BAPTISTS: FROM CONFUSION TO CONVICTION

2 Timothy 1:12 (KJV)

For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

We have all of these different denominations of churches around us and for some people that is just about as confusing as they can take.

How can God be in a system where there are:

·   Baptists

·   Catholics

·   Presbyterians

·   Lutherans and

·   Methodists

And that is to say nothing of the

·   Pentecostals

·   Charismatics

·   Calvary Chapels

Let alone the

·   Mormons

·   Jehovah’s Witness and

·   Seventh Day Adventists

·   Some of these churches believe you will go to heaven if you are a member of their church

·   Some of them believe baptism is what does it

·   Some of them think you have to be good enough and

·   Some of them think you are good enough

It seems like a mess!

But that is nothing.

Let’s just focus on Baptists for a little bit.

Within a 20 mile radius of where we sit right now there are something between 50-100 different Baptist churches.

It would be one thing if we were all the same and there were just that many to make it easy to get to them or to keep them small enough that you could have a sense of belonging.

That’s not the case at all.

Some of those so-called Baptist churches are so far from preaching what we believe the Bible preaches that we would not call them churches at all.

·   Some of them are more like Presbyterians than Baptists[1]

·   Some of them are more like Pentecostals than Baptists[2]

·   Some of them are more like Lutherans than Baptists[3]

Just in the United States there are[a]

1.  Alliance of Baptists

2.  American Baptist Association

3.  American Baptist Churches

4.  Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America

5.  Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists

6.  Baptist Bible Fellowship International

7.  Baptist General Conference

8.  Baptist Missionary Association of America

9.  Central Baptist Association

10.               Christian Unity Baptist Association

11.               Conservative Baptist Association of America

12.               Continental Baptist Churches

13.               Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

14.               Enterprise Association of Regular Baptists

15.               Free Will Baptist

16.               Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship

17.               Fundamental Baptist Fellowship Association

18.               Fundamental Baptist Fellowship of America

19.               General Association of Baptists

20.               General Association of General Baptists

21.               General Association of Regular Baptist Churches

22.               General Conference of the Evangelical Baptist Church, Inc.

23.               General Six-Principle Baptists

24.               Independent Baptist Church of America

25.               Independent Baptist Fellowship International

26.               Independent Baptist Fellowship of North America

27.               Indian Bottom Association of Old Regular Baptists

28.               Institutional Missionary Baptist Conference of America

29.               Interstate & Foreign Landmark Missionary Baptist Association

30.               Landmark Baptists

31.               Liberty Baptist Fellowship

32.               Macedonia Baptist World Missions

33.               Mainstream Baptist Network

34.               National Association of Free Will Baptists

35.               National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.

36.               National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.

37.               National Baptist Evangelical Life and Soul Saving Assembly of the U.S.A.

38.               National Missionary Baptist Convention of America

39.               National Primitive Baptist Convention of the U.S.A.

40.               North American Baptist Conference

41.               Old Regular Baptist

42.               Old Time Missionary Baptist

43.               Original Free Will Baptist Convention

44.               Primitive Baptist Universalists

45.               Primitive Baptists

46.               Progressive National Baptist Convention

47.               Reformed Baptist

48.               Regular Baptist

49.               Roger Williams Fellowship

50.               Separate Baptist

51.               Separate Baptists in Christ

52.               Seventh Day Baptist General Conference

53.               Southern Baptist Convention

54.               Southwide Baptist Fellowship

55.               Sovereign Grace Baptists

56.               Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists

57.               United American Free Will Baptist Church

58.               United American Free Will Baptist Conference

59.               United Baptists

60.               Unregistered Baptist Fellowship

61.               World Baptist Fellowship

The point I am trying to make is that it can be confusing and I believe the confusion leads to a perpetual state of indifference;

“Since I can’t tell which one of these churches is true, I will accept that none of them are.”

I want to see if I can’t wade through some of that and maybe come out on the other side with some real conviction.

Biblically, and I think historically there are three doctrines that hold up a true church.

I. THE PRESERVATION OF THE SOUL

2 Timothy 1:12 (KJV)

For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

The Apostle Paul claimed with assurance, “…I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded….”

Those are words of conviction.

·   I know

·   I am persuaded

There was no hoping or guessing going on.

Speaking about his own soul and it’s eternal destiny Paul said, “…for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him…”

Paul spoke word of such assurance in

·   Philippians

·   Ephesians and

·   1 and 2 Thessalonians

to name just a few.

Both Peter[4] and John[5] also spoke of assurance of salvation.

I want you to notice where Paul says his assurance of eternal life rests, 2 Timothy 1:12 (KJV)

“…for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”

His assurance rests:

·   Not in his church

·   Not in his good deeds

· Not in his baptism, catechism or communion

His assurance rests in this one thing; he is persuaded that Jesus Christ is able to keep that which he has committed unto Him.

He had trusted his soul’s safe keeping to Jesus Christ and he was convinced that Jesus was able to perform His salvation to the very end.

Isn’t that exactly what Jesus Christ told his disciples?

John 10:27-29 (KJV)

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

Through more than two thousand years of church history, and all of the different kinds of church denominations that have sprung up, there have always been, here and there, often tucked away in some mountain pocket or meeting in a secret sanctuary in the forest, congregations of believers who, with the conviction of Apostle Paul would say, 2 Timothy 1:12 (KJV)

“…for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”

A second leg these churches rested upon is

II. THE PRESERVATION OF THE SCRIPTURES

Psalms 12:6-7[6] (KJV)

The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

Among those who claim some sort of Christendom you will discover a number of ideas about the Bible and its role in the Christian faith:

A. There are those[7] who relegate the Bible to a secondary tier of importance.

The Catholics, for example, place church dogma over the Bible.

The teaching of the magisterium supersedes the Bible unless some portion of the Bible has been given an officially dogmatic interpretation.

In most passages of the Bible the Roman Catholic Church has refused to officially teach what they believe the Bible teaches just in case some time in the future they want to change what they believe the Bible teaches.

Liberal and Modernistic Churches[8] prefer philosophy to the Bible.

In some cases they will still refer to the Bible, but they reference it as a book filled with symbols and no solid truth.

B. There are those who believe God has preserved the Bible purely enough that we can be confident in it.

This group – by far the greater number of evangelistic and even fundamental churches – deny that there is such a thing as any Bible that is perfect.

They just insist that there is enough evidence, to demonstrate that the Bible, usually in all of the difference versions, are accurate enough to get the gist of what God wanted us to know.

They often say things like the Bible is perfect and infallible “in the originals” but they fail to tell you that no originals exist.

C. There are a hand full of us that believe God did exactly what He said He would do in Psalms 12:6-7

We believe that God has preserved for us the Word of God, without error perfect, profitable and in the plain language of the English language.

We believe he has done that in the King James Version of the Bible.

If such a version of the Bible exists today, it has to be in the King James Version:

Since only the King James Version is based upon that body of old manuscripts called the Majority Text and

Since every other version has built upon the presupposition that it has errors and therefore must give way, in time, to improvement.[9]

The third leg these churches rested upon is

III. THE PRESERVATION OF THE SANCTUARY

Matthew 16:13-18 (KJV)

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?

And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Throughout the history of Christianity, there have been those churches that were never a part of the Catholic Church, and never had to protest away from her.

·   The preservation of the soul

·   The preservation of the Scriptures and

·   The preservation of the Sanctuary

That makes for a lot of room for differences among those ancient churches:

·   Sometimes in the Swiss Alps

·   Sometimes in the French Piedmont

·   Sometimes in the German Valleys

·   Sometimes in the Russian Steppes

These believers were as diverse as the locations in which they could be found.

Frankly, with the exceptions of the three legs, you and I would have a difficult time finding much of anything similar to what we believe and practice today.

Those three legs and one other.

Every stool has a seat. Nobody sits on the legs of a stool, we all sit on the seat.

The one doctrine that defines a church as Baptist is

IV. INDIVIDUAL SOUL LIBERTY

Acts 23:1 (KJV)

And Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.

Individual soul liberty is the right of every man woman and child to worship God according to the dictates of his or her own conscience.

It is the conviction that.... 
Romans 14:7-8 (KJV)

…none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.

For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.

And that because of this we ought to..... 
Romans 14:5 (KJV)

… Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

This is only reasonable.

It is appointed unto man once to die. We all know it. When I die:

·   I will not stand before my parents and give an account

· I will not stand before a church denomination and give an account

· I will not stand before any king, president or council and give an account

I will stand before God and give an account.

I therefore must be free to live in all good conscience before God.

Baptists have been hunted down and killed for this one truth for nearly 1700 years.

It was this one truth they lobbied for before Jefferson, Madison and others of the founders of the United States.

It is this truth they alone passed down to the world.

They even contended that a person had a right not to believe at all, if they so chose.

With this one caveat:

No man ought to face eternity blindly.

The Baptists have always held to the responsibility of preaching with passion, boldness and persistence so that, if a soul goes to eternal hell, it isn’t because no one tried to rescue them.

---

[1] Calvinists

[2] Contemporary music

[3] Liberal and formalistic

[4] 1 Peter 1:4-5 (KJV)

To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,

Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

[5] 1 John 5:13 (KJV)

These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

[6] Though this passage is often attacked by those who deny the preservation of the Word of God, this passage, taken with the scores of other Bible assurances of its preservation, must be maintained as a clear promise that God has preserved His Bible without error.

[7] Like the Catholics and many in the modernistic Lutheran, Presbyterian and American Baptist Churches.

[8] Many of the Lutheran, Presbyterian and American Baptist Churches.

[9] I know the translators of the King James Version did not claim infallibility. But theirs was unique to what we see in the translations that followed. They attempted to translate perfectly. Modern translators work from the presumption that no such perfection is possible. They merely re-work what they have already worked, often so they can re-sell what they have already sold.

[a] I pulled this from Wikipedia.