Day: September 24, 2007

Baptism and Church Membership

/ Tim A. / 2 Comments

 The following was posted on the LANDMARK SOUTHERN BAPTIST email group list.  You will notice that it is a quote from an Southern Baptist Convention tract published  by the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1970’s –

“A person must repent of his sin and profess faith in Christ as his Saviour in order to become a child of God. Then he attests his salvation by being baptized – immersed in water – by one who is authorized by a church to baptize him. This establishes initially his identity with a fellowship of children of God. Should he seek to join another Baptist church, the church which initially authorized his baptism verifies to the receiving church that the person has professed faith in Christ, and has been baptized. Subsequently, each Baptist church which one might seek to join receives verification to its satisfaction from the church where the person was a member just previously. ” J. Carey Wood

(The above is from a Southern Baptist tract entitled “What Is a Baptist Church?”. This small tract was published by the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1970’s. Notice the author of the tract teaches that baptism is an ordinance of the local church and that baptism identifies an individual with the church that baptized him. This is the reason the vast majority of Southern Baptists have always rejected alien {non-Baptist} immersions. This tract also shows where the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention stood on this issue even in the 1970’s.)

Water baptism [immersion], is the public testimony of the believer in Christ to his trusting faith in Jesus Christ as His crucified, buried, and risen Savior. This public testimony by immersion makes him the member of the local church. It is a picture of what Jesus has already done, baptizing each one who has trusted Him into His Spirit, making us a member of the body of Christ. The local church is the physical representation of the body of Christ.

On Overcoming Spiritual Depression

/ Tim A. / 2 Comments

The following is a quote by Lloyd-Jones given by John Piper in his book “Future Grace”, and I found it to be really encourageing.  I think it will be especially so on Monday, since this is the day most pastors think about resigning :>)

“I say that we must talk to ourselves instead of allowing ‘ourselves’ to talk to us! Do you realize what that means?  I suggest that the main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression in a sense is this, that we allow our self to talk to us instead of talking to our self.  Am I just trying to  be deliberately paradoxical?  Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?  Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning.  You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc.  Somebody is talking.  Who is talking to you?  Your self is talking to you.  Now [the psalmist’s] treatment was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself.  ‘Why art thou  cast down, O my soul?’ he asks.  His soul had been depressing him, crushing him.  So he stands up and says: ‘Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you…Why art thou cast down?–what business have you to be disquieted?…And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who He is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do.  Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: ‘I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.”  From FUTURE GRACE, by John Piper, p. 304, paperback.

It is wise preacher/pastor if we do not make crucial decisions while we are in the pit of depression or discouragement.  I think the above words are wise words to hear.  Speak the Word of God to yourself.