Meeting: Sithrah
Date: 08 Feb, 2025
Message: Doctrine of Baptisms (Part 2)
Minister: Pastor Mike Ogunoye.
Heb. 6:1-3 – “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, 2 Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection 3 And this will we do, if God permit.”.
Our faith has one doctrine but many baptisms (or understandings) that we must be baptised into. All baptisms have its own doctrine or spirit that we must be baptised into or should be inside everybody exposed to it.
When we get born again, we are regened or recreated in our spirit to become a new creature. We are not first a new creature because we stopped doing something bad because we can stop doing bad things or indulging in wrong habits and still be an old creature. For example, a man can stop drinking like the story of the professor who fell into the gutter after being drunk yet still not be a new creature. So, it is not only by stopping wrong habits that we are made a new creature because we can stop because of shame.
How we know we are born again is that we confessed the Lordship of Jesus with our mouth and believed in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead; this is the only condition that makes us new or causes the regeneration of our spirit.
A person can be born again and still have a lot of character faults. We see from scriptures how the Apostles were correcting a lot of character faults. The Corinthians church for example still had people who committed adultery, fought etc and Paul never mentioned that they should come out for an altar call again because of their faults.
Being a Christian or a new convert does not mean everything is made perfect with the believer. The new birth is a platform created by/for God to walk on the soul that is born again.
In our souls, there are desolations of many generations, traits, and modes of thinking that are not Christ-like and are traceable to our family or lineage. An example is someone who is just naturally suspicious, they easily believe evil reports much more than good reports and you discover this is a nature in his/her family that trickles down to him/her. Anger, covetousness, greed, and being sharp-mouthed can be found in souls that are born again and is mostly generational.
The new birth does not bring with it a memory wipe. That we are born again does not mean we forget all the things we have previously done or known because the new birth is a regening of our spirit and not of our minds or hearts. This is why we can still harbor hurts and pain in our hearts from before we became born again.
A person who just gave their life to Christ is a baby in Christ. If you notice these wrong characters and traits in you, it does not mean that you are not born again or need to go out again for another altar call. It only means that as a baby or newly born again in Christ, you need to grow. Imagine being angry with a baby who is being a baby. Spiritually also, God has babies and those babies demonstrate traits of childishness.
God has a plan and a dream for everyone who is regenerated in their spirit. God is too detailed to let anyone slip from his grasp without a detailed plan. This plan is that one day the believer at the growth stage of a baby, that is, the baby just given birth to by the Holyghost will one day look like God.
We hear people say “think big” but the actual way to think big is to “think God”, this is the best way to think big. Thinking big is to see yourself being sinless. How far you can see determines how big you think. The thing that drives God, that makes him consistently forgive our inconsistencies and sins and remain large-hearted is the dream that we will one day look exactly the way He looks, that we will exactly mirror His person and His image (Col. 1:13-23).
Some believers listen to both gospel songs and worldly songs, they start in the spirit and end in the flesh. They do not know how to always be in the spirit. Even for such believers, God has a salvation plan for him/her. Before God called every one of us, He had already counted the cost of what it’ll take to save us. God has what it takes to take us from our fallen state to the estate where He is.
God’s idea and plan for taking us from where we are to where He is, is through feeding us with the right spiritual meals through preaching. As vital as food is to natural growth, even much more, food is vital to spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is the process of changing from one image to another, from where we are into a better version, then into the best version of us. The best version of us is the image of God, that is, the exact way Jesus is looking.
The first food given to a new believer or God’s baby is the milk of the word. The way it is naturally is the way it is spiritually also. God also has milk He gives to babies. Milk gives babies a portion of the holyghost that will help them grow into the person God wants them to become. The milk of the word is the meal that a baby can digest. The mother that breastfeed the baby is likened to the Holy Spirit. As we take milk, we partake of the Holyspirit. As we take milk and the spirits and doctrine in them, it ought to become part of us as easy as 1,2,3 has become for a lot of us. This is because it is upon this foundation that every other will be laid upon.
In Heb. 6:1-2, “leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection;” means having imbibed these, let’s move on to the next things. Repentance from dead works & faith towards God for example are very important and crucial, we will use them all through our Christian journey. The milk of the word is a food that must be continually taken, you don’t take it and drop it after a while.
(Mark.16.15-16) – “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”
What stands between he who believes and he who is saved is baptism. To be saved is to have come to a place that is beyond the reach of sin and death, beyond the reach of danger.
God is safe because He is “saved” and beyond the reach of any evil. God is salvation. (Rev. 7:10). Salvation is a nature that can never go bad or be corrupted. Salvation is a state that is beyond any evil or nature. What we are to inherit in God is a nature. (Rom. 8:16-18) An heir of salvation is an inheritor of salvation. What we inherit is salvation.
The first inheritor of God is our Lord Jesus Christ. That same thing Jesus inherited is what we are being called to come and inherit. The nature God has is called salvation. At new birth, we only came into or experienced a measure of salvation, not all of salvation. If we look at Salvation from the point of view of nature, we will understand that a baby christian is not yet saved. If we have inherited all of God, there will be no reason for Christians to backslide or turn away from God – “For I am the LORD, I change not” (Mal. 3:6). This just means there are still things in them that is not yet fully God.
When we get born again, our spirit is recreated but our soul is yet to be recreated, our souls were purchased only, that is why we get added to the church to be saved (Acts 2:47). When we get born again, we are enrolled into a long program of feeding so we can embody God’s nature. When a soul is introduced to the church, the first food that is given is the milk of God’s word and it is to put spirit (laws or natures). For example, repentance from dead works is a nature that can be formed in us and if we fellowship with the Holy Ghost a lot we will learn to not be stubborn and be able to easily apologise or say I am sorry both to the Lord, and to men both old and young. Our relations with men is a training for how we will relate with God.
There is a satanic nature in some people where if they wrong you, they will spin it around and make you look like you are the one that is wrong. (Exo. 8:19) Some people are like Pharaoh who was more wiser than the magicians. He knew how to use and manipulate people for his gain. That thing is satanic and even worse than witchcraft. Satan can have works in men greater than demonic manipulation. We must quickly repent from it if caught in this. That manipulative tendencies are things we must fight. We won’t gain the life of God by winning every argument. The Holy ghost puts spirits or laws on our inside that make it easy for us to say I am sorry. He also makes us quick to learn.
The three compartments of man; spirit, soul, and body has to be baptised. The baptism in our spirit is what made us members of the body of Christ. The baptism by water is the outward show of our inward reality showing that our spirit has entered Christ buried with Him in death and raised again alive and as a new creature. Without the regeneration of our spirit, entering into water is useless. Water baptism is not water baptism if it is not preceded by the new birth.
The third compartment which is the soul has baptisms it has to undergo and the first is the baptism in the Holy Ghost which gets the soul ready for the leading of the spirit because we won’t be able to follow the leading of the spirit if we are not drunk with the wine of the Spirit. Satan gave men a fake or mimicked another way of being drunk but the actual original of being drunk i.e when the Holy Spirit fills you up with the wine of the spirit in your soul, you will speak in tongues (Matt. 3:11). This is because it is impossible for a drunk man to be quiet, they are always talkative.
(Mark.16.17-18) – “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 18 – They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
(Acts 2:38-39) – “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”
There is tongues as a gift of the Spirit and there is tongues as a sign to all who believe. Some say that should all speak in tongues. If you are a believer, then where are your signs?. One of the signs is that you speak in tongues. If speaking in tongues is something all believers should have, then why will you choose to stand on the side of not having it? (Acts 19:2-6) One question Paul will usually ask believers is – have you received the Holyghost? Unto what were you baptised? This was the foundation of the church. Everybody should be able to speak in tongues. It is our doorway into the realm of the supernatural.
Baptism of the Holy Ghost brings richness to our spiritual life.Prayer will become a thing of delight. It will oil our soul up and makes us to not be rigid in the spirit. Some might say I am a liar, or that they feel unqualified. This is exactly why we need the Holyghost. We need the Holyghost to be Holy and without the leading of the Holyghost we can’t be Holy. If we are not being led by the Holyghost, we are being led by another spirit. We should not be deceived, anger is of another spirit, meaning we have also been led by another spirit to end up as someone who is usually angry or high-tempered. Our wrong natures are managed by evil spirits and are who we are outside of Jesus. Even unhealthy desires for the same sex and opposite sex are things Holyghost can lead a person out of.
It is proven that the ministry of the word and leading of the Holyghost is potent enough to remove every wrong thing in us. Staying under the word makes it easy for the Holy Ghost to lead us. When we allow the Holy Ghost to lead us, we discover that these habits get broken after a while. The infilling of the Holyghost is very important and makes us fruitful. It gives us another way of life outside of all we have previously known to do.
There is no habit the Holy Ghost can’t break. The infilling of the Holyghost is a kick-starting of a powerhouse in our soul and the essence of it is for the leading of the Spirit. The moment we grow to know that what we are doing is bad or not right, it becomes our responsibility to deal with it and we are no longer allowed to hold anybody accountable for why we are the way we are. This is the reason Jesus is compassionate towards us and his judgment is not as we judge because he sees what evil spirits have done to our minds and hearts.
(Matt. 28:18-19) – “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 19 – Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:”
Baptism in the Holy Ghost is not the only baptism we are to be baptised in. There are baptisms that are teachings. In baptisms, the nomenclature is not what we should be most particular about or what the preacher is saying alone, it is a teaching. There is a teaching (baptism) for the name of the Holy Ghost, another for the Son, and a teaching for the name of the Father. At the end of every baptism, there will be a name we are given.
When we gain admission into school to study, at the end we are given a name for example, a doctor. We were tested in Uni. to see that we have grasped what has been taught by the words of lecturers. They talk/teach to the point that we are no longer thinking like we were thinking before we entered university: this is called immersion. So also, the doctrine of baptisms teaches us to completely give ourselves to the economy that the Holy Spirit has brought over us. In submitting ourselves, we are drenched completely into the substances which we were immersed.
There are instructions in baptism, it is not just being dipped into the water and being brought out. John did not just baptise people, he also taught them. Apollos was one of such men who was not just baptised but also made mighty in scriptures through the teachings and instructions of John. If you are dip in and not taught, you have yet to be fully baptised. The actual or full baptism includes the teaching and instructions that the soul goes through.
(Acts.18.24-26) – “And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus. 25 This man was instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John. 26 And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.”
In the baptism of John, there is a way of the Lord and that way is spirit.There is a reason why people are baptized in rivers, this is because rivers flow, and they have their way and/or courses, unlike the sea. Dipping a person into the river represents a baptism or immersion into the way of the Spirit or economy of the Lord.
In Acts.18.26, we see that Apollos had an understanding of the Lord according to a baptism, and there was Aquila & Priscilla who had a higher understanding of the way of God according to a higher baptism. In 1 Cor 3, we see that by the understanding they later expounded to him, Apollos became mighty. He is the standard of a person that had the doctrine of baptisms.
(Matt. 28:19) There is a baptism in the name of the Holy Ghost which represents an economy of the milk of the word, there is another baptism in the name of the Son which represents the economy of Christ, and the baptism in the name of the Father which represents the economy of Life Everlasting. A person who has the doctrine or spirit of these baptisms will not have problems transitioning into the next baptisms, for example, Holyghost into Christ and Christ into Father.
The reason why some believers accept only one baptism and not the next or don’t accept any at all is because they have not fully been baptised into the way, instructions and the spirit of the doctrine of one or more of these baptisms so they are unable to progress as they should.
(John 3:12) – “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?” – Jesus shows us here that believing the earthly things (the baptism of the Son) gives us an access into believing the next allocations or baptisms for us which is baptism of the Father. We have to have a heart that can latch on to doctrine once we can see the hand of God in it because it is possible to believe something is of God and not believe another thing He says like the Pharisees. When you find people whose hearts can’t journey like that through the different stages of baptism, it means that they lack the spirit of the baptism.
Doctrine of baptism will require that you act like you have been taught or behave like the learned. With every light or understanding comes responsibility. As we keep learning, a demand is laid on us to respond to what we have learnt. It causes us to go in and give ourselves to it.It requires a complete immersion, that we give ourselves to it without reservation once we have discerned that this is the Lord.
The word baptised is from the word “Bapto” which means to dip a thing. For example, when we dip bread into water we don’t get the bread the way it was at first, we get a bread that has taken in what it was dipped/immersed into. So also for us, baptism teaches us that the person we are when we entered should not be the same person when we have been immersed. Full immersion gives us a name or a sealing. It makes us begin to act or behave a certain way like Stephen who was full or sealed of the Holyghost.
(Isa.50.4-5) – “The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. 5 The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.”
There is a thing called the “learned” and the “unlearned” spiritually. The unlearned is the man who still has or lives by a darkened understanding while the learned is the man whose eyes of understanding has been enlightened. There is a way God speaks to the unlearned and there is a way He speaks to the learned. Based on what we have been taught and have understood, He will instruct us based on that.
We can be rebellious towards what we are being taught, by turning our ears away. (Isa.50.7) What shall become of us at the end of the day when we don’t look like Jesus when he appears is the real shame that every man should worry about. How we will not be ashamed is that we should not be rebellious nor turn away at His words/teachings/instructions.
At every new dispensation or baptism, Satan greets us with new fears so we shrink back from giving ourselves fully to the Lord and the economy over us. It is possible to have the economy of the Son over us but still be judging things based on milk. There is therefore a need to yield to every economy and submit ourselves to be fully immersed in the way of the Lord and the Spirit in every new economy over us.
Tongues and Interpretation.
It is for all of you
It is even for every compartment in you.
I want to be the God of every part of you, even in your spirit, s,oul and body.
I want to be even in your life, even in your day to day activity.
I want to be in your blood, even in all that concerns you.
I want to own all, I don’t just want to take a bit of you, I want to be God even all in all.
I want the whole of you to be summed up in all of me.
I want to bring you into all of me
I want to enter into all of you.
You in me and me in you.
I want to be the source of your existence, even the source of your living.
I want you to take all and surrender all.
For it’s in your hand to give all, it is in your capacity and strength to yield all.
You have yielded some, you have given a measure but I want you to give all.
I want to take all, I want to come into the fullness of you, even all of you.
I want you to have none of you existing but all of me in you.
All of me in you.
All of me in you.
The end is to take all, even to make me the God of all, and all in all in you.
(Eph 4:17) – “This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,”. Every baptism has its requirement, meaning there is a way to think in each baptism. For the baptism of Christ, you no longer are allowed to walk in the vanity of your mind as you previously used to. The Ephesian church were baptised into Christ by reason of the ministry and grace upon Apostle Paul and were taught how to think, how to walk or live.
If we are not fully immersed into Christ, we can fall back into solving life’s problems like how unbelievers solve problems, you can be a word of righteousness person and still be like that. You’ll find some believers who revert back to traditionalism for example in the face of challenges. Any part of us that we are not dipping into the river will be attacked by the enemy. We must fight to be immersed into the water, to go through challenges as the learned.