Good morning, friends, welcome to this very special edition of "Amazing Adventure." We're glad that you've joined us, wherever you are. I know there's a number of sites across America and many around the world. Friends, we'd like to also point you to the direction of our website for more information about the "Amazing Adventure" program. Those who are watching, you can go to amazingfactskids.org. We do have these bright beautiful lessons that go along with the series.
Tonight is "journey through the sea." You can get this lesson from the website, amazingfactskids.org. Let's stand together as we sing our theme song. I invite the Amazing Adventure singers to come and lead us in The Song. [Music] life is an adventure following the King. Every day with Jesus makes us want to sing.
Walking in the Spirit, he will lead the way. With His Word to guide us, glowing deep inside us, nothing can divide us, following the King. Life is an adventure following the King, every day with Jesus makes us want to sing. Conquering with kindness everywhere we go, voices we are raising, Jesus we are praising, life is so amazing, following the King. Life is so amazing, following the King.
Please remain standing as we have our Scripture reading and prayer this morning. And we invite our volunteers to come forward. Nathan, let's start with a Scripture reading, tell us what verse you're reading. I am reading, John 3:5, "Jesus answered, 'most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.'" Thank you very much, our prayer is being brought to us by Rosie. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for today being the Sabbath and thank you for helping all the people to gather here today.
Please bless this program and help us to learn more about you. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen, thank you very much. You may all be seated. I invite Pastor Doug to come forward for Bible questions.
Morning, Pastor Ross. Good morning. Good morning, friends. And our friends who are watching. I wonder, how many questions do we have this morning? We've got three video questions and then one written-in question.
Okay. So, we're ready to start, let's roll the first video question for this morning. My name is Emma, I am 9 and my question is, why God didn't show his face to Moses? Oh, do you remember the Bible tells us in the book of Exodus that Moses asked if he could see the Lord. And God said, "no man can see my face and live." But he put Moses in the cleft of the rock, we sing a song about that, "He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock." He put Moses up in this crag in this rocky mountainside. He said, "I will pass by and I will remove my hand after I pass by and you can see me from behind.
But no man who sees my face can live." The glory of God, unshielded, his face is so bright that it would have destroyed Moses if he had looked into the unshielded glory of God's face. Now, here in this world, because of our sinful bodies and our natures, we can't behold the glory. It would just burn us up, it's so bright. Even angels in heaven, Isaiah 6, "they cover their faces in the presence of God." But do you know the Bible tells us in heaven, we're gonna talk about that tonight, "that now we look through a glass darkly," 1 Corinthians 13, "but then face-to-face." In heaven, it tells us, we will see his face. All right, well, thank you very much.
We do have another video question we'll play out at the time. Hi, my name is Mary Lastison, I am years old--8 years old. And my question is, what happened to the animals when they got off the ark? All right, you remember, of course, that Noah was told by the Lord to help assemble on the ark, the animals. There were clean animals, came by sevens. The unclean animals came two by two.
And chances are some of 'em did a little multiplying during the 1 year approximately they were on the arc. And when he opened the doors and they began fly out and to crawl out and to rush out they began to fan out over the surface of the earth. Now, the world went through some dramatic changes shortly after the flood. Some of the continental plates were still shifting and floating, 'cause the whole world had been so saturated. And they believe at that time there was some of the continental plates that were moving.
Some of the animals that were called marsupials like kangaroos and koalas, they're in australia, some of them went down in that direction and then it separated by itself. And other animals came to, probably went across the bering strait and came to North America and others migrated down into africa and through asia and they spread and they multiplied. Some animals like some climates in some areas more than others and so you get very interesting collections of animals all over the world, based on the way they dispersed from mount ararat. All right, well thank you Pastor Doug, one more video question for this morning. Hi, my name is judith, I'm 9 years old and my question is will satan stay on earth or go to heaven when the second coming is here? Okay, the Bible tells us in Revelation 20 that an angel comes down from heaven and he binds the devil.
The devil is bound in the bottomless pit. Now, that word bottomless pit is really, it's called abusos, that's the greek word. That means the abyss. And it also describes the condition of this world before creation, the world was an abusos, you can read about that in Jeremiah 4 and in the greek version of the old testament called the septuagint. This world, after Jesus comes, is gonna be a chaotic mess, cities are broken down, people have died, the loss they're laying there.
Satan is bound on this planet for 1,000 years. And then he is judged at the end of that 1,000 years. No, satan does not get to go back to heaven. All right, Pastor Doug, we've got phillip who is from jamaica and his question is this: how will I know when I'm ready for baptism? Oh, that's a very good question, a very important question, I hope that if you haven't been baptized, you're thinking about that. And those who are watching, baptism is our lesson today, but it's the most important decision that you can make regarding your choice to follow Jesus.
How do you know when you're old enough to be baptized? Well, first of all you must believe and accept Jesus, you need to have your own relationship with the Lord where you talk to him on a regular basis. You should have your own devotional life, are you reading your Bible every day and spending some time in prayer? You should be a consistent witness. In your family, you should be doing your best to represent Jesus, at school and among your friends and neighbors. And we'll talk more about that answer, but I'm glad you're asking that question. A matter of fact, I think we might even have an example of a baptism today.
That's right, Pastor Doug, immediately following our special music, we'll be having a baptism right here. Praise the Lord. Well, at this time we're gonna invite our Amazing Adventure singers to come forward, God bless. [Music] and they that be washed shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever and ever. And they shall shine, they shall shine, they that be washed shall shine as the brightness of the firmament.
And they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever, they shall shine. And they that be washed shall shine as the brightness of the firmament. And they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever and ever and they shall shine, they shall shine, they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament. And they that turn many to righteousness as the stars, they shall shine, forever. As the stars, they shall shine, forever.
As the stars, they shall shine, forever. They shall shine. Good morning everyone. Good morning those of you at the downlink sites, we have a very special event about to take place now. In fact, it's probably the point and reason that we're here.
A young lady, hannah kennan who is 7 years old is about to be baptized. She's given her life to Jesus Christ. And I can tell you, this is a very smart, intelligent child who very much knows what she's doing. Because of your love for Jesus Christ, because of your desire to serve him even at this young tender age. It gives myself and pastor caesar great pleasure to baptize you in the name of The Father, and his son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
Let everybody here say, amen. [Applauding] Can you say, praise the Lord? You know, that's the reason we're doing these meetings, is because we want to encourage young people in their vigor and youth and energy of life to commit their hearts, their minds, their lives to Jesus so that he can activate the wonderful plan that he has for them. You know, I'm a little sad, because it seems like we're getting near the end of our meetings. We've got this meeting and then one more meeting tonight. Have you enjoyed this, friends? Have you learned some things about Jesus? Amen.
And our friends who are watching, don't forget there's other things that we're gonna continue to do. You can go to the Amazing Facts kids website. And a matter of fact, we're gonna be posting some of the many pictures of the groups from around the world. We're gonna develop a little forum there. So, later this week we hope that you'll go and you'll check out amazingfactskids.
org. How many of you young people, I'm just wondering, in your house you've got the internet? Show your hands. Uh-huh, that's what I suspected. You know, there's some other good websites, there's a website called kidsinfo.com, there's a website called myplacewithJesus.com, I believe voice of prophecy has another good kids website. I hope when you're on the internet instead of playing games and shooting asteroids, you can be studying the Bible and continuing to grow in your relationship with Jesus.
So, you can keep in touch with some of those good locations there and you'll find out more about that. Our lesson this morning is dealing with the subject of journey through the sea. We're going to take an adventure today that's gonna carry us through the sea. You know, back during world war ii, the battle of dunkirk, dunkirk, france was a very dramatic time. Over 300,000 british and allied forces were stuck there on the shore of dunkirk being bombarded by the germans that were pushing them off into the sea with no way of escape.
And it looked like pretty soon they were all going to either drown or they were going to be taken prisoner or they were going to be killed. And then a special call was put out, an emergency call. And across the ocean there in england and other parts of france and even scandinavia, hundreds of fishermen brought their little boats and in just 9 days they evacuated 330,000 men from the shore that would have perished. It was one of the great rescues of history and they brought them across the sea to safety. You know, right now where they all rode across the sea and it took days to do that.
Between england and France there was a tunnel not through the sea, but under the sea in the earth. It's two trains that go back and forth it's called the chunnel. Any of you ever heard about the chunnel? And now in just a couple of hours you can go racing like a bullet from Paris all the way to england and back again. But we're not gonna be talking now about going over the sea, or under the sea, there's a story in Exodus 14 about God's people needing to go through the sea in order to be saved. You remember when the children of Israel were slaves in Egypt? And God forced the pharaoh to loosen his grip and they began their journey from the slavery of Egypt to the promised land.
This is like salvation. But before they could get out of Egypt, they had to go through the water. And I've got news for you, everybody that wants to get to the promised land must make that journey, that adventure, through the sea. It's called baptism. You remember the children of Israel were up there and the Egyptians began to chase them and there was no way of escape.
So, what did God do? He performed a miracle and Moses stretched out his rod and the ocean parted and the children of Israel went across miraculously. When they went through the sea, it was a symbol of baptism. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10, "they were baptized in the sea." Now, let's get to our lesson here, we're gonna learn some more about this important subject of getting a new beginning called baptism. Number one, do we have a choice in being saved? You know, I've heard some people say, well, God knows everything and God's all powerful and if he wants to save you, he'll save you. And maybe some are meant to be saved and some won't be saved and it's all predestined and you can't decide.
That's not true. The Bible says you can choose. Joshua 24:15, Joshua said, "choose yourself this day whom you will serve... But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Have you made a decision to serve the Lord? And again, Jesus said, "no one can serve two masters." There are two forces that are warring for our soul. Did you all know that? Any of you ever play tug-of-war before? You get a bunch of kids on one side of a rope, put a flag on the rope and you have a couple of lines.
And you get a bunch kids on the other side and you say, "on your Mark, get set, go" and they begin to pull back and forth. And whoever can pull one team across the line, they win. You ever feel that tug-of-war going on in your heart? There's a tug-of-war, Jesus loves you and he's tugging with his love this way. The devil wants to destroy you so he can hurt Jesus, he's tugging the other way. But you get to make the decision.
You are the one who adding your vote either to the pulling of the devil or the invitation of the Lord, you get to choose. That's why Jesus says, "come unto me." You can choose to come to him. The devil cannot force you to be lost if you make up your mind to give yourself to Jesus and to trust him with your life. You have a choice, Matthew 6:24 says, "you can't serve two masters for you'll either hate one and love the other or else you'll be loyal to one and hate the other or despise the other." You get to choose which one you love, you can't serve the world and heaven. You can't serve Jesus and the devil, you've gotta make up your mind that you wanna serve the Lord.
Jesus said that, I'm sorry, Moses actually said it, "I have set before you this day two choices; life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life that both you and your children, your descendants might live." You can choose life. You know what's sad? I wanna ask you young people a question. There's about 6.7 billion people in the world today. When Jesus comes, will most of them be saved or lost? That's terribly sad, but it appears most of 'em will be lost.
Jesus said, broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many they are that go in through that gate. Narrow is the gate that leads to life and few there be that find it. You know why there's few that find it? 'Cause there's few sincere adventurers that are seeking for it. Are you seeking for life? What's more important than everlasting life? There's no greater treasure that you can find. Number three, how do I show that I want to choose God's team and live my life for him? What is it that we do to demonstrate I'm making a decision to commit my life to Jesus? Bible tells us in acts 2, Peter was preaching, he said, "repent every one of you and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.
" See, baptism represents a cleansing, it represents a new birth, it represents a death, a burial and a resurrection, it represents a marriage, it represents a very important decision that you can publicly make to say, "I'm choosing to be cleansed from my sins and to follow Jesus." the Lord wants everyone to be saved. Why will some be lost? It tells us right in God's word, Ezekiel 33:11, "as I live, says the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." God doesn't wanna see anybody die, not even the wicked. He says, "but the wicked turn from his way and live." And then you can hear Jesus pleading, "turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways. Why will you die?" the Lord tells us that if we come to him we can turn from the devil, turn to the Lord and he'll give us life. But we need to make that decision.
So, question number four, is it important to be baptized? Oh, yes. Matter of fact, Jesus said just before he ascended to heaven in the gospel of Mark 16:16, "he who believes and is baptized will be saved. But he that believes not will be condemned." So, did Jesus say baptism's important? You need to believe in him and be baptized. That means publicly demonstrate your faith in him. And not believing is the most dangerous thing.
The last words of Jesus, before he ascended to heaven, after he died on the cross, he was buried, he rose, he talked to the disciples for about 40 days, he appeared to them and then he ascended to heaven. You know the last thing he said, "go ye therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them." So, how important was baptism to Jesus? I would think that the last words of Jesus should be the first priority of Christians. One of the last things he said was go tell everyone about the gospel and baptize them. In other words, tell them but don't stop there, ask them to make a decision to accept the message. You know, another example in the Bible that tells us how important baptism is.
Some of you remember there was a disciple by the name of phillip. He was a deacon, he later became an evangelist and one day the Holy Spirit spoke to him. He said, "phillip, I want you to go down to the desert by gaza, I've got something for you to do there." So phillip walked a long way from samaria down to the desert by gaza. And while he's walking along wondering why the Lord sent him all this way in this big desert region, he saw that there was a man who had probably parked his chariot to rest a little bit in the shade of a date tree. And he was reading the scroll of Isaiah.
And he was reading a prophecy about the Messiah. And he's reading out loud as the Jews often did. And it was just a passage about Jesus coming. And he says, "I'm not sure what this means." And Phillip overheard him and said, "you know, maybe I can help you understand." And he said, "you're heading this way, hop into my chariot, we'll go together." And so Phillip and the treasurer from Ethiopia, they rode along together and Phillip began to teach him and preach to him about Jesus that Jesus was the Messiah. And the Holy Spirit told that man, "this is the truth," I can't wait to take this message back to my people, but I need to make a decision.
"What prevents me from being baptized?" And Phillip said, "well, if you believe with all your heart and you believe these teachings and you're surrendering your life, you can." And the Ethiopian man said, "well, we're passing by some water right here," maybe there was an oasis, it might have been the Mediterranean sea there by Gaza. And they got out of the chariot and right then and there, Phillip baptized this man who was a very important man with the queen of Ethiopia. And when they came up out of the water, you know what happened to Phillip? You ever seen someone plain disappear? They just vanish? After they came out of the water, Phillip vanished and all of a sudden Phillip found himself up north by Joppa, another town miles away. Do you think that Ethiopian man was happy? He probably thought that Phillip was an angel. God sent Phillip all the way down there to the desert to teach that man and baptize him.
So, how important is baptism? And you know, that man then took the truth about Jesus to the country of Ethiopia and it spread all through the country to this very day, people are there who believe the truth, because Phillip went down to the desert when the Holy Spirit told him to. So, baptism is very important. 'Cause when you surrender your life to Jesus, you're saying, "Jesus, I want to give you permission to fill me with your spirit." Question number five, does it matter how we're baptized? Do you know there's a lot of different ways of being baptized? The Bible says in Ephesians 4:5, there is--this is on the screen, you can say it with me. "There is one can lord, one faith, one baptism." One, that not only means there's one lord we commit our lives to when we're baptized, there's one truth. There's also one true way of being baptized and it is does make a difference.
Now, baptism is a symbol, but does the symbol matter? Why does a woman wear a white dress when she gets married? Anyone know? It's supposed to represent purity. If she wore a pink dress with white polka dots, that wouldn't look normal, would it? Would you say that's a strange lookin' wedding dress? Because there's these things have symbols. You know, one pastor when we have the Lord's supper, Jesus gave us two institutions, baptism and communion. You've maybe you've participated in communion, you've probably seen communion where they have the unleavened bread and a little bit of grape juice. Have you seen that before? That represents the body, the bread represents the body of Jesus, the grape juice represents the blood of Jesus.
The bread is not supposed to be leavened, leavened represents sin. Jesus had no sin in his life. The grape juice is unfermented, Jesus' blood was pure. I heard of one pastor who said, well, it's only a symbol so we're gonna have communion, we're gonna have coca cola and hamburgers. Since it's just a symbol.
Really? Now, is that right to do that? Doesn't that destroy the meaning when you do something like that? The symbols are important and baptism being done the right way, there's a lot of beautiful symbolism that's lost. You know, some churches they say, well, since the water's a symbol, you don't wanna get all wet, so, we'll just sprinkle a little water on you. And so when a person's baptized, they just sprinkle a little water on 'em and they say, you've been baptized. But that's not what the word means, the very word baptism means to be submerged. We wanna be baptized the way Jesus was, don't you think? A Christian follows Jesus.
How was Jesus baptized? Mark 1:9, "Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan." Was the Jordan the name of a bottle of water? Was the Jordan the name of a spring? Was the Jordan the name of a well? Or was the Jordan the name of a river? So, John the baptist needed a whole river to baptize him. "He was baptized by John in the Jordan and immediately coming up out of the water." So, he had gone down in the water in order for him to come up out of the water. "He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending like a dove." And God wants to give you the Holy Spirit too. That's why it says in John 3:23, John the baptist was baptizing in Aenon near Salim. The word Salim or Salim means peace.
But it was a place in the river where there was a lot of water. It says he baptized there, 'cause there was much water. The water was deep enough. See, even the Bible, Jesus, John the baptist, they knew it was important to do it the way God said. Matter of fact the word baptism it comes from a greek word, baptizo and that word baptizo, it means to dip, to immerse, to plunge under water.
And that's because when you're baptized it's like a new birth, it's like a burial. And you're totally washed, you're totally buried, you're totally reborn. If your parents said, you know, I want you to go out in the backyard, I want you to bury some trash. And you went out in the backyard and you dug a hole and mom and dad weren't looking so you dropped the trash in the hole, you took a little dirt and you sprinkled it on there and you walked away. Is it buried? No, the neighborhood raccoons are gonna dig it all up.
Buried means buried. Now, when you're baptized, it's a symbol of your sins being washed away. How many of you want your sins totally buried? You don't want them to resurrect, right? And so, it's symbolic of that. The symbol does make a difference, it's important. What are some of the other important symbols that are represented in baptism? Question number six, what other important symbols does baptism represent? Well, ananiah said to Paul, "why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the Lord.
" So, baptism represents a washing away of sin. Now, how old do you have to be before you know that you need sins washed away? Well, you know, as you get older, you begin to understand what's right and wrong. You can teach a 2 year old the difference between right and wrong or even younger than that. There's some things they know are, no. Some of you, I bet you the first word that you learned was no.
How many of you parents-- first word they learned, no. Nathan's first word was, it's stuck. That's actually two words, he was out there diggin' in the garden, I put the shovel in the ground and he couldn't pull it out. I said, "is it stuck?" He said, "it's stuck." And that was the first thing he ever said. But we all, you know, have our first words.
But we know right and wrong. But really understanding the consequences of sin and salvation, sometimes it's not until you're 7, 8, 9, 10 years old you begin to understand those things. Some don't understand until 16, we all kinda grow at different ages. When you're old enough to be lost, you're old enough to be saved. There's a place the Bible says, where it's called the age of accountability.
When we're young children, we may not understand some of these things. And God looks on the heart, doesn't he? But when we're old enough to know what God really wants us to do and if we're old enough to be lost, we're old enough to be saved. And so that's important to remember. He said, "be baptized and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." You know, the Bible tells us that the Lord wants us to all receive the gift of the Spirit. When Jesus was baptized the Holy Spirit came down.
God's spirit gives us power. Did Jesus need the power of the Holy Spirit after his baptism? He began a life of ministry and a life of miracles. And not only that, was Jesus tempted by the devil after he was baptized? Yes. And through the power of God's spirit we can resist temptation. You know, there's another important symbol for baptism.
It says, "husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her." You know, baptism is something like a marriage, it's like two people love each other, finally they say we're gonna demonstrate our love for each other. We're going to commit to spend our lives together and we're gonna belong to each other. And the husband promises to provide and protect his wife, and the wife promises to love. It used to be love, serve, and obey--but they don't have that in the vows anymore-- her husband, and that was because it was a symbol of Christ and his church. When you're baptized, you become part of God's church.
And it's like you get married to Jesus. Now, baptism's something usually done publicly. We just saw a beautiful baptism here, it was done in front of other people. Why? Because you don't wanna be ashamed of Jesus. Did Jesus die for you publicly? Was he in front of other people when he died for you? He showed his love for you in front of other people.
What would you think, girls, if you had a boyfriend-- you're too young. But if you had a boyfriend and he said, "yeah, I got a girlfriend, but I don't want anyone to see me with her, because I'm afraid of what they might think, or she looks kinda funny." You'd say, "what?" If a man loves a woman and if a woman loves a man, they talk about 'em, they tell everybody, they're not ashamed. And if you say, I'm giving my life to Jesus, you shouldn't hide that, you should let people know, 'cause you love him. And so that's why weddings are done in front of people with all this fanfare and pomp, because these two people love each other and they celebrate it. A baptism is something, it's good news, 'cause it means a person's going from death to life and getting a new beginning.
Number seven, what else does baptism represent and why does it matter? Answer, Romans 6:4, we talked a little bit about this. It says, "we are buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of The Father even so we should walk in a newness of life." It's like you're a newborn baby when you're baptized. Did any of you learn to start walking when you were like 10 months old? Some of you real young? Yeah, one of our kids started at 10 months old and they looked like they were too young to walk. And you know, when a baby first learns to walk, do they sometimes fall down? Should they get discouraged? Babies walkin' along, first few steps, they fall down they say, well, that hurt, I'm not walkin' anymore that could be dangerous. Never gonna try that again.
Is that what they say? No. Do you know a baby falls down-- someone did a study--up to 300 times before they can walk with stability; 300 times bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, falling and they keep getting back up again. And if you make mistakes after you're baptized, should you give up? No, you're learning to walk, it's like a new birth and you begin a new life. You know, another way it's like a new birth, when a baby's born, one of the signs is it breathes. When one of our boys was born, I don't remember, which one was it? Steven, when he was born and after he popped out, he didn't breathe.
And the doctors and the nurses were gettin' a little bit worried. Well, they had given mom so much oxygen that he was all pink already, he didn't even need to breathe. And so he's just like this and they're goin', breathe, breathe. And they were trying to pinch him and get him to breathe. Because in the old movies they used to show that the doctor would hold up the baby and give him a swat on the posterior.
You all know what that is, right? And he'd go, wah, wah, wah. And that would mean, everyone smiled he's crying, new birth, he's breathing now, everything's gonna be okay. Well, you know, when you're held under water, do you breathe under water? Not without scuba gear, you'd start chokin'. You come up out of the water, you go [gasp] that represents that new life. We learned about the breath of life last night, it's like the new spirit of God comes into you.
You may not feel electricity go up and down your spine, but God promises that all your sins are left behind symbolically in that water. You become a new creature, it represents a new birth. You know, it also represents freedom, all your old sins, the old slavery is left behind. The children of Israel in Egypt, they were slaves, they crossed the red sea, they came up free. At Amazing Facts we do these radio programs every week and I heard an amazing fact about someone by the name of henry box brown.
You ever heard about henry box brown? Henry box brown was a slave who was born in 1831 in Virginia when there was slavery and it was very rough. And he did his best to serve his master, but finally when his master sold his wife and children, didn't even tell him, to someone else. He said, "I'd had enough of this" and he talked to a couple of friends. He said, I want you to build me a box and they built a box that was 2 feet wide by 3 feet wide and about 3 feet high and henry crawled in the box and they crated him up, they nailed it shut, and they shipped him to Pennsylvania from North Carolina. They mailed him, ups so to speak.
And he was real quiet, he had a little bit of water in there and they put him on a horse and he was in there. And they put this side up on the box to try and keep the right side up. And they turned him upside down for a long time. And he bounced along for hours in a wagon and then he heard some men loading him around and people--and he had to be absolutely quiet. And then they put him on a train and he bounced around on a train.
And after 27 hours in that box, had to keep absolutely quiet, they finally got him into the land of freedom, they opened up the box. He went in the box a slave, but he came out a free man. And he spent the rest of his life helping other people get free. How important is freedom to you? Baptism is a decision that you're making to serve a different master. And when the devil comes after you, when you're baptized you're saying, no, leave me alone devil, I've given my life to Jesus.
I belong to him now, he's put his stamp on me. I'm branded by the Lord, I'm his property. I've got his designer label, right? That's what happens when you're baptized. Number eight, do I need to join a church when I'm baptized? Can I just baptize myself in the bathtub tonight, Pastor Doug? No, doesn't work that way. That's just called a bath, that's not baptism.
Or we're goin' swimmin' tomorrow, can I just baptize myself at the pool and not tell anybody? No, that's not baptism. Baptism is a sacred service where people pray and you wanna be filled with the Spirit and is done publicly by somebody who is ordained by the Lord to baptize. And you become part of God's church. Some people sorta wanna be a maverick. We were out ridin' around in the deserts there of Nevada a little while ago and we saw wild horses, they don't belong to anybody.
Some people say, "I believe in Jesus and I believe in the Bible, but I don't wanna be part of a church. I just wanna sorta be a mustang Christian." No such a thing. The Bible says, "by one spirit we are all baptized into one body." Now, I need a volunteer. You didn't think I was gonna have anything. Someone who has not been chosen, only those hands who have not been chosen.
Here, I'm gonna come up here a little ways. All right, young man, what's-- I don't know your name. Come on up here, look in the mystery chest and I want you to see if you can find--see if you can find a nose and an ear in there. Can you find a nose and an ear? Really good. Okay, thank you very much.
All right, now if I should say, "oh, look, a nose." You go, "yeah, so." Everybody's got a nose, right? But if I should say, "oh, look, a nose!" Now, does that look like something's wrong? If you see a nose on the floor--if I were to say, now, as you leave building, friends, please watch out for the nose on the floor. You know why you say, that doesn't sound right, 'cause where does a nose belong? It belongs on a face, right? This was actually--this was president bush's nose, I hope he'll understand. You may have recognized it. Or if I were to say, "oh, look, you've got an ear." Big deal, if it's on someone's face. But if you say, "ah, there's an ear on the ground.
" How long does a nose--if someone's nose get cut off, do you know if you sew it back on fast enough, it will grow back? Or if you cut off a finger, but if there's a finger layin' on the ground. The Bible says that we are all parts--there, thank you very much, you can take that nose and that ear back with you, just don't play with 'em. You never know, you might need a spare some day. If the Bible says, "we are part of the body of Christ." You are all different parts, you all have different gifts, you have different talents. And when we all come together, together you are the hands and the feet and the eyes and the mouth and the ears and the nose of Jesus.
We show the world what Jesus is like today, by our words and by our actions. That's why you wanna be a good witness. And if you're baptized and you're not part of the church, you're not gonna last very long. How long does a nose live when it's separated from the face? Got a friend that accidentally cut off his finger. He was sawing something.
And they rushed him to the hospital 20 miles away and they got there and the doctor said, "well, where's the finger?" And they said, "well, it's back in the wood shop." And the doctor said, "well, it's too late now. If you'd brought it with you, I could sew it back on, especially if you packed it in ice." But it stayed separated from--so, he's kinda gotta short finger now. You gotta stay attached to the body. When a lamb is born, doesn't it need to be in the fold where it's protected? If a lamb's out there in the woods, the wolf's gonna get him. And so when you're baptized, you need to be part of the church.
Jesus is the head of the body of the church. And again you read in acts 2:47, "the Lord added to the church daily those that were being saved." Notice, saved added to the church. So, before you're baptized, you should have a commitment to be part of a church family and that means attending. And it's good if you can go to not only Sabbath school and church, but prayer meeting and other special functions so you can grow. Can you be too bad to be saved? What if you do something bad after you're baptized? Oh, you're disqualified.
No, what did we just learn? Baby learning to walk, you're gonna make mistakes, don't let the devil discourage you. I tried to be a Christian, but I keep sinning, I keep getting tempted. You're gonna be tempted as long as you're in this life. Don't get discouraged. The devil will try to tempt you to give up on Jesus.
Jesus will not give up on you, so don't give up on him. Amen. It says, "if we confess our sins, he's faithful and he's just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us." Following the Lord you'll get stronger, you'll grow better, you'll do better all the time. It says, "the Lord promises the one who comes to me, I will by no means cast him out." You can trust the Lord that he will never turn away from you if you come to him. Just don't let the devil discourage you.
Be determined, I'm gonna follow Jesus. And if I fall down, I'm gonna get back up again. If you fall down, what are you gonna do? If you sin, you get on your knees, you come to Jesus. You say, "lord, I'm sorry, help me." He will help you do better every time. Just don't let the devil discourage you.
You can be a Christian. You know, a lot of people decide to be Christians and they start the race, but they quit along the way. There'd be a lot more people that would make it to the Kingdom if they wouldn't get discouraged and give up. You need to press on. Number ten, how do I know when I'm ready to be baptized? Have you made a decision to follow Jesus? Do you love God? So, if you've made a decision to follow him and you love the Lord, you must choose.
We've talked about that. Another way that we know that we're ready to accept Jesus, are you willing to give up your selfish ways and the ways of the world and to follow Jesus, because you love him more? You know, there's some things, if everybody is gonna be asked to deny themself. Jesus said, "if you follow him, you need to take up your cross, deny yourself daily and follow him." Now, some things that you deny are no problem for me, some things I struggle with would be no problem for you. But everybody has a struggle. You need to be willing to let go of those things.
Some of you might be addicted to video games, all the time. Nintendo ds, xbox, sony, they got all these different games and it's almost an addiction. You can get hypnotized by that stuff and the devil can get your mind so fevered. Uh-huh, or you got your favorite tv programs, you just can't miss it. Is the Bible more important to you than that? Spending time with Jesus? You might need to go through a little struggle, say, "I'm gonna let go of those things.
" The devil's gonna want you to think those things are too important. I need a volunteer. Let me see, I went to this side so this time--no, you've never volunteered before. You haven't? Okay, you come on up here. I want you to look in the mystery chest and see if you can find a vase.
If it was more expensive, it would be a vase. But I got it at walmart. All right, thank you very much. I appreciate that, what was your name? I wanted to pick somebody-- looked like you're strong. You're Daniel? Danny.
Danny, okay. Now, I just wanna illustrate something here. There's an opening to the vase and I can get my hand in here. Not too much trouble, right? All right, see that. So, all right, I want you to help me now get this off.
You're a strong boy. Oh, oh, oh, oh, that hurts. Oh, oh, I give up, I give up. Okay, you did your best, it's kinda stuck. I wonder if it'll make a difference if I let go of this.
As long as I was holdin' on to that, I couldn't get my hand out. I'm hangin' on to the world and doin' that, you can't get it out. You know, that's how they catch monkeys in some parts. They put these coconuts down and they cut a little hole in the coconut and they put the monkey's favorite fruit in there. And the monkey can get his hand in but then he takes a fist full of the fruit.
And the coconut's chained to the ground. And the people just walk right up and grab the monkey, 'cause the monkeys won't let go. And so they're captured 'cause they won't let go. And you know, the devil does that. I'll let you keep the world, it's worth more than the vase.
And that's how the devil gets a lot of people too. It's because we say, "I wanna follow Jesus." But we can't get away, 'cause we won't let go of some of the things that are separating us from Jesus. We need to make sure that Jesus has first place in our life. The Bible says, "seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness." Do you pray and read the Bible daily to know God's will? You may not understand it all at first, I didn't. But just keep reading it and you'll get to know him.
You'll wanna study the main teachings of the Bible and understand them. And those main teachings, the foundational things, we're covering most of that during this series. That'll prepare you to make that decision. You wanna be helpful around the house with your chores and try and demonstrate your love for the Lord. And then you can have a new beginning.
You know, Jesus' baptism is a symbol to us for what we should expect when we're baptized. Was Jesus baptized for his sins? Jesus never sinned. So, why was he baptized? As an example for you and me. Look quickly at what happened when Jesus was baptized. He was baptized, the Bible says in Matthew 3:16, he came up out of the water and immediately the heavens were open to him.
When you're baptized, the heavens are now open to you in a special way. God will hear your prayers. And it says, "he saw the Spirit of God descending." God will send his spirit to you. Like a dove. He'll send peace and power into your life and lighting upon him.
And suddenly a voice from heaven, God will speak to you now, you'll hear him guiding you through his spirit. Saying, "this is my beloved son," you are then adopted into the family of God as his son and daughter. He loves you and treats you like Jesus, like his own son, in whom I am well pleased. He wants to demonstrate that to you, he wants you to have that experience. Have you made the decision that you want to have that new life? That's our last question, do you want to give your life to Jesus now and be baptized? That you can experience that new birth to have your sins washed away, to know that you've got the label of Jesus on your life.
You can make that adventurous journey through the sea and be free. You know, I'd like to ask our group leaders right now if they would be good enough to pass out our decision cards, these response cards we told you about. Both at our locations that are watching all around the world and here in richardson, Texas. And some of you have already made this decision, but we know some children did not come every night and so we'd like to encourage you today, especially today. I'm asking you if you'd like to make a decision to be baptized.
Now, you want to talk about this with your parents, but you can make your decision right now. And talk and pray with them and talk to the pastor or your youth pastor or your group leader, wherever you're meeting. Write your name on your card and your address, of course, your phone number, name and phone number's most important. And that first question is saying, "yes, I want to give my heart to Jesus, to follow his teachings in the Bible. I'd like to be baptized and have all of my sins washed away.
" Now, I'm gonna be praying with you in just a moment, okay. Be reverent here, check that box if you would like to make that decision to give your heart to Jesus. First you must believe. Second one, "I would like to be baptized and have my sins washed away." Write that down there on your card, Mark that spot. And then the third one, "I'd like to meet with a pastor and find out more about baptism.
" And of course, also remember to tell your parents about your decision to follow Jesus. After you fill out your cards, we'd invite you to pass them down the aisle and give them to your group leaders. Give them to the row captains or whatever device you have. Some of you young people might just be watching in your homes with a small group right now. You can make your decision, let the pastor know, I've been watching "the Amazing Adventure" and I've made a decision, I want to be a Christian, I wanna follow Jesus.
And they'll help facilitate that new birth, friends. Nothing is more important than following Jesus. Amen. Baptism represents a new birth, a death to the old life, a new beginning, freedom, being filled with his spirit, the heavens being opened. And he wants to activate his power.
And when Jesus was baptized, don't forget, that's when he began his life of miracles and ministry. Jesus, wants you to have a miraculous life, an adventurous life. It begins by surrendering your heart to him and being baptized. And we'll plan on the best date when the pastor and your parents think you're ready, okay? Now, I like to close the service with prayer, we're just about out of time. So, even if you're not done with your cards, let's just be still right now.
Let's bow our heads. Loving father, we're so thankful for the truth that though we may have sinned and made mistakes, you're willing to wash us from all of our sins, to cleanse us in the blood of the lamb that we might be pure and holy in your sight. I pray that these young people will make the decisions today to accept Jesus personally as their Savior, to place their lives and their hearts and minds in his hands. Choose to be baptized and begin that new Amazing Adventure with him. Pour out your spirit on them, lord, we ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen. God bless you, friends, don't forget our very important lesson tonight on the city of gold. We'll see you then. If you've been encouraged by today's message and would like to know more of what God's word says to you today, Amazing Facts invites you to visit our educational website at www.Bibleuniverse.com. At Bible universe you'll discover exciting truths that will fill you with peace and purpose.
The mysteries of the Bible will unfold for you at your own pace. Visit www.Bibleuniverse.com today. Expand your universe. Thank you for joining us for this broadcast. If you've missed any of our Amazing Facts programs, visit our website at amazingfacts.org. There you'll find an archive of all our television and radio programs including "Amazing Facts presents," "central study hour," "everlasting gospel," "Bible answers live," and "wonders in the word." You'll also find a storehouse of biblical resources, geared towards answering some of your most difficult questions. And our online Bible school is just a click away. One location, so many possibilities, amazingfacts.org. Hello, friends, I'm Doug Batchelor.
For more than 40 years, Amazing Facts has been a ministry of evangelism. Reaching people where they are, changing lives with the powerful message of hope and purpose found in the Bible. As disciples of Christ, we here at Amazing Facts have accepted the great commission challenge to spread the good news throughout the world. What began as a 15-minute radio program has been blessed by God to grow into a multifaceted, international media ministry. These are truly exciting times, yet we cannot do any of this without your continued partnership.
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