“If we could just get him baptized” is an expression of Americanized bubble Christianity. Living in a culture that considers itself Christian because of its religious roots, and vestiges of old faith systems that linger today, leads to a misidentification. People who live ungodly lives in open rebellion against God call themselves Christian. People who are very religious do as well, despite their defiant refusal to be baptized according to God’s will expressed in the Bible. Both call themselves Christian, but neither has submitted to Christ.

Even those who believe in the necessity of baptism can fail to recognize that baptism is the response of broken, contrite heart, not the threshold crossing event of an already really good person who “doesn’t need to change all that much.”

Yesterday we introduced Psalm 18 and David’s reliance on God for everything. Today’s Sunday’s Struggles edition of Morning Minutes in the Bible on An American Missionary returns to Psalm 18 to see why David was so dependent on God.

Just remember, David was a bold servant of God, who had already been anointed as the next king, who had killed the defiant pagan Goliath, and led men in battle to kill many more pagan Philistines. He was not a fearful or frail man. Yet when Saul sought to kill him, David tucked tail and ran because he refused to fight his king. He was a really good person and strong warrior, but none of that mattered in his conflict with Saul. Defeating Saul required something he could not do on his own, so he threw himself down before the Lord for salvation and praised God for divine rescue.

Psalm 18:4-6 describes his situation this way:
“The cords of death encompassed me,
And the torrents of ungodliness terrified me.
The cords of Sheol surrounded me;
The snares of death confronted me.
In my distress I called upon the LORD,
And cried to my God for help;
He heard my voice out of His temple,
And my cry for help before Him came into His ears.”

In the same sense the unbaptized person, no matter how “good”, is trapped by death (Satan), and will only be rescued when terrified and distressed enough to cry out to God for divine rescue. Just like having religious ancestors or being a faithful member of a religious group does not make one a Christian, “just getting him baptized” doesn’t make one a Christian either. Only a broken and contrite heart that falls before God in a desperate plea for rescue can be saved in baptism. Which one describes you?