Amen. Alright, Acts chapter 16. We'll begin reading at verse
25. Now Paul and Silas are in Philippi. And that's where they
came in contact with Lydia, the seller of purple, whose mind
the Lord opened that she could understand what was being taught
to her and she believed. And then this is where Paul cast
a demon out of this girl who was being used as a fortune teller
to the profit of some men in that city. He cast out that demon
and of course that dried up their way of making a living. And they
got angry and they stirred up a mob to come against Paul and
Silas. And they were severely flogged
and thrown into prison. And there was a jailer put in
charge of them. And it says in verse 24, upon
receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened
their feet in the stocks. Now these men who were put in
charge of prisoners like this, they were given given this responsibility and
must not under any circumstances allow these men to escape or
they'd pay with it with their lives. So you can see why this
jailer was so careful, put them in an inner cell, no window they
could escape through. No one would be able simply to
break through the wall and get them out. Not only that, he put
their feet in stocks so they can't get away. Man did
everything he could to keep Paul and Silas in that prison. But verse 25, about midnight,
Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. and the
other prisoners were listening to them. Now, you might wonder,
if things were going well in Philippi, that is, people were
believing, and the power of God was being demonstrated, why did
God put Paul and Silas in prison? Seems to me, and probably seemed
to us by natural reason, wouldn't that stop that work? How is anybody going to believe
if nobody's preaching? Well, just because they were
in jail doesn't mean they couldn't preach. And just because they
didn't have a pulpit, or even a willing congregation, doesn't
mean that God could not use them to great effect. It says they
were praying. Now, I do not know exactly what
they mean by prayer here. we hear of our Lord praying all
night long. And when you think of prayer
the way we normally think of prayer, what do you say all night
long? You know? I think that this was
a broader thing. They were, as it were, communicating
with God. And not necessarily in one long
interminable prayer. They would sing. praises to God,
they would worship Him with their own forms of praise,
just words out of their mouth, whatever. But here's the interesting
thing to note. These two men had just been flogged,
and they'd been flogged like Romans flog people, which was
barely survivable. They'd been thrown in prison.
It was dark. Because later we read that the
jailer had some lights brought so he could see what was going
on. Now imagine you're in that condition. Your back has just
been shred to pieces. You've been put in the inner
cell of a nasty jail. Remember jails, the idea of human
rights for prisoners wasn't a big deal back then. More like a dungeon. A nasty place. Hardly a place
you'd want to be if you had open wounds subject to infection. But there they are. Their feet
are in stocks. It's midnight. And they can't
see anything. And yet, They're praying, and
they're singing hymns to God. Many would think, well, God's
deserted me. I was out there doing all I can
for His name, and look what He did. He let these people put
me in prison, let them beat me up. That's our natural reaction. People think that if they repent
or if they believe or are religious in a Christian sort of way, that
God's going to make things good for them. And the moment that
God brings in a providence they don't like, they prove there's
really no spiritual life in them. So they begin to grumble. They begin to complain against
God. Not these men. And it says that
the prisoners, I mean the other prisoners, were listening to
them. Now I doubt any of them were praying and singing praises
to God. They were probably in pretty
sad state of affairs, miserable, angry. But then they're listening
to these men who'd been treated even worse than they had. And
these guys are singing. Then at midnight, it says, verse
26, suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations
of the prison were shaken. At once, all the prison doors
flew open and everybody's chains came loose. Now, I can understand an earthquake
making the doors come open. You shake a building enough,
it can break the doors. Certainly wouldn't have any problem
breaking the locks, and they could swing open. But the chains,
an earthquake will not make chains break up. So this was no natural
earthquake. This was something brought on
by the Lord. Don't even know that it affected
any other place than that jail. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors
open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because
he thought the prisoners had escaped. Now this rule upon jailers like
him, there was no excuse. There were no such thing recognized
as mitigating circumstances, which would relieve them of their
obligation to keep those prisoners. So this jailer from Philippi,
he wakes up and he sees that the doors are all open. And he
assumes, and it's a pretty good assumption really, all the prisoners
that escaped. I mean, if you were in jail,
particularly if you thought you were in jail wrongly, and then
the doors burst open and your chains fell off, You'd be out
the door really quick. And so that Philippian jailer
thinks to himself, they're going to kill me. I would rather not
suffer an execution as such. And it was, I guess, considered
kind of honorable, just do yourself in. Commit suicide and avoid
the spectacle. And that's what he was about
to do. Says, but Paul shouted, Don't harm yourself. We are all
here. Now, often there are miracles
described to us in the scriptures and we don't even recognize that
a miracle has happened. Now, God shaking that building,
we figure that's a miracle. Causing the doors to fly open,
a change, a break off. Miracle from God. But you know,
there's a greater miracle than that going on here. And this
miracle was for the purpose of bringing salvation to this man,
this Philippian jailer. What miracle was that? Doors
open, chains broken, nobody left. Not Paul, not Silas, not any
of the other prisoners in there. And these other prisoners, it's
not like they were believing men in there. These were true
criminals sitting there. Probably looking forward to some
kind of horrible punishment. And they didn't take advantage
of the opportunity given to them to escape. Now this shows us
something about our sovereign God. and that he rules over the
wills of men. The natural will of all those
prisoners would be get out, get while the getting's good. And Paul and Silas would not
have been able to convince them to stay there. But God could. God rules over the wills of men.
and causes them to do whatever is necessary to bring about the
salvation of his people. Had any of those men taken advantage
and escaped, the life of this man would have been lost. Paul wouldn't have been able
to say to him, don't harm yourself. Everybody's here. You haven't
lost anybody. He couldn't have said that. And
that man, would have killed himself to avoid the public spectacle
of a public execution. The jailer called for lights. Maybe he needed to see it for
himself. Paul just said, we're all here.
Well, I can't imagine that he would believe that until he saw
it. He rushed in and fell trembling
before Paul and Silas. Now, he was afraid, he was trembling,
because the event that happened, the prison being shaken like
it was, he was doubtless trembling because up until just a moment
ago, he believed that his life was forfeit. And he was trembling, I imagine,
because he recognized that these men were no ordinary men. He recognized that these men,
there was something about them that separated them from the
common prisoners that he was accustomed to seeing. Because it seemed rather obvious
that it was for their sake that the prison doors had been opened
and all the chains broken. And so, as any superstitious
person would be, and we must consider whatever religion is
not the religion of Christ is simply superstition, he was terrified. He then brought them out. They
didn't escape, but he brought them out. He brought them out
of their cell, probably took them up, maybe, you know, upstairs
where the business offices were or whatever, took them up there
so he could talk to them, but he asked this question, sir or
sirs, what must I do to be saved? Now, what would prompt him to
ask such a question? What would prompt him to ask
a question like that of those two men? Well, it's an assumption, I know,
but it's a plausible assumption. He'd been listening to them praying
and singing. Now, he hadn't made anything
out of it. He just assumed, well, they're
religious fanatics. And there's no law against praying
and singing in the middle of the night in a jail. If that's
what you want to do, go for it. But he heard what they said.
He heard what they sang. He heard what they prayed. Who
knows? Maybe as they were singing and
praying, other prisoners asked them questions. Who is this God
you're praying to? And they would describe it. Why
would you praise Him when you're in such circumstances as this?
It seems like He's abandoned you. And they could give a good
answer to that. And that jailor was hearing this stuff. But he
made nothing of it. But then God, by His providential
interference, puts this man's life at risk. Actually, the man's life is always
at risk. We have no authority and no power
to keep ourselves alive. But God arranged it, arranged
these events of this night so that that Philippian jailer knew
something out of the ordinary has happened here, something
out of the ordinary Something I can't control has occurred
and it put my life at risk. But then something even more
remarkable happened that spared my life. And I feel certain, he thought
to himself, it has something to do with these men. and what
they've been singing about, praying about, and talking about as they
sat there in misery, as it were, in their inner cell. Now, I love the doctrines of
God's sovereign grace. And the doctrines of God's sovereign
grace don't just end with the idea that God chose a people
whom he would save. It extends to this, that He arranges
all the events of history to ensure that all whom He chose
would come to a knowledge of the truth. And if that means putting a couple
of His sent preachers in jail, having been flogged, and then
shaking that jail, till the cells pop open and the chains fall
off of everybody and yet no one escapes. If it takes that to
get the attention of one of his elect, he can do it and he will
do it. Most of us would go through our
lives utterly unconcerned about what lies ahead. or we would think a little bit
of religion will handle it. It takes God doing something,
whether external or internal. Of course, there's always got
to be an internal work, but God must get our attention and make
us realize that we are in circumstances beyond our control. And that if we are to be saved,
it must be by Him, and not by anything that we can do. Now
whether He accomplishes that by you maybe being raised in
a home with the gospel, well, you attend a gospel church, and
as you're growing up in your own home, you heard about these
things and were made aware of them. Or He can put you on a
bed of sickness, if He has, to make you sit there all by yourself
in your hospital room, thinking you might die, or maybe likely
die, and you start to think about eternal things. I don't know what means God will
use. I know the gospel, the preacher
of the gospel, will always be involved. But what external means
God will use to kind of shut you up And I mean that in two
ways, not only to make you quit talking and being quiet, but
to close you up to where you've got nowhere to go. He'll do that. This man asked, what must I do
to be saved? And when he asked that, he put
Paul and Silas under a great responsibility. they must tell him the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. These men have
evidently been sent of God. Even the jailer could tell that
because of the events that happened. Now being sent of God as a preacher
of his gospel is at one time, or at the same time, Both a great
blessing and privilege, and a great responsibility. I think of that often, the responsibility
side of it. I enjoy preaching. But so often I think, God has
brought these people here, and they're gonna listen to me. I
certainly don't wanna lead them the wrong way. It would be bad enough to go
to hell all by yourself. It'd be worse yet to drag a bunch
of people with you because you told them a lie. And that sobers me up because
I'm like any other person. I can get distracted. I can get
sidetracked. I can read in the Bible and say,
hey, that's curious, you know, and wonder what that's all about. where I still have all the normal
motions of the flesh operating in me, all the principles of
legalism, they're all still there. This is why, even though I've
been doing this, well, as a pastor I've been doing it, it'll be
40 years this October. That's when I went to Owensboro,
Kentucky, began pastoring the church there. After 40 years
of it, I still study. I still check and recheck. What does this say? I want to
be sure, for my own sake and for your sake, that what I'm
telling you is the truth. I'd hate that in the end of all
things I'd be found out as your worst enemy. So there's a great responsibility.
Well, here is Paul and Silas. Paul, the one chosen to replace
Judas, chosen by God, sent by God, an apostle of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He said in another place, I'm
a master builder. I lay the foundation. Done a
little bit of building in my time, and I know this, you get
the foundation wrong, it's really hard to get the house right. And so as soon as this jailer
said, what must I do to be saved? There was this great responsibility
laid on Paul to tell him the truth and tell him all of it. And the response was remarkably
short. You would think that something
so momentous as the salvation of one's soul would require more
of an explanation than what Paul gave this man. He said, what must I do to be
saved? And Paul replied, believe in
the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. We'll get to the household part
of it in a minute. Let's just think about the jailer first.
Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. Now there's
four terms here, not just word, terms that are very important.
Believe, Lord Jesus, you and saved. I'm not gonna take them in the
order they appear. Let's start with the term, the Lord Jesus. I believe some of the old Greek
manuscripts say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Added that
title. The Lord Jesus Christ. Just believing. Everybody believes something. Almost everybody. I guess there
may be a few real atheists, I don't know. I know there's some who
say they're atheists, but I don't know what they're actually thinking
in the dark of night when they're alone with their own thoughts. But we all believe something. We all believe someone. So the issue is not simply whether
you believe. You must believe the right person. Now, who is this person being
spoken of? Well, his name says it all. Now,
even though our translation doesn't include the word Christ, I'm
going to put it in there because, like I said, some of the old
Greek manuscripts have it in there, some of them don't. But
all of these names and or titles given to our Lord are important
to an understanding of what Paul said. First of all, what's his
name? It's Jesus. Now, the other two,
the Lord and the Christ, those are titles. His name is Jesus. Now, why is his name Jesus? Well, the angel told them, Joseph and Mary, told them,
you will call his name Jesus. because he will save his people
from their sin. Now in saying believe on Jesus,
this is implied just by the use of that name. By the way, the
name Jesus is the same name as the name Joshua. It means Jehovah
saves, or Jehovah is salvation. It's just a blending of the two
Hebrew words, one meaning Jehovah and the other meaning save or
salvation. To believe on Jesus is to look
to Him as a Savior. Not just a religious reformer.
Not as a moral advisor. Not as simply someone who set
up a new and distinct religion. It's to see Him as a Savior. Now, obviously this man believed he
needed saving because he asked, what must I do to be saved? But
there's a lot of people that claim to worship Jesus, but they
don't really think of it or think of him as a savior in the sense
that the Bible sets him forth. I like using the word rescuer
because the name, the word translated savior or to be saved, it indicates
or could be used to be rescued, to be in a situation which you
cannot remedy and someone comes to your rescue. Now here's what
I'm afraid a lot of professed Christians believe. They believe
that they have done things worthy of hell, but they don't see the
need of rescue as such. They think that there is something
within their inherent capacities that will bring about their salvation. Whether it be the performance
of religious rituals, whether it be following certain
guidelines of morality, or as is thought by at least
some of those in the religion of my youth, faith. They see the Lord Jesus, yes,
they call him a savior, but they believe that it is by something
that they can do of their own that they are able to make use
of this savior. It's kind of like if you're sick.
Well, there's medicine. The medicine can cure you. You
can take it. And so in some sense, a sick
person is healed in some measure by his own efforts. He saw the
medicine, he knew it was good, he took it. But when you come to the realization
that the only remedy for your situation is beyond your reach, you're in need of a rescue. I remember, I can't even remember what the
song was, but in the middle of this song, the guy just starts talking. Might be Neil Diamond's
Brother Love Salvation Show. I can't remember, but talks about
this preacher. And he says, look above, there's
God and He's reaching down. That's what He's there for. And
you, you're reaching up. That's what you're there for. And they give the idea that God,
He's only going to reach so far down. And you got to make up
the difference by reaching up to Him. You know what? A dead man can't
reach. I can't remember when this happened.
I think it was sometime in the early 2000s, but it may have
been back in the 1990s. The plane took off somewhere
around Washington, D.C., if I'm remembering all the details right.
But it took off and in just a minute it went right into Potomac. It
was cold. It was icy. Well, near as we
can tell, everybody survived the crash. And they're getting out of the
plane, but they can't get out of the water because, you know,
I don't know if you've ever tried it, but try to heave yourself
out of water when ice is all you've got to grab a hold of.
And so here come helicopters, and this was such a sad, sad
scene to see on the news. That helicopter had the life
preservers. and they dropped one down to
this woman. And she'd been going like this and everything, but
by the time they got to her, she was so cold. Hypothermia
had set in. She had no strength. She even
got her arm hooked in that thing, and when they tried to lift it
up, her arm just fell out of it. Good for her. I'd almost say
lucky for her, but we're not allowed to use that word. There
was a rescuer at hand. There was a man on the shore,
saw that happening. And I tell you, I'll give this
guy guts. I'll give him credit for his guts. He went running
out there, breaking through the ice, got to that woman, and dragged
her to shore. That's a rescue. And that's what
we need. We are not even in a condition
where we have the natural capacity to take advantage, so to speak,
of the so-called offer of the gospel. I know that there comes
a time when we do believe, we choose to believe. I understand
all of that, but we would never do that if we did not have a
Savior both able and willing to run and break through the
ice and get to where we are and grab us and pull us to shore. And this man realized that. He
said, I don't need help. I need a rescue. It's not like
I can do nine-tenths of it. I just need someone to finish
up that last little bit. No. What must I do to be saved? Well, it's in His name, Jesus.
It's exactly what He came to do. He shall rescue His people
from their sins. He is the Lord Jesus. It says, when Peter preached on the day
of Pentecost, this was the climax of his message. Be it known unto
all the house of Israel, that this Jesus, whom you crucified,
God has made to be Lord and Christ. Now, this does not mean he was
not Lord and Christ beforehand. In fact, what do the angels tell
the shepherds? the night that our Lord was born.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior
who is Christ the Lord." So He already was Christ the Lord.
It doesn't mean He became those things. When it says He's made
Him Christ and Lord, that word translated made can also mean
to set someone forth as. To make it known. It is written
in I believe it's 1 John. It says
that those that do not believe make God to be a liar. It's the
same word there. It doesn't mean that God actually
becomes a liar because of their unbelief. It means they set him
forth as a liar. So God set forth the Lord Jesus
Christ by raising Him from the dead and seating Him in His right
hand. He has set forth the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Christ. There is no gospel preaching
apart from the Lord. Who's the Lord? He's the one
been given authority. The gospel that we preach, the
gospel that we believe, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is a
gospel that has divine authority to it. Now, if you're guilty
of a crime, you come to me and you say, well, can you get me
out of this? I say, yeah, don't worry about it. You're not going
to jail. You know something? That's not going to mean a thing.
Why? I don't have the authority to
make that kind of statement, do I? I'm not in a position to
tell you whether or not you're going to go to jail for what
you did. I don't have the authority to put you in jail. I don't have
the authority to get you out. The Lord Jesus Christ does. The
Father bestowed that authority on Him. He set Him in His right
hand, the place of favor, the place of authority. He rules
the universe from there. Whatever He wants happens. Our
Lord Himself said, He has committed all things into My hands. Folks don't like the idea of
a sovereign Savior. I sure do. Because no other kind
of Savior is going to be able to get anything done. Because it's for sure we aren't
going to help Him. If He needs our permission to
save us, He is about as useless as anybody
can be when it comes to being a Savior, because we will not
give Him permission unless He comes to us and drags us out
of the icy water or whatever and restores spiritual life in
us. Then we see, we understand not
what he will do, but what he's already done. And we believe
him. He's called the Christ. What
does that mean? Well, Christ is the Greek version of the Hebrew
word Messiah. It means anointed. There were
three offices in the old covenant economy to which a man was anointed,
prophet, priest, and king. To believe on Christ is to see
Him as the only one who has the truth, the only one who has the
way to God, and the only one who has the power to give and
protect life. Prophet, priest, king. And you know what our Lord said
to his disciples the night before he was crucified? I am the way,
I'm the priest. I am the truth, I'm the prophet. I am the king, the preserver, the life preserver. There's only one Lord Jesus Christ,
There's only one who is the way, the truth, and the life, only
one through whom anyone may come to the Father. I've heard people
say, Jesus is the only way to heaven. That's not the issue.
Jesus is the only way to the Father. That's the issue. No man comes to the Father except
by me. Jesus is not one of many saviors.
He's not even the best of many saviors. He's the only savior. The only one there is for anybody.
Everybody else is a pretender. Jesus alone is able to say, and
if you are ever to be saved, it's going to be through him.
If you are ever to come to the father, you're going to go to
the father through him. If you're ever going to know the truth,
you're going to learn it from him. If you're ever going to have
life, you're going to get it from Him. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
The next word we're going to look at is you. Now, he did not say believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and if you're a Jew, that'll be enough. Or if you've done the best you
can, then believing will be enough. He looked at this pagan man.
This man who up until just a few moments ago had absolutely no
concern for the things of God, no faith in God, none of that
stuff. He looked at him and he said, believe and you will be
saved. Now, we've got several people
here. I know a lot about some of you,
but I don't know all your lives. And there's one thing for sure,
I don't know your heart. Because I can't. But I know this. It doesn't matter
who you are or what you've done. If you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, you will be saved. That's all that's set before
you. nothing more is required and
nothing more will be accepted. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Nobody here has to think that there's something about them
that would disallow them from finding or obtaining God's full
salvation simply through believing the Lord Jesus Christ. If you
think there is something about you that would prevent you from
being saved by that means, it just means you're not believing. And then the word believe. I remember Brother Mahan saying,
and this was the, I think the very first message he preached
to us back in 1988 when he came here to visit and we were meeting
over City Hall, actually it's over the library and City Hall,
upstairs. And he said this, and he may
have been preaching on this passage, I can't remember, he said, you will never find in the scriptures
that when the Lord Jesus or any of his apostles were asked the
question, what must I do to be saved, or some version of that,
never were they given the answer, nothing. We have to be careful that we
don't take our theology. We believe in free and sovereign
grace. We believe that we're not saved by works of righteousness,
which we have done. We also believe that faith is
beyond our natural capacity. We understand all that. But it
still comes down to this. If you believe, you will be saved. If you don't, you will not be
saved. The Lord never said, do nothing. He just said, don't try to come
to me by your own works of righteousness. Now, we go out and preach that,
and I say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt
be saved. I can tell you who's going to believe. It will be
those whom God chose, those whom Christ has redeemed, and those
who the Spirit has called. I understand that. But that doesn't
change the plain meaning of the Scriptures. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. And we must not broaden the promise
to include believing in somebody else, but neither should we narrow
the promise as though there is some kind of individual who could
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, then not be saved. The promise
is plain and the promise is sure. But what was the result of this
short message? I don't mean mine, I mean the
one from Paul. Mine are never short. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and you will be saved. And then they said, then they
spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his
house. At that hour of the night, the
jailer took them and washed their wounds and immediately he and
all his family were baptized. The jailer brought them into
his house and set a meal before them. He was filled with joy
because he'd come to believe in God, he and his whole family,
his whole house. Now there are people that take
Paul's words, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved,
you and your household. And they try to set forth this
idea called household salvation. If a man believes, his whole
household is saved. Really now? That means that none of the children
of believers ever perish. Nor their spouses, that's part
of the household. What does he mean by this? When
he said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be
saved and your household. Well, I think that we could paraphrase
it this way. Believe on the Lord Jesus and
you will be saved And the same thing goes for your household.
The same promise to you is good for them too. And notice what
happens. At that hour of the night, the
jailer took them and washed their wounds and immediately, oh excuse
me, verse 32, and they spoke the word of the Lord to him and
to all the others in his house. If only the Philippian jailer
had to believe, and then his household would come under the
protection of salvation, why would they bother going to preach
to the people in the household? They had to hear the Word as
well, for faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. And then it says, once he had
washed their wounds and taken care of their physical needs,
then immediately he and all his family were baptized. Once again, people have used
this scripture to say, yeah, all the household was baptized
because that Philippian jailer believed and that meant his whole
house was saved and they needed to be baptized. No. Notice this. The jailer and his
household all heard the word of the Lord. And the jailer and his household
all were baptized. But now watch verse 34. The jailer brought them into
his house and set a meal before them. He was filled with joy
because he had come to believe in God, he and his whole family. His whole family wasn't saved
and therefore baptized because he believed. Each member of that household
heard the word, believed it, and was baptized because they
believed it. And everybody in that household
was saved. Now I will say this, and I'm
not going to go to other scriptures to make this tedious point, but
the word translated household does not necessarily mean every
individual in it. But I've heard people say, well,
there were doubtless infants in that household. I like Brother
Don Fortner's answer to that. He said, no, everybody in that
household was 18 or older. And somebody said, where in the
Bible does it say that? And he said, the same place it
says there were infants in that house. This is what we know from this
telling of the story. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and you will be saved. That's as true of you as it is
of me or anybody else. That's just a promise out there. And my house, it's not just good
for you, it's good for all the folks you know. And anyone who hears the word
of the Lord and believes it, has a warrant to confess his
salvation in baptism. But baptism's not for those who
can't understand what they hear or don't believe what they hear. Baptism is a sign, a confession,
a declaration. that I've been saved by the death,
burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's what baptism is.
Peter teaches that's what it is. But here's the thing. We can
argue about households. We can argue about baptism and
all that. Believe. Trust him. Throw the weight of
your entire soul upon him. Lord Jesus and you will be saved.