In his sermon on the London Baptist Confession of 1689, Chapter 29, Paragraph 2, Levi Hopkins discusses the proper subjects of baptism. He explains that baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament ordained by Jesus Christ, symbolizing fellowship with Christ in his death and resurrection. The speaker highlights that only those who profess repentance towards God, faith in, and obedience to Jesus Christ are the proper subjects for baptism. Hopkins connects belief to these requirements, illustrating his point with numerous New Testament passages, which consistently show that belief precedes baptism. The sermon emphasizes adherence to the biblical pattern of baptism as described in Scripture, warning against human alterations that could corrupt God's ordinances.

I'm going to be covering the section on the London Baptist Confession. Mr. Long covered the more meaty portion of this section that we're going through on baptism. Last week, he went through, he covered baptism as an ordinance of the New Testament, that it is ordained by Jesus Christ, that to the person being baptized, it is a sign of our fellowship with Christ, both in his death and resurrection. Other mission of sins of our being engrafted into him, surrendering all to him, being buried with him, and rising again to live and walk before him in a newness of life.

I'm going to be going through paragraph two, very small easy section for me, and it reads, those who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in, and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ are the only proper subjects of this ordinance. Mr. Long gave us the foundation, he gave us what baptism is, what it looks like, what it represents, that it was ordained of Christ, and this week it's we're basically just covering who baptism is for, who are the proper subjects. And I think baptism falls under a similar category as that of the regulative principle of worship which our church holds to and basically just teaches that we only practice in the worship of God what we see, taught, or practiced in the New Testament in scripture. And in a similar way, baptism, I believe, is not just up for grabs.

It is something that we should do as we see ordained in Scripture, as we see taught and practiced by the New Testament believers, the apostles, the example that's laid out. So in the first sentence of this paragraph we see the three requirements that they lay out for us of what needs to be in place for someone to be a proper scriptural subject for the ordinance of baptism. And they list repentance towards God, faith in, and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ. Which I think all three of those things can be summed up in belief. Repentance is a turning from our rejection of God, basically, a turning from our lack of belief, a turning from our life of sin and rejection of Christ to believe in him.

And faith in, we're trusting him, it's believing and obedience too. It all kind of just has a flow in that when you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that he is who he says he is, you believe his word, you're going to surrender your all, you're going to have faith in that in his word that is true, and you're going to obey and love his law and live it. So I think it all can kind of be summed up in belief, and I see that as a theme throughout all the passages that were listed in the Baptist confession as Scripture proofs. But then also I went through and found every passage I could find on baptism, both New and Old Testament, but I grabbed the New Testament, the passages and what would be a Christian baptism. We have the baptism of John, which is sort of in a separate category.

But I'm going to walk through these passages. Three of them we already covered, and I grabbed a few extras. You can turn with me if you'd like to mark chapter 16 verse 16. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, But he that believeth not shall be damned." I think we see a progression there. Just really as we go through each of these passages, I want you to be thinking about that word believing as the standard of who is a proper subject for the ordinance.

But here we have, he that believeth and is baptized. It's not he who is baptized and someday believes now, you know, his baptism is effectual or his baptism has meaning or it's he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth not will be damned. Acts chapter 8 verses 33 through 37. And as they went on their way, they came into a certain water, and the eunuch said, see here is water.

I really love this passage for this, speaking on baptism, because I feel like it's so clearly laid out what we're covering, who baptism is for, because the eunuch asks, he sees the water and he says, what does hinder me from being baptized? And we not only have the example of baptism, we have his teaching. He answers and says, if thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. So they obviously had been going over the law and Philip was teaching him about Christ's fulfillment of the law and that Christ is the Son of God and they had obviously talked about baptism but they just step by step give us it's what does hinder somebody from being baptized anybody it's it you must believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God with all your heart seems pretty simple if you don't believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God with all your heart.

Seems pretty simple. If you don't believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that should hinder you from being baptized. If you do believe, nothing should hinder you. Don't let anything get in the way of being baptized as is laid out in Scripture. Acts chapter 2 verse 41, then they that gladly received his word were baptized and the same day they're added unto them 3, 000 souls.

Again they gladly received the word they didn't reject it they believed it and it's just more of they believed the word that was preached about Christ, so they were proper subjects for baptism. Acts chapter 8 verse 12, But when they believed Philip, as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. So who can be baptized? Male and female are candidates. It's still the same.

Those that believed what was taught about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ is the son of God. They are proper subjects for this ordinance. Acts chapter 18, verse eight. Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord together with his entire house and many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized. It's just over and over and over again.

Every passage I can find about baptizing, it's they believed and they were baptized. They believed and they were baptized. Acts chapter 16 verse 32 through 34. He then brought them out and asked, this is the jailer, sure everybody's familiar with this story, speaking to Paul and Silas. He asked, sirs, what must I do to be saved?

They replied, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household." Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in the house. At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds. Then immediately he and all his household were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them. He was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God, He and his whole house.

I feel like I've heard people kind of take this verse a little bit out of context and maybe not even read the full portion of it, as if when he believed, He somehow believed for everybody in his household and they were all baptized. But verse 34 clarifies that just saying that he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God, he and his whole household. So again, everybody was baptized that believe that there's no there's no passage in the New Testament of anybody being baptized that didn't believe. So I think it's our duty as Christians to follow the biblical pattern of what we see taught in Scripture. Being ordained of Christ by Christ, we should be careful not to let any of man's designs interrupt God's designs.

Nothing we can add or take away from God's ordinances, sacraments, his order, how he wants to be worshiped, Nothing we can add or take away from God's ordinances, sacraments, His order, how He wants to be worshipped. Nothing we can add or take away will make it any better. It will only corrupt it and rob God of His glory.