Baptism service: I. Luke 1:15: 'Infants in the body of Christ'
1. John the Baptist was a human being from his mother's womb. 2. John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Ghost as an unborn infant. 3. There are infants in the church of God. 4. There are infants in the outward form of the church of God. God has not restricted the outward membership of the church only to adults. Children were part of God's church in the OT and this continues in the NT. Not all infants regenerate but the outward form of the church is subject to mixture - true in respect of adults and children.
II. Baptism vows and administration.
III. Main sermon: 'The Covenant God of the Church in all Generations' Acts 7:8;32;38;51.
Stephen's testimony - a history of the church of God. 1. The God of the covenant of circumcision v8. The sign of the covenant administered to believing adults and their children.
2. God as the God of the fathers v32. What the term, 'the God of' means.
3. God is the God of the church v38. Israel was 'the church in the wilderness' and its boundaries marked by the sign of circumcision, Ex 12:47,48.
4. God is the God of the believing seed v51. What circumcision signified - what baptism signifies and what has changed from the old into the NT. The sign itself never saves.
Do we have the reality of the thing signified in baptism? Is Christ Jesus all our hope and confidence?
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