When we attack the salvation experience of a Baptist, they think we are attacking them. It brings all kinds of emotions. One of which is usually anger. Error has a secret hiding place, it is in the heart of those who are not drawn to the light!! John 6:44 When pride and conceit set on the throne in the heart of any individual, truth has no place. “A strong man, armed, keeps his palace, his goods are in peace: but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armor wherein he trusted, and divides his spoils.” Luke 11:21-22 When we find people who will defend their false actions and in doing so contradict the words of the God of heaven, we meet people in serious, spiritual trouble!! Their first impulse is to defend their pride, the pride of their parents who taught them, or the good name of the Baptist preacher that was the herald of their damnation! They have satisfaction in the arms of error, but we approach with the truth and the sleeping sinner is aroused to light and like an old dog awakened out of its sleep, the first instinct may be to bite you.
The baptism of preparation that was taught by Jesus and John the Baptist has a likeness to the baptism of salvation taught by the apostles of Jesus Christ, only in the fact that it is total submersion. Remembering that the purpose of the baptism of preparation was to get ready to enter the kingdom of God, otherwise, it was of no value. To refuse the fact that the kingdom was coming, and nigh at the door, in this, it was for preparation, and its coming allowed people to be ready for the Kingdom when it came, gives rise for some to think that these two baptisms were the same! So one can see why premillennialism and Baptist preaching go hand-in-hand. The Baptist have never taught that the baptism of perfection in the forgiveness of sins came into existence on the day of Pentecost. When John sent his disciples to Jesus in Matthew chapter 11, the question John asked the Lord is often misunderstood. John wanted to know of the Lord if he had done what he had been sent to do. The Lord answered him thusly: “Go and show John, again (John had seen them in the O.T.), those things which you do now see and hear; the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them, and the blessed are those who are not in offended in Me, does that not convince you, John?”
When Paul met the disciples of John and Ephesus, there were things established by the verbiage he communicated. The kingdom is already come gentlemen, you do not continue to preach the baptism of preparation; having been baptized in the baptism of preparation you’re entitled to the baptism of salvation. As proof of the fact that your baptism is not the baptism of the King of Kings, have you received the Holy Spirit, since you believed? John’s baptism never included a mention of the Holy Spirit but the first time we hear of the baptism of perfection, recorded by Luke in Acts, chapter 2, it was mentioned!! Many have not paid too much attention to it!! The answer, was to repent and be baptized first, for the remission of sins, and secondly, to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The questioneers’s at Pentecost never ever had heard of the Spirit of God. The gift for which they inquired was the knowledge from God as to how to be forgiven of crucifying His son! (Without the knowledge of how, their forgiveness could never be actuated!!) What the Holy Spirit had to do with the subject of the forgiveness of sins, was not at Pentecost, explained! (The gift of the Holy Spirit was to sustain, not forgive, and since these people were asking to become Christians, not asking how to be sustained as Christians, the explanation was not needed.) He, the Spirit, was not in their minds nor were they questioning how they might receive Him. That the message of the reception of the Holy Spirit had since been taught and explained, the apostle Paul addresses to these Ephesians. Like them, you would been astounded! John, nor his disciples, had ever mentioned such a thing!! The Holy Spirit was a member of that God nature that had never been discussed in Judaism. Not only were these Ephesians learning about another member that was older than time, they were hearing, possibly for the first time that there was a Holy Spirit, and then there was a gift that Paul offered them which they had never heard about!
