Alright, in Acts chapter 16 we
meet with a question that we looked at a few weeks ago. What
must I do to be saved? A few weeks ago we looked at
this as it was asked by the rich young ruler. And in that case
the Lord told the rich young ruler something to do which would
cause him to see that there was actually nothing he could do
of himself. This time, the question is asked,
but the Lord is going to do something. It's going to show us what the
Lord must do in order to make you truly hear the answer to
the question of what you must do to be saved and to obey Him.
Now, we begin here, and I want to pick up with Verse 25, Paul
and Silas have been thrown into prison, and they've been beaten
with stripes, and the jailer of the prison, he's like the
warden of the prison, he has been commanded to keep these
men, put these men into prison. Let's begin in 23. And when they
had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging
the jailer to keep them safely. who having received such a charge,
this was a serious charge to him. It meant if he didn't do
this, he could die. He could be killed if he didn't
keep these prisoners. And they charged him, and so
when he received this charge, he thrust Paul and Silas into
the inner prison. He put them in the toughest place. And he made their feet fast in
the stocks. He didn't just put them there,
he put them in the stocks, in the chains. And at midnight,
Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God. And the prisoners
heard them. And suddenly, there was a great
earthquake. So that the foundations of the
prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors
were opened and everyone's bands were loosed. Now, somewhere there
is a real place called heaven. There is a real man who is seated
there on a real throne. And that man is Jesus of Nazareth. He is the fullness of God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in a body. and
all power is given unto him in heaven and in earth. You recall
when he walked this earth how that he told him on one occasion
to go and get a coin out of a fish's mouth and there it was. Remember
how on one occasion the waves were boisterous and there was
a tempest and he awoke and he told the wind to be still and
the waves were still and there was a calm? Remember that? This
same one This very same one is alive, is living, He is in glory. And He is the King. And the acts of the apostles
are the acts of the King. And what the King is doing here
is He is using the earth and He is making it to quake. And
He has created this breaking up of the foundations of this
prison and loose the bands of these prisoners to teach you
and me sitting here right now who are feeble creatures of sense
and need every illustration we can possibly have this king is
so powerful he worked this in that prison that night and that
hour had his Luke the physician record it and has preserved it
for all these years so you sit right here now and have an illustration
of how God save sinners, what he does in the heart of sinners.
Now, do you believe he's that powerful? Do you believe that
this king is that sovereign to work in that great a detail in
the earth? Then you can be assured he's
that sovereign to work in you, Steve, and you, Cyril, and in
every one of you here to where he, and in the midst of you. to bring to pass His will. So
you can just rest in Him and not put forth your will and just
rest for Him to bring His will to pass. Now He did this. Now
what I want you to see here is what He's doing. He's going to
show us what He's done in the heart of the jailer. And he's
going to show us what he did in the heart of many of those
in the jailer's household. You see, by natural appearance,
it looks like Paul and Silas are in prison. Physically, they
are. They're not in prison. They're
free in Christ. They're singing and praying to
the Lord. The one who's in prison is the warden, the jailer, and
his family. They're in prison. They're in
bonds. The natural heart is dead, it's
bound, it's in a prison. Paul quoted a secular poet one
time when he was in Athens, and I'm going to quote one to you,
one of my favorite secular songwriters. And he said this, and I think
it's probably unknowing to him when he wrote this. It's one
of the best descriptions of the bondage that the human heart
is in apart from the work of grace. Listen to these words.
Inside me there's a prison, surrounding me alone, stronger than any dungeon
with its walls of stone. Now that's true. That's true
of every man born in Adam. They're in a prison. It's inside
them. And they're surrounded by walls
that are stronger than any dungeon made of stone. The Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, was anointed by God the Father for the purpose
of setting His chosen prisoners free. Taking them out of the
prison. I want you to turn to Isaiah
42. Isaiah 42. Let me show you that. Verse 7, He said He was sent to open the
blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and
them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. I am the
Lord, that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another,
neither my praise to graven images. He's the only one who can do
this. The only one, and He has to do
this. He must do this in His people.
When God bears witness in the heart of the sinner, the Holy
Spirit turns everything upside down, just like this earthquake. The foundations of the prison
has got to be shaken. Immediately the doors will be
opened and the chains will be loosed. And it's all going to
be by God's glory, His Son doing it. Now here's the three things
I want you to see in this message tonight. I want you to see the
effect. Grace works within a sinner. the effectual work of grace in
a sinner. I want you to see the good news
of the gospel, and I want you to see the obedience of faith.
These three things. First of all, the effects the
grace of God has upon a sinner. The first thing God's going to
do when He works this work of grace is He's going to awaken
the dead sinner. Look here in verse 27. The keeper
of the prison, awaking out of his sleep. Now you get the picture
here. This is what was the problem
in his heart. He was asleep, dead in trespasses and in sin.
And we see him here in this prison, asleep. Scripture says, you hath
he quickened who were dead in trespasses and in sin. Then when
he awakes the sinner, when Christ Jesus through the Spirit of God
awakes the sinner, he reveals that everything that we've worked
to do is vanity. And He brings us to despair even
of our own life. Watch this, verse 27. The keeper
of the prison, awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison
doors open, he drew out his sword and would have killed himself,
supposing that the prisoners had been fled. You see, those
that had to rule over this jailer, when they told him and gave him
the charge to keep these prisoners in prison. The reason he put
Paul and Silas in that inner prison, and the reason he locked
them up with those bands, is because if they got away, he's
gonna die. His life depends on it. His life
depends on him keeping these prisoners bound in his prison. But the sad thing is, in order
to do that, and to keep them bound in the prison, He had to
remain in the prison himself. He had to live in the prison
himself. Now, do you know the application of this? Just like
this jailer right there. Sinners who try to work out a
righteousness for themselves, to come to God and be accepted
of God and to find favor with God. will do all manner of religious
works. And those that have the rule
over them, that Lord over them, will tell them, make it out that
their life depends upon them doing what they've commanded
them to do. And what religious leaders of
this sort, false prophets, Satan himself, desires for men to do. He, through fear of death, kept
God's children in bondage all our lives. They used the law
to accuse of sin, And then they used the law to say, now if you
do this, this, and this, you can fix your sin. And so you're
on a never-ending treadmill of bondage, constantly being accused
and constantly being told what you've got to do to fix it. Constantly
being accused and constantly being told what you've got to
do to fix it. And when that happens in the midst of everybody, you
begin to think, my salvation is dependent upon me doing this
for others, and making others responsible and obedient. And
so to do that, you have to bind them, and you have to keep them
bound. But in order to accomplish that work, you've got to live
in the prison yourself and be bound yourself. You remember when Paul spoke
to the Galatians, and those Judaizers had come in there, and what they
were saying was, it's not enough to simply believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. There is something else you have
to do. And what they were saying had
to be done was, once you have begun in the Spirit, now there
is something you have to do to be made perfect. That's called
by liars, progressive holiness, progressive sanctification. The
truth of the matter is, Paul said, if you've begun in the
Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh? You see, you never
grow in holiness. You never grow in righteousness.
You are holy and you are righteous in Christ. You grow in the grace
and knowledge of that very fact. And the more you behold Him as
everything, the more you behold yourself. as foul and wretched
and undone. And that religion that teaches
you that I'm more holy today than I was five years ago, that
is not beholding the head. It's not beholding Christ Jesus.
It's beholding me as getting better and better and better.
And the more I behold me getting better and better and better,
the more I behold Christ less and less and less. Now that's
the opposite of true religion. That's the opposite of the grace
that God works in the heart. John said, He must increase,
I must decrease. And if you'll follow the progression
of Paul, he started out saying, Oh wretched man that I am, what
a sinner I am. And later he said, I'm the chief
of sinners. You see, the more you behold Christ, the more you
behold your nothingness. And that is true. That is growth
in grace. It's growth in beholding that
He is all my holiness. And the more I see the light,
the more I see the darkness that's in me. Now that other thing,
that other thing that is called holiness, is what me and you
have got to be sanctified from. God has got to open, He has got
to make an earthquake in the inner man and shake up that foundation
and bust open the prison doors and release those bands from
us and make us to behold that Jesus Christ put away all our
sin. There is nothing left to be done. We are righteous and holy in
Christ Jesus. And because we are righteous
and holy in Christ Jesus, He has taken every bit of ammunition
away from Satan, every bit of ammunition away from His ministers,
every bit of ammunition away from those religious hucksters
that are like this poor jailer living in the jail to keep you
bound. Well, how's he going to be freed from this? Well, when
grace wakes you up like this and makes you alive and makes
you to behold that all your works are vanity, it brings you to
the spare even of life. This jailer thought, everything
I've worked for, everything I've worked for, it's gone. It's gone. He had been glorying in men's
flesh. This is what it's a type of, glorying in men's flesh,
trying to constrain them to do something so you can walk up
to God one day and say, look at all these wonderful works
we did. Oh, the devils, we cast them out. I got a feeling the
devils that were cast out are probably going to be those standing
on the right hand with the Son of God. Those true children of
God that He called out and saved. But that's what this jailer was
doing. Now he beholds, all my work I've done has been in vain.
My rulers are going to kill me. I don't have anything. I don't
have any income anymore. I might as well take out this
sword and just kill myself right now. That's what he thought.
That's despairing of life. Better to find that out in this
life than to meet God in judgment and find it out. Well, then there's
a call. a real call, an effectual call.
Verse 28, But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself
no harm, for we are all here. This gospel I preach is the call
of Christ Jesus the Lord. I hope you are not hearing a
man. I hope you hear Christ speak into your heart. And this is
what He said when He brings you to the point of your, see your
utter hopelessness, your utter helplessness, your utter despair,
and cries out, do yourself no harm. We're all here. Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, Christ Jesus the Lord, all your righteousness,
all your holiness, all your wisdom, all your redemption, we're all
here. We're all here. The God of your
salvation, He speaks comfortably to those He's broken. That's
the only time we'll hear it. Once He's broken us. And then
this work of God the Spirit makes the sinner call on God. Now look
at verse 29. Then He called for a light. The
jailer did. Then the jailer said, bring me
a light. I need a light. Man by nature
won't call for the light. You know that? Everyone that
doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved. He don't want to know the truth.
If he did, he'd have to find out that all his religious works
and endeavors has all been a house of cards. And he don't want that
to be revealed. But he that doeth truth cometh
to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they're
wrought in God. God, He's glorying in the works
of God. And He knows this light is the
true light because God worked it in Him. It's all the works
of God. How's a man going to be made
to do that? Who's going to get the glory
for that? Look back over there at Isaiah 49. Isaiah chapter
49. What's going to make you come
out and come to the light? Look at Isaiah 49 verse 9. Thou mayest say to the prisoners,
go forth. To them that are in darkness,
show yourselves. That they shall feed in the ways,
and their pasture shall be in all high places. They shall not
hunger nor thirst. Neither shall the heat nor sun
smite them. For he that hath mercy on them shall lead them.
Even by the springs of water shall he guide them. How are
they going to be brought out of that prison? How are they
going to be made to come to life? He's going to speak affectionately
in their heart and say, Go out of that prison. Show yourself. Come to the light. Come to the
light. That's what he does. All right,
look here now. What he did, verse 29, Acts 16,
29. Then he called for a light and
he sprang in. He's eager to get in there. He
sprang in and he came trembling and he fell down before Paul
in silence. Oh, thy people shall be willing
in the day of thy power. That's what God said. Grace gives
a new spirit. Grace gives a spirit that wasn't
there before. The grace of God creates a new
spirit within you. That's what God said He would
do. Before He was proud, now He came trembling. Before He
exercised His authority, now He falls down before Paul. Before
He was telling Paul what to do, Now he asked Paul, he brings
them out, verse 30, and he said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? When God has sought the sinner,
then the sinner is going to seek God. That's just how it is. It's always that order. When
God seeks the sinner, He makes the sinner realize it's not Christ
that's lost, it's the sinner that's lost. And he starts asking
God. Grace quickens the dead sinner,
removes all hope of our vain doing. Grace says, show yourselves,
and he makes the sinner to call for the light. And he comes trembling,
and he bows down, and he asks God for mercy. You know what
that's called? You know what the wise man called
that? Proverbs 9, 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. And the knowledge of the holy
is understanding. That's when you're going to start
to learn something. When He's brought you down, brought you
to His feet, and made you to ask. You see, this man's question
is with a spirit that God's given. The rich young ruler's question
was from a proud heart. He really thought he could do
something. Now we're picking up with the rest of the story
and what God works in a sinner to bring him to really ask now
in sincerity, in importunity, totally bankrupt, totally trembling,
totally falling at the feet of Christ and saying, what must
I do to be saved? You see this? You see the difference?
Well, here's the good news of the Gospel. That first is what
the Lord does when He works this work of grace. Now here's the
good news of the Gospel. Here's the answer to our question,
verse 31. And they said, this has been
the gospel of every believer in every age. And they said,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And thy house, and what he means
there is, and the same thing goes for everybody that's in
your house. If they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, they shall
be saved. Do you understand that? Paul
declared, and then look what he did, and then they spake unto
him the word of the Lord, and not just to the jailer, and to
all that were in his house. These things always come. How
are you going to believe on him in whom you have not heard? And
how are you going to believe without a preacher? Paul's been
sent there on purpose by God, right there to that place. It
wasn't an accident at all. He was sent right there For that
purpose, God sent the earthquake, God brings this man down, and
he's got all his household there. You think, somebody might say,
that's odd that this jailer is living in this prison, and he's
got his whole house there. I don't know if they were right
there in that prison, or where they were. He said he brought
them out of there, so I don't know if he took them out of the
prison, but I do know this, I knew a girl, I went to Louisiana Tech
University, and I knew a girl who told me when I first met
her, first words out of her mouth, I asked her where she was from,
and she said, I grew up in Angola Prison. What? Her daddy was the
warden, and her whole family lived in the gates of the prison,
and she grew up in the prison. Not in jail, but in the outside
of the prison there, but on the, as you would call it, the campus
of the prison. That's where she lived. Well, what Paul is telling
them is that faith in Christ is the work that God demands
of all his children. I'll tell you one good proof
that that is the work God demands, is men constantly say, That's
not all. That's not all. That's the work. It's the work that no man can
do without this work of grace in the heart. No man can do this,
minus nothing, plus nothing, unless God works a work of grace
in the heart. This is the work of God, that
you believe on His Son. Listen to it. John 6, 28. They said unto Him, What shall
we do that we might work the works of God? Look at it with
me. John 6. They came to our Lord,
Pharisees did. This is what He told them. He's telling them not to labor
for the meat that perishes. They're following Him just for
rewards. They're following Him just for carnal reasons. Then
they said unto Him, verse 28, What shall we do that we might
work the works of God? You know, every man is going
to be judged according to his works. You know that? Now, whether they're good or
evil, what works do you want to be judged for? But whether
good or evil, all your works in the Day of Judgment, if you
are outside of Christ, all of your works, your good works are
going to be put on this side of the balance, and your evil
works are going to be put right there with them. You are going
to be judged according to your works, whether you think they
are good works or they are evil works. They are all going to
be on the same side of the balance. And the righteousness of Christ,
by which this world is going to be judged, is going to be
on the other side. And you are going to come up liking, wanting. If you want to work the works
of God, the works wherein the law is completely fully established,
the works wherein God is completely totally satisfied with you, the
works whereby there has never been a bad thought, never been
a bad word, never been a bad deed, nothing but pure, spotless,
holy righteousness, the works that has completely totally made
you justified of all your sin, The works whereby God looks upon
you and says, well done, my good and faithful servant. If you
want to work those works, here's how you work them. Jesus said
unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you. I'm sorry, Jesus said unto them,
this is the work of God, that you believe on him whom he hath
sent. What does Romans Look over here
with me at Romans chapter 3. I know how this is misused, but
let me show you something. Look at verse 31. Romans 3.31. Now he's been declaring all along
that the law had one purpose, it was to shut men's mouth. He'd
been declaring that the faith and fidelity of Christ Jesus
the Lord is the one in whom the righteousness of God is manifest.
He did the work. He did the work that declared
God's righteousness. And he says now, sinners are
saved by faith in Him, by laying hold of what Christ did, who
He is and what He did. And he says then, here's the
question they're going to ask, well then you're making void
the law. And he says, verse 31, do we then make void the law
through faith? God forbid, yea, through faith,
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and resting right there in that
one work of God. You know what we've done? We
have established the law. We have, He came to magnify it
and to honor it, to honor and magnify it and you know what
we've done when we believe on Christ? We've honored and magnified
the law of God exactly as Christ did. He did it on our behalf
and we believe Him and trust Him and we've honored it and
we've magnified it. That's the works of God. Those are the works
where His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in. What's
the works we walk in? I walk in the works of my Savior
that He accomplished for me. I'm laying hold of Him and I'm
resting right there in Him. Those are the works I'm zealous
for. Are you zealous for your own works? I'm not so zealous for them that
I won't come up to God and present them to Him. I can tell you that.
But I am for His. One plea I'll have on the day
of glory and it's His works. Everything He did. Those are
the works I want to be judged in. Alright? The jailer's got
to believe and all his household's got to believe because without
faith it's impossible to please Him for he that cometh to God
must believe He is and that He's a rewarder of them that diligently
seek Him. Now faith is Faith does all the
work of God without moving a muscle by simply believing on Christ.
That's right. That thief on the cross, he worked
all the works of God. He worked every work of God that
the sinner worked that started out when the Lord came to him
in the twilight of the day and said, follow me. That same one that he called
at the end of the day and said, go into my field. They both worked
the same works and received the same payment for their works.
And that work is what he accomplished, and the payment is his righteousness.
And that thief worked those works with both his hands and his feet
nailed to a cross. These are the works of God. that
you believe on Him whom He hath sent." You know what it means? It means you don't have to go
to the cross, and you don't have to be made sin, and you don't
have to bear the wrath of God, and you don't have to bear eternal
punishment. And you don't have to drink the
cup of God's wrath dry. Christ did it. You want to do
that work? You want to be left on your own
to do that work? He did it. That's a light and easy yoke
to know He did the work. That's what He said. It is finished. And if it wasn't finished, that
veil in the temple that separated God's people from God would not
have been split in two down the middle. Not only that, but the
wall that separated the Jewish males from the Jewish females,
that middle wall of partition was broken down. Not only that,
but the wall that separated Jew from Gentile in the outer court,
that wall was broken down. In 78 A.D. he sent the Roman
army in there and he broke the whole thing down. You know what
he declared loud and clear? Christ is the end of that dividing,
separating law that men think puts some distinction between
them and the harlots out there on the street. And he declared
you're all guilty and in need of mercy, but in me there's neither
Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free, male nor female, but you're one
in Christ Jesus. One. as righteous as He is, as
holy as He is, as accepted in the Beloved as He is accepted.
Alright, here is the third thing. What happens when a sinner hears
this and truly hears this in the heart? This is the obedience
of one who believes on Christ. First, he is going to repent
and believe on Christ. Verse 33, He took them the same
hour of the night and He washed their stripes. Now, how do you
get repentance and faith out of that? Well, repentance and
faith is to be radically turned from our former self to trust
Christ. And what I see here and what
He did was He turned from inflicting stripes upon them to washing
their stripes. That's repentance. That's a new
heart, a new spirit. Secondly, the believer is going
to submit and obey Christ. Verse 33. And he was baptized,
he and all his, straightway. And when it says he was baptized,
he and all his, straightway, it means the jailer and many
in his house who heard the gospel that night were granted repentance
and faith in Christ by God and therefore they submitted to the
ordinance of baptism in obedience to Christ. That's obedience. Obedience. Let me say a word to you about
this baptism. The word means immersion. That's
what it means. And I know that some practice
sprinkling and they practice different things. Let me turn
you away from man just a minute. Turn you away from the precepts
of men just a minute. Turn you away from the traditions
of men just a minute. And I want you to look square
in the face of Christ Jesus the Lord. That one who said, I have
a baptism, an immersion to be immersed with and how I am straightened
until it be accomplished. He was not sprinkled with the
sin that I am. He was immersed in the sin that
I am. He was engulfed in the sin that
I am. He, His own self, bore my sin
in His own body on the tree. And if you will look the word
bore up and the word bare, it means He was impregnated with
my sin. He gave His soul an offering
for sin. And He was not merely sprinkled
with the wrath of God. He was immersed, engulfed, Baptized
in the fierce anger and wrath of God. He wasn't just partly
forsaken. He was forsaken. Wholly forsaken. Look in His face now. Look in
His face. He wasn't just taken down from
that bloody cross, that body looking so much like just a piece
of meat mangled and gnarled that it's unrecognizable and marred
more than any other man. He wasn't just taken down and
taken out somewhere and sprinkled with a little dirt. He was buried
in a tomb because he was engulfed in death. Was He really made sin? Did He
really die? Am I really made righteous? Do
you really live? Do you have eternal life? As
real as He was made sin, His people are made righteous. As
real as He died, His people have eternal life. He was engulfed in it. when he
came out of that grave. He came out of that grave and
every single chosen, elect, precious child of God that He purchased
with His own life's blood came out of that tomb, out of that
grave, out of that death, out of that wrath, out of that old
cursed law, out of all of it without sin to newness of life
and sat down at the right hand of God and everyone He had in
Him sat down with Him. The law, like that husband that
that woman was bound to, who was strict and ruled and reigned
over, now that law is dead and she's free to be married to another. Baptism is only by those who
have had this earthquake in their heart and been brought to tremble
and fall at the feet of Christ and beg Him for mercy and ask
Him, what must I do? And to hear Him say, believe
on me. Don't add anything to it. Trust
Me. It is taking everything you have,
your whole self, your whole being, your whole eternal welfare, your
whole providential dealings, everything that you have, everything
about you, it is taking it all lock, stock and barrel just like
I'm taking this right here and I'm going to trust Him to hold
it right there. It's all sitting right there.
I'm not going to do anything else. I believe that that will
hold that clock. I believe it. I'm not doing anything,
I'm trusting Him. And those who have been saved
by His grace in this manner and behold Him, you know what they
want to do? They want to tell the world, they want to confess
to the world, this is a picture and an example of the baptism,
the immersion that my dear Lord and my dear Savior fulfilled
on my behalf. and they go into that watery
grave, and they're buried, and they come out of that watery
grave to newness of life, confessing, I'm His and His alone. Boys,
see you later. I'm staying with Him now. I'm His. I'm under new management. This is it. Well, you can read Romans 6 on
that. Thirdly, the believer becomes
a willing servant of Christ. Verse 34. And when he had brought
them into his house, he set meat before them. You see, the love of Christ entered this
jailer's heart when Christ entered his heart. And Paul and Silas
was the closest thing this jailer had to Christ. Because Christ was in their heart.
They were born of one spirit. They were made to drink of one
spiritual meat. They were actually one. And the
closest one he had to them, to Christ, was them. And so he brought
them in there and he set meat before them, just served them. That's what he did. Who is greater? He that sits at meat or him that's
serving? It's him that sits at meat. He came in there and said,
Paul, Paul, I never met anybody like you. Sit down here at my
table and let me wait on you, hand and foot. I want to serve
you. Paul said, you don't have to
serve me. Oh, I won't. I know I don't have to. That's
why I won't do it. I won't do it. Because I want
to serve Him. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God, and every one that loveth Him
that begat loveth Him also that's begotten of Him. You love Christ
that begot you? You're going to love your brethren
then. That's what He said. Lord over them, not reign over
them, not rule over them, not whip them, not put them in stocks
and bondage. You know what you're going to
do? Tell them, you don't have to lift a finger, brother. Sit
right here. I'll bear your burden. Let me bring the meat and put
it before you. Let me bring the drink. Let me... You sit here.
You take the best seat. You sit right here. Let me serve
you. Can you imagine what a kingdom will be like where there is no
covetousness and where there is no envy and strife and debate
and everybody there just wants to serve the other one? Can you
imagine that? It's a foretaste of it. It's
a foretaste of it in God's true church. Believers want to serve
each other because they love their Redeemer who served them,
gave Himself for them. That's what he said. As much
as you've done it unto one of these, the least of my brethren,
you have done it unto me. That's right. Well, here's the
fourth thing. The believer rejoices and continues
believing on God. He doesn't stop there and just
say, well, now I got this all squared away. Now I go on back
whipping and go back to Mount Sinai. No, he stays put right
there. Right there. Look at verse 34.
And they rejoiced, believing in God, with all his house. That's a work of grace. God worked
a work of grace there. Men say, well, I don't know that
God would work a work of grace like that and save many in a
man's house. I know several folks, I know
several folks whom God has done this very thing for. Saved the
father, saved the mother, saved the child, not all at once, but
over time to where Y'all met Bob and Jeanette Morrell, didn't
you? While you were there at Danville?
Lord saved Bob. Lord saved Jeanette. They had a daughter named Christy.
Lord saved her. She married Pastor Daniel Park. She married his son, D. Lord
saved him. Brian, we didn't know about Brian. We was worried about Brian. He
was a wild one, but the Lord saved him. And he married Pastor
Joe Terrell's daughter. The Lord saved her. There you
got Bob, Jeanette, Christy, Dee, Brian, and Mary. All believers
in the same house. God did that. He did it. He says, you that were sometime
alienated enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now he reconciled
in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and
unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. And this will be
the proof he did it for you. If you continue in the faith
grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the
gospel which you've heard. Paul said that to the Colossians
who had folks coming into them saying, Ah, now, believing's
not all you've got to do. You've got to observe some holy
days. You've got to do this, this, and this, and this. He
said, don't be moved away from the hope of the gospel, which
you heard from the beginning. Believe on Christ. Don't add
anything to it. Nothing to it. So, now that you've
heard this, let's answer this question. What must you do to
be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And thou shalt be saved. All right, amen.