01.04. What Must I Do To Be Saved?
What Must I Do To Be Saved?
Sirs, what must I do to be saved? — Acts 16:30. OUR FOURTH GREAT QUESTION of the Bible is found in the Book of Acts in the life of the apostle Paul. It is the heartfelt cry of the Philippian jailer, who in despair lifts his sword to take his own life. Trembling with fear, he falls down before Paul and his companion, Silas, to ask the eternal and all-important question, "What must I do to be saved?"
Like the previous question of the preceding chapter — "What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?" — this question also becomes the inevitable cry of every human soul. The picture of this jailer of Philippi, down on his knees in ruin and despair, asking the way to be saved, is an ultimate and inevitable picture of each one of us somewhere, sometime, someday. THE QUESTION BROUGHT TO US The question sometimes is poignantly brought to us through deep, deep sorrow. Sir Harry Lauder, the Scottish singer and entertainer who was loved by the whole world, had an only son who was killed in battle in the trenches of France. In his terrible grief Sir Harry Lauder said: "I found three possible ways of escape: one was drink — I could drown my sorrow in debauchery and dissipation; one was suicide — I could hide myself in the grave; the third was God — I could cast all my care upon Him, and I found God."
Sometimes this question is forcefully brought to our conscience by a personal realization of our condition and of the condition of the world around us. John Bunyan so describes the Pilgrim in the opening sentence of his immortal vision: "I saw a man clothed with rags standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden on his back. I looked, and saw him open the book, and read therein; and, as he read, he wept and trembled; and not being able longer to contain, he broke out with a lamentable cry, saying, ’What shall I do?’ " This Pilgrim of John Bunyan lived in the City of Destruction, which is the ultimate name of every city in this world. The Pilgrim was burdened down with a great weight of sin and guilt, which is the condition of every soul that lives.
Sometimes this question is brought to the conscience through the judgment and pronouncement of death. The approach of death is a grim and terrifying and searching thing. The man who feels that he is about to die no longer is able to trust in himself. What earthly power or help can deliver us when we are on the verge of the grave? Death is everywhere. The world is full of death’s handiwork; it is a veritable charnel house; it is a vast, illimitable cemetery. The sentence of death is upon all human merit and all human power. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, All that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour, The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
It is this realization of the emptiness and futility of life that many times becomes the first part of our salvation. When all hope in self is gone, then Christ comes in with infinite love and grace and receives our souls from destruction. God, who raises the dead, is our only hope. When we have lost all hope in ourselves and in this world and in the ableness of human hands to save us, then we are in a saving way of clinging only to Christ, who alone can heal and deliver us. In England was a man who for years languished unjustly in prison. An attorney, his friend, through toil and patience, finally won for him a personal pardon from the hand of the queen. He went to the prison with the wonderful news that his friend was a free man. "See, I have a pardon signed by the hand of the queen." When announcement was made to the prisoner, there was no joy, no recognition, no response, either in look or in word. The friend thought maybe he had been in prison too long and did not realize the import of the wonderful news. "Don’t you realize? You are a free man; this is a pardon from the queen!" The prisoner bared his breast and revealed a terrible, eating cancer. Hopelessly he said, "Ask the queen if she can heal this." It is so with us all. The announcement of the successful acquisition of houses and lands and fame and fortune and all the rich gifts of life is nothing to one who stumbles into the grave. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" THE ASTOUNDING ANSWER OF PAUL
"What must I do to be saved?" The answer of Paul to this all-important question is an astounding thing. Paul did not frame his reply in terms of works or achievement or merit or worth, but rather in terms of faith and trust and committal. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." It is thus always with the proclamation of the good news of Jesus our Lord. "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Tit 3:5-7). "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast" (Eph 2:8-9). Our salvation is a matter of faith and of trust and of committal and of looking to Jesus. Our salvation is secured in a merciful provision of God that sets before us all an open door. The Lord did not say, "Be rich enough to buy it." Some of us are poor, and we could never purchase it. The Lord did not say, "Be erudite enough to learn it." Some of us are untaught and unlearned. The Lord did not say, "Be strong enough to win it." Some of us are weak and frail and could never possess it." All of us are fallen creatures, unworthy and unlovely. But the announcement of the great apostle is this: Believe and be saved — look and live — trust and be kept forever. This is within the reach of any man, of any child, of any soul anywhere, any time. You can be saved now; it is the Gospel of the good news of the Son of God.
Thomas Chalmers, the incomparable theologian and minister of the University of Glasgow and University of Edinburgh, was Scotland’s greatest scholar and preacher since John Knox. In his early ministry the theme of his message was, "Do and Live." He prepared and delivered many discourses on the commandments, on politics, on the issues of the day. Then a great change came in his life. He preached a new message — "Believe and Be Saved." He became a marvelous preacher of the atoning work of Christ, pleading, pleading with sinners to turn and be saved. Sometimes, rising to pronounce the benediction, he would plead again, calling sinners to repentance. He described the change in his life in a most moving and eloquent way as the time of his conversion, though he was thirty-one years of age and for years had been a minister of the Gospel. He had found the true message of the good news of the Son of God. We are saved by trusting in Jesus, by looking unto Jesus. "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else" (Isa 45:22).
LOOKING UNTO JESUS
One time I heard a prelate say in his sermon, "Stay with mother church, and mother church will take you to heaven." That would be wonderful if it worked. We would then have just the task of getting the people into the church to get them all into Heaven. But God didn’t say it that way, and God doesn’t do it that way. We are not saved by looking to the church, wonderful organization that it is. We are not saved by looking to the preacher. He may be a worthy, able, and God-fearing man, but he is a dying sinner like all the poor mortals to whom he delivers God’s message. We are not saved by looking to members of the congregation; they are full of fault and frailty and shortcomings. We certainly are not saved by looking to ourselves; we are the weakest and frailest of all. We are saved by looking unto Jesus. However weak we may be, He is strong. However lost we may be, He never loses the sense of direction. However full of sin and imperfection we may be, He is the One altogether lovely. However full of hopelessness and despair and death we may be, there is life everlasting in Him.
We are saved by looking unto Jesus, kneeling at the Cross where He died for our sins, watching at the tomb where He was raised for our justification, waiting for the Saviour from Heaven where He lives to save to the uttermost them who come unto God by Him. Times may change, circumstances may alter, but He abideth faithful forever — "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever." Our salvation is a provision which God has made outside ourselves. It is the ark in the terrible storm of the awesome judgments of God. We who are in the ark are kept in the saving hand of God. It is the blood of the Passover on the black night of the death angel in the land of judged and condemned Egypt. He that is under the blood is under the keeping, saving hand of God. The salvation of God is always objective, outside of ourselves. The serpent lifted up in the wilderness is the sign and type of the salvation provided by God for lost, dying souls. "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:14-15). We are saved by looking to Jesus as they were saved by looking upon the serpent lifted up in the wilderness. Just to look! Less could not have been required of men dying from the sting of a serpent. Yet just to look was enough to show that the dying man believed God’s word, that he expected God’s remedy and healing, and that he accepted God’s will and God’s help. It is thus with us — the feeblest, the most sinful, the weakest, the most despairing, the humblest, the poorest, can turn to the Saviour on the Cross with the humble plea, "Lord, remember me."
There is life for a look at the crucified One;
There is life at this moment for thee.
Then look, sinner, look unto Him and be saved, Unto Him who was nailed to the tree.
I’ve a message from the Lord — Hallelujah!
It is only that you look and live.
Look and live, my brother, live;
Look to Jesus Christ and live.
’Tis recorded in His Word — Hallelujah!
It is only that you look and live.
Charles H. Spurgeon as a youth was miserable under his burden of sin. He had sought relief from the weight of guilt upon his soul without reward or avail. On a cold, winter night he turned into a little Methodist chapel where services were being conducted without the aid of a preacher. A layman in his poor and untaught way was making an appeal from the text, Isa 45:22 — "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." He turned to the young man Spurgeon and said, "Young man, you look so miserable; young man, look to Jesus, look and be saved." And Spurgeon said, "And I looked that night unto Jesus, and I lived." THE CHANGED LIFE, "WASHING STRIPES"
Oh, what an incomparably great change is wrought in the life of a soul that humbly will look in saving faith and trust to the Lord Jesus! What a marvelous change was wrought in the life of this jailer of Philippi! Look at the story as it continues in the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Acts. "And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes: and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house" (Acts 16:33-34). This wicked man, who was cruel far beyond the call of duty and necessity of the law, who placed Paul and Silas in an inner dungeon and fastened their feet in stocks, is now washing stripes, mingling his tears with the water of expiation; one day rejoicing in the suffering he could inflict upon these poor preachers, the next day rejoicing in the Lord and Saviour whom they preached; one day laying heavy stripes upon the bleeding backs of God’s servants, the next day washing those stripes with tears of repentance. He felt that he could never, never repay what God had done for Him through the mercy and the grace of Jesus our Lord. It is so with all of us — washing stripes, trying to repay in some small and humble way what the love and mercy and grace of Jesus has brought to us. In the days of the Moody revivals, there was a man by the name of John Vassar who went to the cities where Moody conducted his meetings to invite the people to attend the services. He went from door to door, giving out tracts and urging the people to come to the revival. One woman heard of his visitation, and she said, "If he comes to my house, I will slam the door in his face." Not knowing, John Vassar came to her door, knocked, and with a tract and word of invitation, invited her to the revival. "You," said the woman, "are you John Vassar?" He replied, "Yes." She was as good as her word. She slammed the door in his face. But the man did not leave. He sat down on her doorstep and sang a song: Was it for sins that I have done He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity, grace unknown And love beyond degree. But drops of grief can ne’er repay The debt of love I owe.
Here, Lord, I give myself away;
’Tis all that I can do.
Washing stripes! In some small way seeking to repay his Saviour for His love and grace, he sang the song. That night a woman at the service gave her heart to the Lord. In the testimony meeting that followed, she told the story of John Vassar and his visit to her home. She said, "When he got to those ’drops of grief,’ each one seemed to fall on my soul and broke my heart in two." Once again — washing stripes.
Oh, the marvelous change that comes into the life that looks in faith to Jesus! "What must I do to be saved?" "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Now. Trust Him now. Believe in Him now. Give your heart to Him now. There is life for a look at the crucified One. Look and live!