Message 4

Review messages 1-3 1 Jn 2:19; Gal. 5:4; 2 Thess. 2:1-10; Rev. 17:1-7; Matt. 13:33. Infiltration, 2 Peter 2:1-3.

We will look at infant baptism and it's beginning. It has a background in paganism and goes back in principle and practice before Christ.

Armitage's history, page 73 shows that infant baptism was practiced as a pagan rite in Norway and Iceland at least two centuries before the introduction of Christianity. "The newly-born infant was presented to the father who was to decide whether the child was to be reared or not. If he decided to rear it, then water was poured over the child, and the father gave it a name. If it was to be exposed, then the ceremony was not performed. If the child was exposed by anyone after the ceremony was performed, it was a case of murder, whereas it was not thought a crime if the child was made away with before water had been poured over it. The same people, after the introduction of Christianity, turned it into a Christian rite called scaro. Then the Dr. remarks," the analogy between the to lies in the use of water, the bestowal of the name, and the entrance into civil life through the rite."

These pagans had no standard of morality as we are supposed to have today. The father would decide whether the child would live or not and the mother would have no say in the matter whatsoever. The pagans simply brought the thing into Christianity and sold it to the world. Illustrate the Mexico version of the Virgin Mary.

The greatest crime in the world is to take away the religious freedom of an infant. You can put a bible in someone's hand and convince him of the truth, but to perform a rite on an infant and when he grows up he is already in a religion he had no choice or personal convictions about you have robbed him of his religious liberty.

There is only one Lord, one Faith, and one Baptism, and that baptism is the baptism of believers only. Men are convinced through preaching, Rom. 10:17. We never force men to conform to our standards unless the force is the convicting power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.

Baptists have always been the champions of religious liberty and no bondage is any greater than religious bondage. About 251 A.D. churches began to declare non-fellowship with the erring churches; churches then began to fall away and you had your regular churches and the irregular churches. The divisiveness of the Lord's church has been its preserving agent. When we can't withdraw, we lose the ability to stay with the Word of God, therefore when a church joins something outside of itself it loses its ability to say true to the word when error creeps into the organization. The regular churches began to re-baptize those who came from erring churches and some had the nickname Ana-Baptists. To be an Ana-Baptist was a shame and disgrace in the eyes of society, this was even so in the early days of America in the Massachusetts Bay colonies in the 1600's.

2. Church and state. The irregular churches united with the state in 313 A.D. and gained the favour of Constantine who became convinced that baptism washed away sins. He logically concluded that if baptism washed away sins he should not be baptized until just before he died but he still became the protector and supporter of the false churches. Thus the erring churches became the state churches. The state or government began to permit churches to operate if they were state approved. By about 610 A.D. the woman drunk on the blood of the saints is on the rampage. God's people have been in the enduring business, more than 70,000,000 Ana-Baptists died and shed their blood at the hand of this woman and her daughters.

In the 11th century A.D. a high way into Rome had a head of an Ana-Baptist on every fence post for 30 miles. God's people had to mean it when they united with the church in those days. This is what is wrong with Europe today and communism is the legitimate child of Catholicism, people used to religious slavery are easily enslaved to the state. Communism has been oppressive to the church of Rome in this century and I believe what we see in Europe today is a result of the lost influence of the harlot church and we are trying to help her get it back. The present pope is from a communist country and knows how to deal with communism. What is happening today shows us the Church of Rome is on her last leg and God is beginning to bring her to judgment as we are told in Rev. 18.

As a Baptist and a Bible student I do not, yea, can not, believe in the doctrine or validity of any church established since the time of Christ or one who does not teach the doctrines of God's word but I must contend for religious freedom in order to have the right to preach myself.

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