Water Baptism - God's Test (will the real church please stand up? Series)

1 LYDIA GETS BAPTIZED In Derek Prince’s book, Appointment in Jerusalem, he tells of his wife Lydia’s experience with water baptism. She was a full-blooded Danish Lutheran from the old country. Her bold submission to the ordinance of believer water baptism after her conversion at age thirty-eight shook her well-ordered and wealthy circle of friends. Just what was a nice, Lutheran girl such as Lydia thinking when she allowed herself to be rebaptized, even “dunked,” a very unladylike thing for a girl of her breeding to be doing? You can be sure it did not sit well with the generation with whom she had been raised. She had argued with her benefactor when she told him of her Book of Acts experience but he warned her that it was very nice that she had been baptized by the Holy Spirit just as he had been, but that she mustn’t consider water baptism!. That would be a re-baptism, he said ominously, and it was a forbidden practice for his church members. Lydia had listened submissively to this pastor of a large Lutheran church in Copenhagen who had written a newspaper article on “Who is the Holy Spirit?’ which included information that allowed her to contact him. Now he very sternly warned her against completing the Book of Acts experience, “You must not consider rebaptism, it is not acceptable by the church!” “And furthermore, young lady, “he continued, wagging his long finger back and forth, “be very careful about all that water splashing.” He said there were certain groups, splinter groups, who were taking Lutheran members of the church and forcing them to be immersed in water! Lydia, having recently poured over Scriptures on water baptism herself, now found some of them rising up in her mind unbidden. “Shouldn’t we be believers before we are baptized?” she had asked innocently, “maybe it is the traditions of our church that are not in line with the Bible.” This angered the dear old pastor, “Your parents had faith for you when they had you baptized as an infant,” he shouted, “do not offend them now by doing this thing!” But Lydia knew her own parents. She was not sure just how much faith they might have had at the time of her baptism as an infant—was it enough to save her? How could one tell? She promised the reverend that she would think prudently before she acted on her impulse to follow the Lord into water baptism. She knew it was biblical but she didn’t know if she had the confidence to defy her parents, her church and her upbringing to follow Christ’s instructions to new believers. She needed to go home and think about it. She thanked the old man and got on her bike and pedaled the few miles to her home. She had been warned about getting in with the wrong crowd now that she was one of those fanatical believers, the kind that tell others about their faith. But just what did the New Testament really say about baptism? That is what she needed to know.