By Tom Shanklin

The Country Church in Ruthton, Minnesota had a baptism planned on the day I was scheduled to speak. It seems appropriate that Pastor Rich DeRuyter would use a stock tank purchased at a farm and home store to baptize the converts. Five people followed the Lord in water baptism on the Sunday Susan and I were there. The church has  down-home country feel, Pastor Rich and Fran have seen many people come to Christ since the church was established in 1987. Rich received Christ as he knelt down on a bale of hay in his barn after hearing the radio ministry of Henry Vanderbush, who is known as the “Cow Barn Preacher.”

At Ruthton I was led to speak on the basic foundational building blocks of the Christian faith—salvation, water baptism, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, basing my message on 1 John 5:8. “And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.” 1 John 5:8, KJV. It’s the blood of Christ that saves us, the water that delivers us, and the Holy Spirit that empowers us to live the Christian life. I believe one of the reasons that the church in America is so weak is the neglect of these three witnesses. As we study the book of Acts, we see that the ministers always immediately led people into repentance, water baptism and the baptism of the Spirit. (See Acts 2:38,  Acts 8:5-17, Acts 10:44-48, Acts 19:1-6) This is one of the reasons that the early church turned the world upside down. This is the kind of transformation and power that we need today. Later, Pastor Rich encouraged me to preach this message in many other places. “It’s too good to preach just once,” he said. You can listen to or download  “Blood, Water, and Spirit” here.