after man had been placed on earth the life which had been arranged for him was begun we all know that the first step was a change from immortality to mortality before this time adam was a spiritual being working in the light and presence of god with an understanding of where he came from and of what he was on earth for with the change to mortality he was cast out from the presence of god with a life of work and toil before him his whole attention was turned to worldly things and this would have continued soon bringing him down to a level not much higher than the beasts had not god merci fully revealed his mind to him and told him what to do here is the first time we find the gospel given to man all its truths principles and ordinances are given to adam who accepts them in genesis it mentions his baptism proving that to be one of the ordinances later we find abraham moses noah elijah and other of the ancient prophets and patriarchs with the same identical gospel when christ came in the meredian of time he ordained apostles patriarchs pastors teachers priests and deacons fulfilling and completing the gospel taught before his coming to earth what is this gospel and what does it embrace it is a gospel of good tidings which teaches us of all truth of future life with its glories and blessing's and of the ways by which we will be able to obtain future salvation and exaltation before accepting the gospel we have to accept some of its fundamental principles , among which are faith repentance baptism and confirmation it is reasonable to see that it is first necessary to have faith in order to accept the gospel for after having received faith in it our next desire is to repent of the past if it has been spent in any wrong doing belief alone in the gospel and its promises would not be sufficient to prompt repentance . faith alone im plies such confidence and conviction that we are impelled to act neither is faith complete without work for god has said not every one that saith unto me lord lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven but he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven ' ' this does away with death-bed confession besides he has also said that there are still other requirements made before a man can enter the kingdom of heaven john 3:5 in order for man truly to repent he must first be convinced of the wrong then have faith that he may overcome the wrong and that in so doing he will be saved a recompense worth all the effort exerted when faith and repentance have been manifested the next step is baptism baptism is in itself a beautiful and suggestive symbol after we have thrown off a life of sin what could be more appropriate as an initiation into the new life of purity than a death burial and resurrection or what could be more appropriate than to be cleansed by one of the two greatest pur ifiers — water baptism by immersion is the mode intended by jesus when nicodemus asked jesus how to gain eternal life he was told that only by being born again could he in any way enter the kingdom of heaven we also see jesus christ himself setting the example in this by letting john the baptist take him down into the water and baptize him when as john said he had more need to be baptized of jesus matt 3:14-15-16 for this reason we should accept baptism as an example set by jesus and as something essential to salvation we should also accept the manner of baptism which he accepted and taught to his disciples literally speaking baptism does not wash away our sins or cleanse our bodies of evil the importance of the ceremony is in the covenants made at this time and if the covenants are sincere baptism will be the immediate result many different ways of baptizing are practised today some churches believe in sprinkling in scripture rom 6:3-4-5 john 3:23 col 2:12 we hear it spoken of as a new life sug gesting a re-entrance then john was baptizing at aenon,near salim because there was much water there is much water required for sprinkling then the word baptism itself suggests the meaning — immersion in sprinkling the double significance and all that it stands