Lesson Seventeen

THE NEED TO BE BAPTIZED

TO BE SAVED FROM THIS CROOKED GENERATION

Burden to Impart:

God has ordained baptism as the way to be saved from the sinful, Christ-rejecting worm, which He has already condemned. By our baptism we declare that we have repented from our sins and no longer belong to the world. By baptism we are also testifying that we have believed in the Savior and belong to Him.

Facts to Teach:

1. God's salvation is not only an inward matter, saving us from our sins (by the redemption and blood of Christ) and death (by the resurrection and Spirit of Christ), it is also a matter which affects our relationship with the world around us.
2. God requires us to be saved from sin, death, and the world. The "world" refers to the degraded and corrupted society around us and in which we live. The "world" is mankind as the God-rejecting, Christ-rejecting society which refuses to accept God's Word and testimony. Rather, it hates righteousness and delights in sin (Rom. 1:32); it hates truth and light and loves darkness and falsehood (John 3:19-20). The world's greatest sin is not just that it did not believe in the Lord Jesus and rejected Him (John 3:18), but it also crucified Him.
3. When the Apostle Peter preached the first gospel message on the day of Pentecest he told the people that they not only needed forgiveness of their sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38), they needed to: "Be saved from this crooked generation" (the world) that was around them. The Apostle Paul called the world a "crooked and perverted generation" (Phil. 2:15). The world has rejected and crucified God's only begotten Son] The world has rejected its Savior! For this reason God's judgment is upon the world. We should not remain in the world! We need to be saved from the world. God's way of salvation from the world is baptism.
4. To be saved from our sins we must repent and believe in the Lord Jesus. To be saved from death we need to receive and experience Christ as the Spirit. To be saved and delivered from the world, the crooked generation, we must be baptized. Baptism is not a secret decision made only before God. Baptism is a public testimony to those around us (family, friends, the church, etc.) that we have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and have received Him as our Savior. Thus, baptism testifies that 1) we have repented from our sins and worldly way of life and 2) it testifies that we have received Christ as our Savior. In this way we are saved (before God) from our sins by faith, and we are saved (before men) from the world by baptism.