Well, tonight we have the privilege of witnessing the covenant baptism of Lila Lee Turner. And this is a special moment, as I'm sure you were all quite moved this morning and able to witness God's covenant faithfulness. In the life of Julia Marcus, who stood up and professed faith here, we get to see the whole sort of picture today that the Lord gave us. And what a blessing. What a blessing of his faithfulness to his promises and his help to understand those promises and to see why he wants this covenant sign given to us and to our children. We know that there are many in our day who have a serious problem with what we are about to do and are troubled with it. And there's a reason that there's many churches called Baptists, aren't there? They call themselves Baptists, and they don't agree with this practice of including infants in the covenant sign of baptism. There's a strong position taken on this. There's been real disagreement on this issue. My suspicion is that the struggle is not limited to just those outside the church walls. I think there are probably some here, even in the Escondido URC, who probably struggle with this. Maybe you weren't raised with this, or maybe it's something that you haven't fully understood, or maybe you've witnessed and thought it just seems like custom, just seems like tradition. It seems maybe a little bit Roman Catholic to you. We buy nice baptism dresses and think that that's really what this is about, a great sentimental moment. And so we've kind of at times maybe thought that maybe that's what this is, a sentimental act. Maybe that has been a danger among us. I suspect that there's some who even silently reject it and have really been troubled with the practice. Why is God, probably with the thought, imposing something on a child that they haven't chosen? Isn't that one of the questions that's often asked? Why is God imposing this? We didn't choose it. Would you stop and you say, well, what did you choose? these are good questions we have to appreciate and understand why we do what we do what we have i've learned as a pastor is never to assume even with myself and my children we always have to have our minds renewed in why we do what we do and explain things i think that's one of the great things that we have not always done so well in reform churches i say is to to stop and to pause and say, this is why we do what we do, and this is why it has meaning, and at least give great effort to understand it and appreciate it instead of just writing it off if we disagree, especially because infant baptism is a huge part of the church for all these many centuries. Sure, there were discussions along the way, and some groups didn't practice it, but by and large, I think the case has been made that even from the time of the early church, this was a common practice that was going on. The early church received this. There's a volume that I have, and I can't seem to find it anymore. There's an old volume by his name was William Wall, and he traced the whole history of all the fathers all the way to the present of the view of infant baptism. And I was convinced it was amazing the different positions by this, even some of the fathers saying this was the position of the church. especially the reformers who were adamant about giving the sacrament to infants. There's been great debates in our day along the way. I think it was John MacArthur with R.C. Sproul debating this great subject. And MacArthur, of course, takes the position, this is just a holdout from Rome that you guys never fully reformed. Is that true? Is that true? Why do we baptize infants? Why are we doing this? just what do we do with our children? Are they in the church or are they out of the church? Do they belong in the church or don't they? How do we know? Even Baptists recognize something has to be done with children, so they said along the way, yeah, you know, they have a nice practice of giving the holy sign of baptism. We can at least dedicate them, can't we? well, I want to know what's right. One of those is not the right way, and you have to know why, and you've got to make a decision. It's the worst of positions to me to say, well, let's just do whatever anyone wants. That's not standing on much, is it? Is there a position in the Bible? Why do we hold to this? And that's something I want to consider with you tonight before we give this great sign. If there is anyone here who doesn't believe the practice, I ask for an open understanding, of course, to consider at least why little Lila Turner should receive the covenant sign of baptism tonight. She's a special person made in God's image. Does God include her in his church or not? And the key challenge, of course, as I already said, is there a single, this is what I often hear, is there a single commandment given in the New Testament that commands this? If you can just show me that, well then okay, I'll accept it, and the argument is closed. And that's what I want to wrestle with a little bit tonight, this idea that we're forcing something that isn't there. Someone, as we often hear, a person who is going to receive the sign, as we looked at last time when we looked at baptism in general must believe and then be baptized. That's the model in the New Testament. That's what we see, they say, in the New Testament. All until you start realizing this little what we call oikos formula where as the apostles were going out and baptizing, you kept reading and seeing in Acts that entire households were being baptized. And nowhere does it say that the infants were excluded in that. So we have to think a little bit more broadly, theologically, and a little more as a cohesive whole of the scriptures on what it teaches about how God viewed our children. What did he do with our children? There are a few things we can say tonight that I think 74 is just a perfect outline to work from that helps us to understand this and to appreciate it. And the first basic point that is made in our catechism tonight, is that they belong, our little children, belong to God's covenant too. Now that seems like something that's a simple statement to make, but it's one of the most important statements to make. That's what's said in 74, should infants as well as adults be baptized? Infants as well as adults are included in God's covenant and people. That's a really special statement, isn't it? They're included. I've submitted that baptism is a sign. We've looked at it in the Heidelberg from last time. It's a sign and seal. It's a sign and seal of the covenant grace of God. It's a sign and seal of his washing. It's a sign and seal of his work, what he does. It's a testimony of God's love and not primarily ours. And here we're already kind of running up against the evangelical mind that thinks that any sort of sacrament is something we are performing to God. Lord's Supper is personal renewal and dedication. No, it's not. The Lord's Supper is God's grace to us. It's a ministry of word and sacrament. Baptism is his sign upon us, not a sign of our commitment, even though that follows, that surely follows. But we have in the scriptures a normative teaching of the practice, I believe, of giving infants the sign of the covenant. And I want to start briefly with this great statement that Peter makes at Pentecost when they heard the first sermon. And they heard the first sermon that Peter preached. And imagine there are standing there, Gentiles of all the nations and Jews together. The Holy Spirit and tongues of fire have fallen. They've heard the wonderful works of God in their own language, and Peter preaches and cuts it right to the heart. And when they heard Peter and the apostles, they said, men and brethren, what shall we do? What shall we do? Something had happened inside, and Peter was recognizing it, And Peter said, repent and let every one of you be baptized. Notice that. Every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call. Now, I don't, that is one of the most remarkable statements in the New Testament. That the Peter told believers that the promise now belongs to them, but that same promise belongs to their children. Let that set in for a minute. Now, people tried to explain that as just a new covenant phenomenon. That is not just a new covenant phenomenon. That is the essence of the covenant of grace administered through Abraham. That is exactly where this comes from. That is exactly the thinking on the mind of Peter. And this is a beautiful moment. Repent and let each one of you. Now imagine if he had said that day. If we're wrestling with that. Imagine if he had stood there that day and said, Men of Israel, what do we do? Imagine this formula just for a minute. Repent and let every one of you be circumcised. For the promise is to you and to your children. Well, the Jews would have all said, yeah, amen. Of course, that promise has always included our children. It would be shocking for Peter to come along and say, Repent and be circumcised for the promises to you, but now not your children. That's not what he says. This is a direct play off the covenant language of Genesis 17. Listen to Genesis 17, verse 7. I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you and their generations for an everlasting covenant. This is not a covenant that is broken. This is not a covenant that goes away. This is an everlasting covenant. And you have to understand that the way that God has always dealt with his people and worked with his people is through a covenant. Here in Genesis 17, what we have is the covenant of grace beginning to show up. And he promises that he will be Abraham's God, and Abraham and his descendants and seed will be his people, God's people. That's the sort of essence of the covenant of grace. I am your God. You are my people. Who are the people? Well, God says, as for you shall keep my covenant and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is the covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you. Every male child among you shall be circumcised and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. That's how you keep this covenant, is this sign. He who is eight days old shall be circumcised. Every male child in your generation. And he mentions, he goes on to say, and not only that, all in your house. Remember, we talked about household in Acts. All in your house shall be baptized, Abraham. That's what you're going to do. Now, when I was a child, I remember I used to sing, Father Abraham had many sons. Anyone know that one? And many sons, I'm not going to sing, this is ridiculous. Many sons had Father Abraham, and I'm one. Well, hold on. But not your children anymore. That's a remarkable thing to say. When Paul comes along and says, the same promises made to Abraham and his seed are made to you and your children. Read it. Ephesians 3, Hebrews, Galatians 2 and 3, 3 says the same thing. It's the same promises. What's really convincing is that when Paul talked about circumcision, he said circumcision is a sign and a seal of the righteousness that comes by faith. Wait, why are you giving it to infants then if that's the case? If it's a sign and a seal that comes by faith, infants can't exercise faith. Again, this is a big moment. Abraham, imagine Abraham's conversation. Lord, I can understand this about adults. A sign and a seal that belongs to faith. I can understand that, but you really want me to give it to an infant who's eight days old who can't understand this. That doesn't make sense to me. I don't get it. He can't believe yet. She can't believe yet. Why in the world would you do that and put a covenant sign and seal on them of an inward work of your spirit? Remember, a sacrament is a visible word of a work of an invisible grace in the heart. Why would you do that? I think it was Dr. Strimple. I remember he gave a lecture on this and said, is no objection, no argument that can be raised against infant baptism that Abraham could not have raised against infant circumcision. I thought, that did it for me. Convinced me. I was so taken by that argument. Was it a sign of grace? Was it a sign of what God does? Or was it a parent doing the act of presenting something, a child to God? And where's the comfort in the latter? Where's the help in the latter? What's really exciting is to see our covenant God desire to include our children in his covenant mercies. You say to me, well, that covenant with Abraham was for the Jews. And again, I go to Galatians 3. It's the same promise. It's the same covenant. With the same inclusion of children. That's the issue in the first point of the catechism tonight. Simply to, this was again strimple, to throw out a 2,000-year practice of believers having the sign of God's covenant of grace administered also to their children would have been so revolutionary to the Jewish mind at least that it would have called, if you want to hear an answer to that question, show me in the New Testament where. It would have called for explicit repealing of the practice because it was so built into the covenant of grace. and that's why it's important and if we live in a more gracious wider covenant how wonderful a sign changes by necessity of water we don't need blood and now that sign is administered to to to boys and to girls it's a wider more gracious covenant why in the world would it then be more narrowed to cut out the little ones it's a remarkable thing to do A tragic thing to do. That gets to my second point. The second point is right out of the question 74, that our children, too, need deliverance from sin. Our children, too, need Jesus. They don't need Jesus when they come to an age of understanding. They need Jesus in conception. That's what the Scriptures teach. We can never lose in this discussion how bad sin has affected our children and what original sin has done to us, what original sin in what we call the imputation of Adam's sin to us, what that sinful conception, born and conceived in sin, what kind of predicament that puts us and our children in. But I want to ask those who deny infant baptism and promote the age of accountability. We're going to wait and we're going to see and we're going to wait and see when they're going to make the choice for Jesus. What I want to ask is, when they're only accountable, when they come to this age of accountability, when do you think your child became sinful? It's a big question. Because if you say they're only held accountable once they finally understand something, we have this great problem that death has still reigned and that our children can die and that the wages of sin is death. See, it's a big problem. And, you know, I have to say that one of the, along with some other very difficult ones, one of the most difficult situations I had to see in Linden was this. I was walking into a house. One night I get a call. I'm walking in about midnight. And there was the family all gathered around the crib. And there was the infant. I'm going to talk about a solemn night of mourning. And then to see that little casket carried, this big. All of us are in a bad predicament because of sin. And to say that our children should be kept away from the sign, as Calvin said, a sign that says, for to such belongs the kingdom of God, is really a wrong thing to do. It's pretty serious when our Heidelberg says God is angry about the sins we personally commit and the sins we are born with. You ever think about that? The sins we are born with. This is a really important subject tonight. Our children need Jesus. A few years back, I remember sitting in a Baptist pastor's study. We're good friends, dear brother in Christ. He was, he challenged me. He says, you know, I can agree with most of what you preach and teach. But then he says, what are you doing giving that sign to your children? I can go along with almost everything else, even election. All that ties together, doesn't it? Then I proceeded to ask him, what is your view of your children? Here's an irony in that discussion. What is your view of your children? I said, are they little reprobates? Are they little wicked sinners until they come to the age of accountability? And he got kind of confused, and he goes, yes. I said, I've got better news for you than that. You know what God does? God takes those little sinners and includes them in his family and raises them in the faith and tells us from the beginning to put a sign on them, his stamp, his mark, that he owns them. And thus we are always now taught to look at our children, Yes, as sinners, but to train them differently than the world, that they belong to the Lord. He doesn't do that. Again, which way do you want? The act itself is a testimony of the gospel. I mean, Julia was carried here years ago in the other building. And today, by God's grace and the work of the Holy Spirit and faithfulness to his covenant of grace, she stood up and on the promises. See, that's a different route for somebody who has all this blessing. Has to be. And God showed his graciousness to that family in Julia today. I'm giving the promise to you and to your children. This is the epitome of love and mercy. Again, I'm not saying that it's baptism that automatically saves. Please hear me. Somebody's going to say, well, you think baptism automatically. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the work belongs sovereignly to God, and that's what the sign says. It's his work to save your children. Aren't you glad? That gives us such hope, training children in all the things that they go through and all the little departures that they make and all the little tests that they try to put on us as parents. You know, it's interesting when you read the Old Testament. God told Abraham, you know, they're in my covenant. You give the sign. It's interesting with what happened to Moses. It came to pass on the way to the encampment that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Hebrew is kind of unclear. It's either Moses or his child. Then Zipporah, his wife, who believed in infant circumcision, took a sharp stone and cut the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses' feet, said, surely you're a husband of blood to me. So he let him go. Whoa. Moses made a direct decision not to circumcise his son. And God had a claim on that child. Who are you to stand in the way of that? This was serious with God. Sure, the New Testament sign changes. Why would we need a bloody sign anymore? They're gone. There's one sacrifice for all made for sins. So he includes a washing sign, which was anticipated in the Old Testament, Old Covenant. And this is the beautiful thing that the Lord has done. I have a third point tonight, briefly. They, too, belong to God's church. emphasizing the day in which we live and how we are to view our children with regard to the church. Hasn't the great problem in evangelicalism been, think about this, how to keep our youth, how to retain our youth? Hasn't that been just the great battle of our day? That's what we're all incessantly worried about. And it's not just a reformed congregation that's supposedly stuffy. It's every church that's fought this battle. Might it begin when we decided that we wouldn't distinguish them from the world by giving them the sign in American evangelicalism or have confidence in that? Might the exodus out of the church begun then? Have begun then? We've treated young people in the church like second-rate citizens. By and large, in America, they have been refused the sign. And we have had a battle to try to have a people confident in giving the sign. And they were sent out to the jumpy houses during church. And they were sent into other little events during church. And then you had, while the big people went to worship, the youth were over there doing their thing. No wonder we're scratching our heads. Why are millennials leaving the church in droves? Started a long time ago. It started when we ushered them out from the preaching. It started when we refused to give them and incorporate them into the church, which is what the sign signifies. It's a sign of entrance into the family. It's entrance, it's an entry sign. Isn't a much better way, beloved, to tell our children from the beginning, you belong to the Lord? You don't have a choice to go serve Baal. That's been a part of the problem of our parenting, I think. We need to be parents and tell our children, God put his mark on you. You can't live like that. I'm afraid I'll lose them. They're lost if they're doing other things. Tell them. They don't have the option. That's the beauty of this. He included them from the beginning. He loves them. we don't want to say anything to them out of fear that we're going to drive them away how about start telling them to own the promises that God made to them and to have confidence ourselves in that work as parents sure a child can become a covenant breaker but that's why we call them back we need a positive view is what i'm saying of how we view our children and how we view them and incorporate them into the body of christ and and what the lord is doing with them god makes them members of his church god puts them in his covenant god deals with their sin we don't vainly assume with some kind of externalism that simply because they've been baptized, they're saved. We expect our children to show fruits, of course. We expect what happened today with Julia and God's gracious work and timing for her to stand up and own these promises. That's the normal way. It's a baptism unto a repentance and faith when you're a covenant child. When you're brought in from paganism, the order's reversed. It's not that complicated. And a day when the world is wanting to claim your children and the youngest of your children, your infants. You remember when we were going through Exodus, beloved, and it got to the end of the plagues, and finally Pharaoh says, listen, just go, leave your infants. There's a great claim on your infants the world's trying to make from the earliest of days. That's why they say, train up a child. Remember, before, those years from one to five are some of the most crucial, aren't they? We know that. The Lord is saying, they're mine. And I'm putting my sign on them. Think of all the signs we've been talking about in culture and identity. How beautiful is this? Rowan, tonight, this is a beautiful moment. And he soon, we rejoice with you that Lila is being set apart from the world. Did you notice that in our catechism tonight? That our children should be distinguished from the children of unbelievers? How? Through baptism. We have a reason to rejoice today, don't we? To pray for our covenant children, to remember God's promises that He is faithful to a thousand generations, that He loves His people and includes us and our children in that covenant of grace. As we witness, you know, from this time forward, many of our young adults profess faith in Christ. May we see in that the beauty of what it's intended to show. God's faithfulness shine that through all these years of all the difficulties of raising and training children, and it's difficult. It's hard business. We see God's faithfulness shine, that all the way back from the beginning, when that child was born, that God said, bring that little child, carry that little child to me, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven, and give them the sign, a sign that signifies the forgiveness of sins, a promise that is made to us and our children. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this glorious covenant sign. We thank you for the washing it signifies and we thank you that salvation is your work. Bless us now and help us to greatly be thankful for so great a salvation, your covenant faithfulness, and that we are your people and you are our God and that you have included us and our children in your covenant of grace.