Why Do So Many Practice It? Part 2

In this part of the sermon: Martin introduces the third reason for infant baptism: a capitulation to powerful but unsanctified parental emotions, explaining how natural parental affections, even when…

Martin uses the analogy of a mama bird chewing food for her young to explain his method of breaking down complex theological concepts for the audience.

Now let me explain what I mean. Again, you who are visitors, don't be scared when I give you a mouthful at the beginning. I usually chew up the mouthful and, like a mama bird, chews up the food for the little birds before she gives it to them. I attempt to do that.

11:59 - 12:16 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin introduces the third reason for infant baptism: a capitulation to powerful but unsanctified parental emotions, explaining how natural parental affections, even when…

He references the Old Testament analogy of an ox knowing its crib but Israel not knowing its resting place, to illustrate how even animals show more common grace than some of God's people.

And it's a sign of great degeneracy when the Bible describes, in Romans 1.31, people who are without natural affection. Even animals have programmed into them, genetically, with no soul and mind to reflect, a care for their young. And God even draws an analogy in the Old Testament prophets of how the animal showed more grace, common grace, than even his people, Israel.

12:38 - 13:10 Read in full sermon

Driving home: However, however, however, with regard to the children of any belief, any believer, Almighty God is under no obligation to make them all His elect.

Martin describes an unconverted parent who, out of misguided love, gives a child everything, creating a 'monster of a little self-centered brat,' to show how natural affections need sanctification.

And that love will cut new directions now. Before, he thought loving my kid meant giving him everything he wanted, not making anything hard or difficult. And so, what he was doing was creating a monster of a little self-centered brat. Now, he thought he was doing it out of love.

14:15 - 14:31 Read in full sermon

The point: Bring every emotion of your parental heart subject to the word of God by the power of the Holy Ghost. If you don't, you dishonor the God whom you say you love.

Martin recounts an Indian brother's prayer at a student conference, where he tearfully expressed a longing for all to be elect, even while acknowledging God's sovereignty, to illustrate a sanctified parental emotion.

I remember one time praying on, in my knees with another brother, from India that I knew many years ago, and we were in the midst of a student conference with thousands of students, and I remember him praying with tears, and he said something like this, Oh, my father, I know that you have your own, upon whom you've set your love from all eternity, and that the Lord Jesus said, other sheep I have, and I must bring them. Lord, I know you have your elect, but oh God, forgive me if I long that they would all be your elect. You think God's displeased with a prayer like that? No.

30:05 - 30:43 Read in full sermon

Driving home: It was a capitulation to powerful but unsanctified parental emotions and the emotions that clouded the judgment. That's why it's never safe to argue theology. In a heated context, once heat begins to pump up into the bra…

Martin quotes Charles Hodge's systematic theology, where Hodge argues for infant baptism to avoid being 'aliens from the commonwealth of Israel,' to illustrate how even great theologians can be swayed by unsanctified parental emotions.

It's a great evil to be aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and from the covenants of the promise. You see what he does? He equates the church with national Israel. The term aliens from the commonwealth of Israel is taken from Ephesians 2 to describe national Israel, marked out by circumcision and the covenants of God.

35:32 - 35:54 Read in full sermon

Driving home: It was a capitulation to powerful but unsanctified parental emotions and the emotions that clouded the judgment. That's why it's never safe to argue theology. In a heated context, once heat begins to pump up into the bra…

Pastor Clark shares an anecdote from Mexico where converts struggled to abandon ancestral traditions (venerating Mary and saints) due to 'unsanctified filial emotions,' paralleling the parental emotions discussed.

That same argument is used in many contexts. It was our experience in Mexico. People would be confronted with the truth of the gospel, the word of God, and they couldn't deny them. But can we believe the religion of our fathers?

37:29 - 37:46 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin addresses the Roman Catholic view of baptismal regeneration as heresy and then refutes the paedobaptist argument that the New Covenant should not be 'narrower' than the…

Martin describes spinning a globe during prayer and thinking of believers worldwide, getting 'goosebumps,' to illustrate the vast expansion of the true Israel of God in the New Covenant beyond the narrow confines of Old Testament Palestine.

and 44, 100 percent of it was in a little hunk of real estate in the Middle East. And once in a while some people in Nineveh, a widow of Zarephath, look how narrow was the role of God's true Israel, the identity of it. But now where is the true Israel found? I love on a Sunday morning sometimes when I pray, I take my globe down, put it where I pray, and I spin the globe, and I think of just the little bit I know of groups of believers all around the world, and I get the goosebumps just conveying it. What's happened to the true Israel? Why it's broken all the bounds of Palestine and now that wh...

42:18 - 43:15 Read in full sermon

The point: Alter every practice that must be altered that we might be obedient to the word of God.

Martin recounts attending the funeral of an impenitent man where the minister offered comfort based on his infant baptismal certificate, illustrating a heretical view of baptismal regeneration.

But some would simply say, and I've heard this done at a funeral out in Wisconsin years ago, a man who lived and died impenitent on his deathbed. I went in to speak to him and God shut my mouth. I couldn't speak to him. God shut my mouth.

48:30 - 48:44 Read in full sermon

The point: If the faith and repentance are real, they will issue in a life of obedience. And if someone knows his duty to be baptized and says, well since baptism has nothing to do with salvation, we're saved by grace and faith, I …

Martin uses the analogy of the command 'Thou shalt not commit adultery' to expose the flaw in reasoning that if baptism isn't necessary for salvation, it's not necessary at all, emphasizing that obedience proves real salvation.

Repent and be baptized. Acts 2.38. Acts 10.48. Then he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. So, if the faith and repentance are real, they will issue in a life of obedience. And if someone knows his duty to be baptized and says, well since baptism has nothing to do with salvation, we're saved by grace and faith, I don't need to be baptized, alright, let's take the argument, is it the command, thou shalt not commit adultery? Yes or no? Alright, are we saved by the keeping or non-keeping of that command? Yes or no? Alright, since we're not saved by the keeping of that com...

53:33 - 54:21 Read in full sermon

The point: If the faith and repentance are real, they will issue in a life of obedience. And if someone knows his duty to be baptized and says, well since baptism has nothing to do with salvation, we're saved by grace and faith, I …

Martin quotes Ernie Reisinger, who states that baptism and the Lord's Supper are the only two commands Christians can perfectly keep, to underscore the seriousness of neglecting them as proofs of earnest faith.

flaw in that reasoning. Because it's not necessary for salvation, it's not necessary, oh wait a minute, some things may be necessary that are not necessary for salvation, but are necessary as the proof that my salvation is real, that my professed faith is real. And as my dear friend Ernie Reisinger says, he says, there's only two commands that any Christian can perfectly keep. All of them we've got to say, Lord, we fall short.

54:21 - 54:48 Read in full sermon