luck on your own on Judgment Day because you're so good, it's not going to work.
So it says in verse 6, "And John was clothed with camel's hair and with a girdle of skin
about his loins, and did eat locusts and wild honey, and preached, saying, There cometh
one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down
and unloose.
I indeed have baptized you with water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.
And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized
of John in Jordan.
And straightway, coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit like
a dove descending upon him.
And there came a voice from heaven saying, Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well
pleased.
You know, one of the things I love about the Gospel of Mark is that it packs in so much
great teaching and so many events into just a few verses.
I mean, here we are in verse number 11 and we've already covered just huge amounts of
the fundamentals of the Christian faith.
And let me point out a few that we just saw here.
First of all, we see that when Jesus was baptized, look at verse 10, and straightway coming up
out of the water.
Now let me ask you this, in order to come up out of the water, where do you have to
be?
You've got to be down in the water.
In order to come up out of the water, you have to be down in the water.
That's why it says in Matthew, "And Jesus, when he was baptized," good night, I'm mixing
it with Mark now, "And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straight way out of the
water," it says in Matthew.
And also in Acts chapter 8, when Philip baptizes the Ethiopian eunuch, it talks about how they
went down both of them into the water and he baptized them.
So baptism is not by sprinkling, it's not by pouring, it's not a little drop of water
on your head or a little bit, it's actually being dunked fully underwater.
That's why when Jesus was baptized he comes up out of the water and that's when the Holy
Ghost descends upon him and lights upon him.
Now also in Colossians, you don't have to turn there, the Bible says that we are buried
with him in baptism.
It says in Romans chapter 6 also, buried with him in baptism.
Now when was the last time you went to a burial and they just sprinkled dirt on the corpse
and walked away or just poured a little dirt on the corpse's head?
No, the burial is a complete immersion in dirt, right, you're completely buried.
And the whole point of baptism is that it pictures the death, burial, and resurrection
of Christ.
Romans chapter 6 ties it in with the resurrection and talks about how even as Christ was raised
up from the dead, we also should walk in newness of life.
And so it's a picture of burying the old man and putting on the new man.
And it's a picture of what happened in your soul when you got saved.
When you got saved, your spirit is quickened, and then you're just physically going through
the motions of that, showing an outward sign of the fact that you're saved.
Now baptism doesn't make you saved.
You could not be baptized and still be saved.
You could get baptized as many times as you want and be unsaved because of the fact that
it's your faith that saves you.
And I like to liken baptism to a wedding ring.
I wear a wedding ring to picture the fact that I'm married.
But if I take off the ring, I'm still married.
And if I take off the ring and put it on someone else's hand, they don't just suddenly become
married to my wife because they're wearing this ring.
Now, do you think that this ring is to show myself that I'm married or to show other people
I'm married?
Yeah, I don't just go through life and look down at my hand every once in a while and
see this and go, "Oh, whoops, I'm married.
I've got to get home to my wife."
I totally forgot that I'm married.
It's for other people to see that I'm married.
I already know I'm married with or without this ring.
I don't need a reminder of that.
Okay, it's the same thing with baptism.
We know we're saved because we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Getting baptized is an outward profession of faith, a testimony unto others.
And so it's like the ring.
You could put on a ring, it doesn't make you married.
You can take off the ring, it doesn't make you unmarried.
Just like baptism doesn't make you saved, not being baptized doesn't make you unsaved.
It's just a picture of the fact that you're saved.
You know, there are many married men who never wear a wedding ring.
You know, it seems like when I was a child, a lot of men didn't wear a wedding ring.
It seems like now most of them do, but you know, that's a tradition that changes over
time.
And so it has nothing to do with your marital status.
It's just a symbol or a picture.
Now when do you think is the most appropriate time for a man to put on his wedding ring?
When's probably the time that would make the most sense?
Probably right after he gets married, right?
You know, at the wedding, you're pronounced man and wife, you've signed the document or
whatever, and it's like, okay, now you put on the ring.
Okay, that makes the most sense.
Now here's the thing, when my wife and I got married, we didn't get our rings until a couple
weeks later.
Okay, well that's sort of like, if someone gets saved and they don't get baptized for
a few weeks or months or years, sometimes there's a space.
But probably the best time to get baptized is when?
You know, you get saved, you get baptized, right?
Boom, do it right away.
And that's what the Bible shows as the example.
But I'm not going to put on the ring because I'm getting married in three months.
You know, I understand there's an engagement ring, but don't mess with my illustration.
I'm talking about from the dude's perspective.
You're not going to put this on a week before you're married.
You put it on after.
So don't get baptized before you get saved.
And by the way, baptizing a baby makes no sense because that baby doesn't believe anything.
That baby doesn't know anything.
That baby can't make that decision.
You can't just force that on someone else.
And you know, every person decides what they believe on their own.
You know, I can't make my kids believe in Christ.
I can preach to them and teach them the gospel, but they have to make the decision to receive
Christ as Savior.
And so I'm not just going to dunk them underwater as a baby.
It makes no sense.
It's something that we do as a choice, and then you're depriving kids of even making
that step on their own by dunking them in advance.
But of course, most religions that baptize babies, they don't dunk them anyway.
They just sprinkle them, and that's not even baptism anyway because baptism has to do with
being dunked underwater.
As we clearly see here, Jesus, when he was baptized, he straightway coming up out of
the water.
He saw the heavens open, verse 10, and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him.
And there came a voice from heaven saying, "Thou art my beloved Son, and whom I am well
pleased to hear."