians, it's under the figure of,
I am Father's work.
I have been wrought into Christ.
I am in Christ.
I have his spirit.
I must have his nature.
I have his, well, what can you say
about the wonder of Christ?
This is part of the great mystery, beloved.
That God should do this great and wonderful
work.
Our consciousness should be more vividly in that
than in anything else.
Just before this meeting, I was talking with
a brother, and we were talking about certain
places on the earth, where the whole atmosphere
is full of spirit.
I can tell you one place, Iona.
He said, oh, I'll tell you another place,
Glastonbury.
Don't go there, but all the hippies, druggies
drop out from way out there, go to
Glastonbury.
You know why?
Because it's thin there, the relationship is different,
say, from Exeter.
Did you know that?
And they're more sensitive to it, perhaps, than
we are.
Because they attune themselves to spirit.
Wrong to say, of course, but that's the
fact.
And you and I have got to be
attuned to the Holy Spirit.
We've got to think in this realm.
You see, some people, like some people who
say, well, he's practical, he thought down to
earth, and it's nice of him, you see.
Generally, it's because their mind is not attuned
to things of spirit, generally.
Then, every time.
They like the sort of down to earth
thing, the nice little things about daily living,
and whether you should divorce and remarry, or
whether you should do this, or whether you
should do that, or whether you should do
the other, and all those nice things, very
natural, you see, very down to earth, good
to understand.
And then you get the wrong element.
You get the, excuse me, I'm not, of
course, it's quite embarrassing, you get the Catholic
element.
They say, shut yourself up in a monastery,
shut yourself up in a convent, and what
do they do there?
What happens in every exclusive thing?
They get attuned to things of the spirit,
that's the wrong spirit.
And they can appear very holy people, and
so on.
You and I, beloved, I live right out
here in the everyday, and we're attuned to
the spirit, like Jesus.
Let me warn you once more, I don't
want to bit over labour this, I don't
mean you've got to be so fortunate you
can see devils everywhere.
You're attuned to the wrong spirit, if you
like that, that's just what I'm trying to
say.
You're always very spiritual.
You saw it on the bus, you saw
it over in that corner, you saw it,
did you think that, in the market, and
all this business, you see, you're attuned to
the wrong spirit.
Altogether, to be attuned to the Lord.
Hallelujah, what a marvellous thing it is.
That's why I say, I pray God, the
whole spirit, soul and body should be sanctified.
That's the way the Lord speaks.
Amen.
And here I am then, in this occasion,
glorious letter, this one great baptism.
Amen.
You will understand, I'm sure, beloved, if you
turn with me into the Corinthian letter, that
if this, in the Ephesians, be that great
one baptism, and I am in chapter 12,
we read this, verse 12, as the body
is one, and has many members, and all
the members of that body are one body,
being many, that's how Christ is.
That is Christ.
Amen.
For by one spirit are we all baptized
in the one body.
That must be the one baptism.
Must be.
In one spirit are we all baptized.
I put in there, because that's the Greek
preposition.
In one spirit are we all baptized into
that one body, and we are made members
of that body at that time.
Hallelujah.
I have always found it a great difficulty
to believe that you should believe there's one
God, one Lord, one faith, one everything, but
when it comes to baptism, there's at least
three.
Do you see that?
There's one baptism.
Unless you've got to say there are three
Lords, you could say four, five, six, where
are you going to end?
There's one, one, and only one.
Glory be to God.
I think all the scientists in the world,
a few, we'll say perhaps two generations ago,
well, one anyway, were staggered when a man
named Einstein came up with the thesis that
there's only one.
We don't believe that.
Relativity.
All can be resolved on one.
That should have shouted to the church if
they only had ears to hear it.
In other words, God said, I'll break it
into the universe.
There's only one.
But everybody could have demonstrated it a hundred
other things.
But here came a man with a brain
big enough to say, no, no, it's only
one.
Glory be to the name of the Lord.
And of course, you know that the idea
of atomic fissure is built on that, and
all these troubles about war.
It's all built on Einstein's initial revelation.
Because I think it was a revelation, personally.
It's an amazing thing that most of the
great discoveries really, in the end, are revelations.
They follow a lot of certain, and then
all of a sudden, oh, that's what I
do in Scripture.
I follow all of a sudden, and I
go, oh, yeah, yes, that's right, this is
the logical end.
In other words, beloved, because God made us,
now this is related to some of the
things I'm going to say tonight, I hope.
Because God made us, it must work out
on the pattern, on God's pattern, whether we're
simple or whether we're righteous.
We can't alter the laws of these things.
Nobody can.
They can pervert them and go wrong ends.
They understand the laws and use them for
their own purposes, as, for instance, making strong
drink from potatoes, you see.
That's right.
Just potatoes.
It's a simple thing.
But you and I have got to see
this.
We are baptized into one body.
Now, you will understand, I've said this before.
He starts off the chapter by saying, now
concerning the spiritual, I pointed out that he
will have the word gift there, which is
there in the Greek.
And he just sort of mentions the gift.
But he then immediately passes on to the
body.
There is nothing more spiritual in this world
than the body of Jesus Christ.
That's why.
That's why he says, yeah, the gift's there,
but look, I'm not talking about the gift,
I'm talking about the body.
That's the greatest spiritual thing in this world,
my beloved, the body of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
That's why he takes it this way.
You're baptized into it.
I want the enormity of it to hold
my heart and mind in one.
I want to move in it.
As a universe, glory be to the name
of the Lord.
The very fact that I use universe shows
that it's only one.
Earth, heaven, God, sun, seas.
Wonderful, isn't it?
And that's what God wants us to see.
If only we can come into this great
understanding, he will calm so much, there's become
frenetic energy almost, in the lives of some
people.
Do you not see, beloved, this is the
only way that you can come into Christ?
Then he used two illustrations.
One in this same cleansing letter, which you
can keep your finger in, chapter 10 especially,
and the other in Peter.
Now, I suppose you, like I have, read
this epistle at times and thought, well, I
just don't understand all there is about this.
But whether or not we understand it, here
it is.
Christ, in the end of chapter 3 of
1 Peter, once suffered for sins.
The just for the unjust, that he might
bring us to God, being put to death
in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.
Quickened, you know, means given life by the
Spirit, same word.
By which also he went and preached unto
the Spirit in prison, which sometimes were disobedient
when once the long suffering of God waited
in the days of Noah, while the ark
was a-preparing, bearing two, that is, eight
souls were saved by water.
All right.
Now, if you'd like me to connect the
water with water baptism.
All right, let's go on.
In antitype, that's the Greek of verse 21,
baptism doth also now save us, not the
putting away of the filth of the flesh,
because you know that is exactly what God
did in the flood.
He put the filth of the flesh away.
He saw that the whole earth, all flesh,
was corrupt before him.
That's why he drowned it out.
I made one of his suggestions about that,
the other night, reasons for it, and so
on.
I suppose you've done so too.
Might have been the other day.
And he says, the art of a good
conscience towards God, by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ.
Now, I hope you understand that these eight
souls were saved by water.
That's what it says.
Well, you know what happened when the ark
was finished.
They had, as far as the figure can
show, they were baptised into Christ, the ark.
God put them in there and slammed the
door shut, and that was it.
And there they were in Christ, baptising, floating
on the water.
I think it's a good thing to show
us it isn't what takes place in the
water, but how we float on it.
If you may excuse my figure.
What really is being done?
It isn't the water, but see this ark
on it.
That's what I want you to see.
Drown everything else out.
Don't let anything else be seen.
Just the ark.
That's all it was to be seen.
Even the mountains.
What happened?
Oh, they've been baptised into the ark.
You say, well, I've never heard that said
before.
Consider it.
That's right.
The water was under them, over them, running
off the roof.
I don't know what was happening, you see.
There they were.
Now, keeping that figure in mind, we'll go
back to 1 Corinthians 10.
And in this chapter, we read these great
words.
Verse 1, Brethren, I would not that you
should be ignorant, how that all our fathers
were under the clouds, and all passed through
the sea, and were all baptised unto Moses
in the clouds and in the sea.
Alleluia.
So, the first people that knew, shall we
say, complete salvation, that is, the whole family
of Noah, notice that, were baptised into the
ark.
The whole family, or house of Israel, as
a complete whole, knew baptism in the ark,
in the clouds, in the sea, they knew
baptism unto Moses.
And I want to show you that, very
carefully, God made clear that though they were
both by water, here there's a development of
the truth, none of them got wet, at
first.
None of them got wet.
In fact, when they crossed the Red Sea,
they hadn't even got any dirt on their
sandals.
That was a marvellous thing.
Not a trace of water I would have
you see, not even the mud, or the
sediments of it, nothing.
And here's the picture of spiritual baptism.
Amen.
The one great baptism.
Or you might say, catch the children as
well, get a little damp, passing through that
scotch mist in the sea, if you notice
that sort of cloud.
Well, amen.
That's how it happened.
All right.
So now, my emphasis comes off water baptism.
Well, don't you believe in water baptism anymore?
Yes, of course I do.
But in my thinking and understanding, my emphasis
comes off that.
I see that I am included into Christ.
I see that I am baptized into him.
And did you notice the very way that
verse was constructed in chapter 10?
They were baptized unto Moses, okay?
But I want you to see Moses in
the cloud.
Surely that's not the way to read it,
but that's the suggestion.
They were baptized unto Moses in the cloud
and in the sea.
Hallelujah.
Now, if when you went through water baptism,
you weren't baptized, shall we say, in the
cloud and in the sea.
Then there was further for you to know.
Very much so.
Something further for you to know.
What a marvellous truth it is for our
days.
Amen.
You see, but you see, they had a
second baptism, didn't they?
When they went through Jordan, you see.
No, they didn't.
For all that generation of men were slain
in the wilderness.
God made sure they didn't have a second.
He killed them all off.
We know why.
But he did.
But it made safe that they weren't baptized
twice.
And when some of them, some of the
ladies, and perhaps some that were too young,
had been responsible men and women in the
days, in the wilderness, even they didn't have
a second experience like the first.
For in the first, you will remember, they
were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and
in the sea.
But when they went through Jordan, they were
not baptized in the cloud.
They never had a second baptism in the
Spirit, taking the Spirit, that is Christ after
the Spirit, in the cloud.
Christ is the title.
The cloud is Christ of Christ.
They never went through the cloud because by
that time the ark had been laid, the
ark of the covenant, and the cloud abode
upon that, in the centre.
All right.
Coming out of Egypt, they were led by
the cloud.
There was no ark for it to abide
on.
It was their guide, it was their everything,
their foretellers, their known, who went and stood
behind them at one period, and so on
and so on.
And they went into the promised land.
And so God wants us to understand these
great and marvellous things.
In other words, was it the one generation,
that generation which failed, and you know, I'm
sorry ladies, but he counted the generations by
the men.
I apologize to you.
I sometimes wish I was a lady, you're
so nice.
But he counted it by the men, he
said.
And the second generation had to go through
a baptism too, saying one practically.
And here then, beloved, it's for you to
see very clearly, that they were saved by
baptism, just like it says in Peter.
Those eight girls were saved by baptism.
It's included that they were saved by the
redemption through the blood of the lambs.
So they were.
They were saved from the curse of God
by that, but they were saved from Pharaoh
by going to the sea.
That's where their salvation was.
It wouldn't have been any good them being
saved from death in the land, if they
had been captured, recaptured, if you want to
put the word, by Pharaoh.
They were saved by baptism.
And people that thought water baptism was it,
all got drowned.
They got drowned in the sea.
Like the fish.
I have a good laugh.
I've got a marvellous sense of humour.
A real fine speech.
But these people that had been redeemed by
the blood, they sailed happily.
Do you know what I mean by sailed?
Oh, hallelujah.
They were alright.
They were saved by baptism.
How many of you dare preach that in
your congregation?
It's the truth.
They were redeemed by the blood and saved
by the baptism.
Weren't they?
Go on.
Dare to believe it.
Right, I heard somebody told a story.
Laugh and get it over with sort of
thing.
I've done with it.
You know, take the plunge.
Really do it.
Here's the thing to get through.
Oh, this can't fit in my box.
No, it didn't fit in mine.
I had to shake three from all that.
I said, oh God, I was ready for
in a state of something to see truth
as it is.
In Christian.
Did you know that evangelical bronze would be
slated to you as though you were locked
up in a convent?
Under a false religion.
Did you know that?
Isn't it wonderful when the Lord liberates the
spirit and you can go and nobody's going
to hold on you?
Amen.
Height, depth, length, breadth.
Of course, we pick up things from him
or her or this one, that one as
we go through.
Nobody is original in all their thought patterns.
Cannot be.
But what a wonderful thing it is.
That only shows us how much we need
one another.
And the Lord is moving us on and
on and on.
Saved by the blood of the Lamb.
Amen.
Saved by this.
Saved by that.
That's right.
But don't leave saved by baptism out.
Unless you're nearly sure that it gets the
doctrine wrong.
Baptized into Christ.
Into the body of Christ.
Amen.
And you know, beloved, in the beginning itself,
in Peter again, you can get it, where
Peter tells us that the earth standing in
the water and out of the water.
Do you remember reading that?
That's right.
Because in the beginning everything was water.
Now I don't know your theories about creation.
And I can quite see where people get
the gaps here.
It's in Genesis chapter 1.
I can see where they get it.
Because the earth was there under the water.
Meaning in the beginning it wasn't the sea
suspended on nothing.
The earth was there.
Because he called it up.
He says, let the dry land appear.
It didn't create it.
Not at that juncture.
And it came up out of the water.
Hallelujah.
Now that's how it all began.
The substance, let's just call it, came up
out of the water.
You and I couldn't have lived on the
sea.
Although we're supposed to come from something down
the bottom of the ocean originally.
Well, that's my theory.
I somehow, these ears have had to take
the place of gills I reckon.
I don't know, according to their theories.
I hope I don't look a bit like
that.
It sounds fishy to me.
Here is the whole glorious thing that I
mean.
It's just an attempt to get something to
put their feet on without God.
I've got to have something to explain something.
Because somebody's going to start asking questions.
You see.
What a marvellous thing it is.
I'm not saying I believe in the gap
theory.
But I can quite see that there's a
possibility.
There's a possibility.
That's the trouble with the Bible.
You know, it permits for so many theories
being constructed.
We say, who's going to get the right
thing?
Only the spiritually minded.
Do you think you're the only spiritually minded?
No, I don't.
But I do know this.
That if you want to know and have
understanding, you get the spirit, not education.
If you think the answer lies in university,
I want to tell you, you're more likely
to come out of university a twisted, perverted
person in body, sex, and mind, than perhaps
being dragged up somewhere and never a chance
of getting there.
More likely.
That is my observation.
What a tremendous thing it is to know
the glorious truth.
And this, of course, is why, in the
end, God dispenses with water, except the pure
water of the river of life.
You say, there's no more seas.
Why?
Because there's not going to be any more
baptism.
They're all going to be in a new
creation.
Everything's going to be here.
Hallelujah.
No one wants to be anymore.
Whether you interpret it as the seas around
the shores, or whether you want to be
very spiritual and interpret it according to the
seas that follow.
There won't be any need for that.
They'll be born again then, so we can
do away with the labour of regeneration.
We can do away with the sea.
There's no more deliverance from Pharaoh.
There's no more floods from the calm.
Hallelujah.
Put that all away.
Do away with the sea.
It'd be lovely.
I'd be able to walk all over your
gardens, even if you live the other side
of the world.
You know what I mean?
Yes, that's tremendous.
And God won't say, now don't touch that
tree in the middle of the garden, because
there's only the tree of life there.
He won't say that.
It's gone when you get to the new
earth.
That tree of good and evil.
We're all learning about evil.
We've learned enough of that while we've been
on earth.
Amen.
And had it washed out of our fibre,
glory be to God, we'd have been born
out of it.
Isn't that marvelous?
I can see that.
It totally makes common sense to me anyway.
And we move on.
So I want to ask you this question.
Do you know this one baptism?
Do you know it?
When I mean by know, I mean by
experience.
I know it by experience.
And you know, sometimes when I talk along
these lines of text, the history I say,
they're the subjects I talk on, I get
in it.
Now I can sort of feel I'm in
that body, you know?
I can.
I can feel I'm in that body.
Hallelujah.
Now you've got to know you're in it.
In a very real way.
I'm in this great body of love and
life.
Oh Lord, I've drunk in of your spirit.
Amen.
Now I know I've drunk in that spirit,
not because I had an experience where I
thought I was drunk, but because that's how
it's worked out in my life.
I found the spirit of Christ in me.
That is, I could start to live, I
could start to act, I could start to
respond as Christ.
Yes.
Amen.
Have you found that?
Beloved, that's what it's got to be.
And although you may not have understood it
at all, it doesn't matter like that.
You must remember this in the Seeds of
God, that the spirit of man will not
follow his mind.
I tried to do this, I tried to
do that.
There was law in me that wouldn't let
me do it.
Okay.
What happens is the mind must follow the
spirit.
If it could be done by the mind
you'd do your own thing.
So I thought it out, and when I
thought it out and saw that it was
all clear, I believed.
Did you?
Then you're your own savior, you're a wonderful
person.
What you do is abandon to God and
his nature of love and holiness.
Let him do it and then let your
mind catch up with it afterwards.
I can recommend this, this is my way,
if you have it.
It's good not to have enough brains to
think it out.
It's just good to let yourself go in
and then the spirit says, yeah, and then
the mind says, oh yeah, just like that.
That's how it goes.
And the Lord moves you on in these
great and glorious truths.
Have you been baptized with this one great
baptism?
Have you?
Because when you're baptized with this baptism, beloved,
haha, you're baptized into his death, I find
that in Romans 6.
This is what the writer to the Ephesians
says, now listen, he says, and you hath
he made alive or quickened who were dead
in trespasses and sins.
Now this is the strange miracle and mystery
of God.
He, if he wants to make you alive,
you know what he had to do?
He had to take you dead and baptize
you in death.
Oh, my word, yes, I thought, I believe
I'm alive.
Well, you were dead and he baptized you
into death, a greater death, hallelujah, and he
cleansed you into life.
That's the secret.
You are baptized into death, a death that
slays the death of sin.
Amen.
The death of sin that made you unaware
of God, unresponsive to God, very aware of
self, sin, body, demands of appetite and so
on and so forth, but of God, no,
no.
Deliver, yes, aware of God, so
God takes you and he immerses you in
this great, great death, baptized into this death.
And through that death, Lord, there's been a
whole carnival of death, yeah, better than having
liver and soup and ice cream for lunch.
You, you, you, you, you're baptized into this,
amen, hallelujah.
I said the other day that I sometimes
wonder whether the old self is worse than
old Adam, really.
Yes, my self, I am baptized into this
death.
That's a glorious thing, amen.
And then you live the rest of your
days crucified, you know that, there's something told
to you, you were heir to the throne
or whatever it was, there's a book, very
fashionable, you know, something to the throne or
something, you're ready, so on and so on.
You were baptized into that death, and so
that you could forever live the rest of
your life on earth and through eternity crucified,
that's why.
Yeah, that's marvelous, isn't it?
Because if you're crucified, you're so ugly, you
stink.
You know what I mean by that, must
be terrible to cross, blood flowing, eggs quittle
running, flies set in your living, terrible, terrible.
Crucified, hallelujah.
I'm crucified, he said, he cried.
Don't point out to me it was in
the past tense, I know that.
If it's in the past tense, it must
be in the present.
It's not in the past tense so that
you leave it behind, it's the past tense
in the sense that it's a continuing thing,
because we're preaching Christ crucified, he's crucified today.
You keep that clear, we preach Christ crucified.
Not Christ but was crucified, as an act
of eternity, in time, it was so.
We're preaching Christ crucified, amen.
Paul says, I'm not preaching myself, he says,
do we preach ourselves?
No, we don't preach ourselves, but I'm crucified.
Wonderful crucifixion.
And that's how we'll survive.
That doesn't mean to say we're to live
as though we're always on the Via Dolorosa,
doesn't mean that.
We can do this with glory, and with
glory.
I'm crucified, amen, hallelujah.
That's wonderful.
May the Lord lead us in truth.
I trust you don't think I'm too fat,
but when they went through the river on
that great day of crossing into their possession,
what do you think it looked like?
Because I've already told you, this great, this
pillar of clouds coming down onto the ark.
And the ark was on the shoulders of
the priest.
So if you could have looked at it
that way, it's almost like an inverted cross.
Here's the pillar, here's the ark, and here's
men standing holding it up.
And you know, it's absolutely right.
That's in my imagination, of course.
But what a marvellous thing it is.
That's how they went, right past the ark.
Just as they hadn't heard the word crucified
then, the cross hadn't been invented as a
form of capital punishment, it was way before
the Romans.
But there it is, God has woven it
into the scripture, this marvellous fact.
And you know, whoever has had a baptism
that hasn't taken them into that body by
that crucifixion, has not had a baptism at
all.
No, they haven't.
I said, that you contact the spirit before
you contact the body of a man even
on earth.
And that's what's happening to so many people.
May the Lord move us into the truth.
And when you see that a man is
a man, but he's a different kind of
man.
When you see a woman is a woman,
but she's a different kind of woman.
Then you know that they're crucified, whatever may
be their gift.
We're in this glorious body of Jesus Christ,
there's only one baptism.
Beloved, we need it.
Whatever else men may call the baptism, or
somebody may say, a baptism of love, or
a baptism of compassion, or a baptism.
People use these words freely, just like the
world.
They find a person, a sort of vivid
personality, and they say, oh he has great
charisma.
People take up these words.
Don't be afraid by them.
Here's the thing, it's his life that's translating
through me.
That's right, it's his spirit in me.
It's his life I live.
I came to him and I said, I'm
going to put it in the length of
our text now.
I don't know if I've used these words,
but in the essence of the truth, I
come to him and I say, Lord thou
art God.
I submit to thee.
Baptise me in thy body, Lord.
Baptise me in thy spirit, Lord.
Amen.
That's the way you come.
When all the struggles cease, and a new
wonder dawns upon the heart, at least it
did with me.
I knew, I knew, you say, I'm a
different person.
Whether or not I've lived to fulfil all
the potential, I don't know.
But that's what it's got to be.
It's not just the conversion.
Conversion is under this.
Conversion must be under the baptism, Amen.
The gospel for today, and here I'm going
to read it, is this.
You are to believe on Jesus Christ unto
the reception of the Holy Spirit.
Write it down.
That's the gospel for today.
They believe on Jesus Christ the forgiveness of
sins, they believe on Jesus Christ the healing
of their body, they believe on Jesus Christ
to be the leader of the disciples, you
know.
Now you believe on Jesus Christ unto the
reception of the Holy Ghost, and don't stop
believing until he's come.
That's right.
Amen.
Glory, glory be to the name of the
Lord.
Amen.
Never let your people rest in sins forgiven.
Never.
Take them on.
The figures of sins is clearing the way.
The casting out of the devils is clearing
the way.
All these other things are clearing the way.
Hallelujah.
Amen.
Oh, may the Lord lead us into the
fullness of all this, beloved.
Amen.
Did you know that chorus sings a different?
Something happened to me.
No.
Come and sing it to us, Crandall.
All right.
That's the liberty.
Yeah.
When I gave my heart to Jesus.
That's the way it goes on.
Some, it seems a different now.
I'm changed, it must be.
Since I gave my life to Jesus.
So, the chorus goes on.
Real good chorus.
May the Lord do something wonderful in every
one of us, beloved, unless this week has
been in vain.
But I believe it has.
Amen.
We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.
Oh, hallelujah.
Just think of that.
Created in Christ Jesus.
Yes, in Christ Jesus, beloved.
Living in some dirty, dusty old workshop where
the rats run through and where that stuff
is.
Holy, pure, no dust, no war of
machinery, no foreman.
Elder is another word for foreman.
Here is the thing, hallelujah.
Created in Christ Jesus.
That's all real workmanship, beloved.
I'm going to have the right kind of
workshop if I may put it that way.
And that's what it's all about.
To the Lord lead us on.
Created?
Yeah.
What am I created for?
What of?
Oh, not that dirty old dust that I
made Adam from.
Who matters?
If you can't quite picture it in your
mind, let the sense of it filter through
your being.
Give yourself up to it.
Enjoy your creation.
Adam did, but God anyway.
And move in the faith.
Amen.