Chapter 14, right at the end
of chapter 14. Just to give you an update, I
visited with the surgeon this week and he said I'm doing very
well. and to expect about another six
weeks where I'll continue to recover, continue to heal. And
so I appreciate your prayers and your patience as we get toward
the goal of getting over this, things getting back to normal,
or as normal as I can be. I debated what title to give
this message after I'd written the title down, gave it to Brother
Traban. And then I kept backing up and
backing up. And I thought maybe a good title
would be, From Antioch to Philippi. But I take it where I'm going
to wind up. It's back there at that scripture
where the jailer said, what must I do to be saved? He didn't ask it like the rich
young ruler asked of the savior, what good thing shall I do to
inherit eternal life? a legal question. It wasn't that
the jailer wanted to do some work, some deed. He said, what must I do to be
saved? The answer came back, believe. Believe. Believe on who? Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Believe He's the Lord. Jesus
is Lord, that's what she just sang. He's always been the Lord
because He's God. But as that God-man, as our mediator,
by His work of redemption, by the work that He finished in
saving us and washing all of our sins away, That work where
He said, it is finished, by virtue of that work, God has exalted
Him. God has made Him both Lord and
Christ. Believe on the Lord, Jesus. There is no other Savior. There
is nobody else that can rescue you. We are in such bad shape. We are in such a dilemma. The
only one who can do our poor souls any good, He's got to be
the Lord. He's got to be the master over
everything. He's got to be the sovereign
over every enemy. And He's got to be the one who
saves. He's got to be able to save.
He's got to be willing to save. He is Jesus the Savior. Thou
shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from
their sins." Believe on the Lord. He's the Lord. He's Jesus. He's Christ. He's the sent one. He is the Messiah set forth in
the Old Testament. He is that one anointed by the
Spirit of God to do this great work as evidenced by the appearing
of the Spirit of God who anointed Him and came upon Him on the
day that He was baptized. He came upon Christ and our Savior
had the Spirit without measure. He is the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. That's what I say to you this
morning. Believe. Rest in. Somebody said it means
hug up to. Embrace. Lean all the weight
of your soul upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And if God the Spirit
will enable you to do that, you may then sit on the authority
of the Word of God. I'm saved. I'm rescued. I'm delivered by the grace of
God through the work of Jesus Christ. Now this is not a new
message, this gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It isn't a new
message. It wasn't a new message for the
Apostle Paul. He's been out preaching the gospel
and at the end of chapter 14 of the book of Acts, he and Barnabas
They come back from what is usually labeled as being Paul's first
missionary journey. They finish that journey. They've
gone to many towns and villages and cities preaching the Lord
Jesus Christ, preaching the gospel. In fact, if we had the time to
go down through here, you'd see over and over again they went
into such a city preaching the gospel, preaching Christ Jesus,
preaching who He is and what He did, why He did it and where
He is now. They went everywhere preaching
the gospel and then they went back to Antioch. It was, after
all, the church at Antioch that commissioned them, that sent
them out on this journey. And they come back, chapter 14
of Acts, in verse 26. And thence they sailed to Antioch
from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work
which they fulfilled. And when they were calm and had
gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had
done with them. All that God had done. The work of salvation, the work
of sending forth preachers of the gospel, the work of making
that message known to the hearts of sinners. It's the work that
God has done. That's what they went back testifying. They said, we want to tell you
all that God has done and all that God had done with them,
how He had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles. And there they abode a long time
with the disciples. Having finished their first missionary
journey, they go back to the church of Antioch in Syria. They're told of what God had
done through the preaching of the Word. Well, word of or news
of what they had said to the church at Antioch, it spurt to
Jerusalem. They heard down in Jerusalem
that Paul and Barnabas were saying that God had done great things
among the Gentiles, and so some Jews from the church at Jerusalem,
they took it upon themselves. They weren't authorized to go,
but they just took it upon themselves to go from Jerusalem to Antioch. And they listened to what Paul
and Barnabas said about the Gentiles believing on the Lord Jesus Christ,
the great things that God had done, and these Jews, they were
upset. They said, well did you tell
those Gentiles that they also have to be circumcised and they
have to keep the Law of Moses? And of course the Apostle Paul
and Barnabas said, no. All we did was preach the Gospel
to them. We set forth Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. We laid upon them no legalistic,
no laws that they had to obey. Nothing legal of any nature. Believe on the Son of God and
thou shalt be saved. We went forth preaching the gospel.
Well, these Jews were very upset. And, of course, the Apostle Paul
and Barnabas Once they heard what these Jews from Jerusalem,
once they heard what they had to say, well, they really got
into a skirmish with them. It didn't come to blows, but
it just about did. They really had a first class
war on their hands. And then it was decided that
this issue of what's the way that sinners are saved, This
was the issue now. Are sinners saved by works or
are sinners saved by grace? This is the issue that arose.
It was the issue back then, it was the issue all the way back
in the book of Genesis. That was the issue between Cain
and Abel. Is salvation by the deeds of
the law, by the works of men, or by the grace of God through
the substitutionary death of a suitable sacrifice? So this
isn't anything new. It's old. And it arose again. And the Apostle Paul at Barnabas
said, salvation by grace. These men said, well, grace is
wonderful, but you also got to live it and you got to keep the
law. So it was decided, well this
matter is going to have to be handled by the mother church
down in Jerusalem. We are going to bring this before
all the apostles and the elders and the whole church in Jerusalem.
And so that is exactly what they decided to do. And so, the Apostle
Paul and Barnabas, several other representatives from the church
at Antioch, along with these Jews, they made their way toward
Jerusalem. Now along the way, the apostle
and his sidekick Barnabas, they kept on preaching the gospel.
As they went to Jerusalem, they kept on preaching. You'll notice
in chapter 15 now, verse 3, being brought on their way by the church,
they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, declaring the conversion
of the Gentiles and they caused great joy in all the brethren.
When they came to Jerusalem, They were received of the church
and of the apostles and the elders, and they declared unto them the
exact same thing that which God had done with them. That's our
message, isn't it? Our message is what the Lord
hath done. It's not what we have done. It's
not what they have done. It's not what you have done.
It's what God has done. That's our message. See what
great things God has done. Our message is salvation is of
the Lord. See what great things God has
done. Well, they got to Jerusalem and
of course this has been voiced to the church. In verse 5, but
there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed,
saying it was needful to circumcise them and command them to keep
the law of Moses. So all of the church came together,
verse 6, for to consider this matter. Oh, what an important
meeting this was. What an important council. Because
out of this, there will come forth an official statement of
apostolic authority as to how sinners are saved. Is it by grace? Or is it by works? And you'll notice verse 7, when
there had been much disputing, much debate, everybody has an
opinion about religion, you know. And then a familiar figure stood,
an older man. He stood up and everybody got
quiet. It's Simon Peter. He said to the men, and brethren,
ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us
that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel
and believe. He had gone to Caesarea. There
he preached to Cornelius and his household. He says, and God which knoweth
the hearts, bear them witness. giving them the Holy Ghost even
as He did unto us, and put no difference between us and them,
purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God
to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our
fathers nor we are able to bear? You can't bear the yoke of the
law. Do you hear what the law says?
Do you understand the law? That one who does all that the
law says, that's the one who's going to live. So you've got
to keep the whole law. There's no life in the law. The
law is an administration of death. God's law will kill you. It will
execute you. It will put you away and forget
about you. There's no leniency in the law.
There's no mercy in the law. There's no wiggle room in the
law. Well, maybe the law will let me go. It won't. The law
knows this. Obey and live. Disobey and die. That's all the law knows. It's
strict. It's unbending. It's unyielding. Simon Peter says, this is a yoke
that we weren't able to bear. Our fathers weren't able to bear
it. And you want to put this yoke on the Gentiles? He says in verse 11, and oh how
this verse ought to be highlighted in our minds and in our hearts.
But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
we shall be saved even as they. He didn't even say we believe
that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ they shall
be saved even as we, but rather we shall be saved just like them. Wherever sinners are saved, it's
always by grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. Then all the multitude kept silence. They listened to Barnabas and
Paul. And they told what miracles and wonders God had wrought among
the Gentiles. Then James stood up to speak. And James told them, he said,
now we're going to come up with a letter. We are going to send
it forth to the Gentile churches. We are going to tell them the
outcome of this conference, this official council. We are going
to tell them what we believe. They said, now Brother Paul and
Brother Barnabas, we are going to send two men of our congregation,
two able preachers themselves, Judas and Silas. Judas and Silas. We're going
to send them with you. So that they'll go back to the
church at Antioch, and when you show them this letter, these
two men will verify and authenticate, yes, this is exactly what happened
in Jerusalem, and this is the official statement of the apostles. We believe that by the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, sinners are saved. And so, these four preachers,
along with the other representatives of the church at Antioch, they
leave Jerusalem and they make their way back to Antioch. And of course, when they got
back to Antioch, there was great rejoicing in the church. Thank God's salvation is altogether
by grace. I tell you, you will rejoice
when you realize you are not under the yoke of the law. The
law is not made for a righteous man. We are righteous in the
Lord Jesus Christ. We're absolutely free people. We've been liberated by the grace
of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't try to put us under legalism,
rules and laws, traditions, things of that nature. Don't try to
put us under those. We're free, we're free. Thank
God we're free indeed. We're free indeed. And I'll tell
you, word came back to the church in Antioch and they said, bless
the name of God. We were saved by God's free grace,
God's sovereign grace through the doing and the dying of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And they rejoiced. And then after
a little while, just Judas, he said, well, I'm going to go back
to the church at Jerusalem. They said, thank you, brother.
And they all hugged, I'm sure, and told him goodbye. But this
man Silas, he said, I think I'll just stay here. I think I'll
stay here. Well, then the Apostle Paul,
he told Barnabas, he said, well, let's go out preaching again.
We've kind of rested. We've recharged our batteries.
This issue has been settled in Jerusalem. So I think it's time
for us to leave on the second missionary journey. And Barnabas
said, good idea brother, but I'd like to take with us this
time John Mark. And the Apostle Paul said, not
so fast. For you see, John Mark had gone
with them on their first missionary journey, but he left them. We
don't know the reason why he left them. Maybe he got weary. Maybe he had to go back home
and take care of his aged mom and dad. Maybe he became fearful,
but for whatever reason, John Mark left them and he said, I'm
going back home. And Barnabas and John Mark, they
were good buddies. And Barnum said, Paul, I really
think we ought to take John Mark with us. Paul said, no. He put
his foot down. And when he put his foot down,
that's an apostolic foot. He said, he's not going to go
with us. And Barnum said, well, I'll tell you this, if he don't
go, I don't go. And Paul said, well, that's fine. I'll take
Silas. I'll take Silas. They separated. It is an awful shame that sometimes
God's people get sideways with one another. Folks just can't seem to get
along. But it happens. You know it happens. You'd think
that people who love the same gospel, people who worship the
same sovereign God, could put away some little petty differences
and get together and worship together. After all, we figure
on spending eternity together. We figure on going to heaven
together. Reckon folks will speak to us in heaven? Reckon we'll
speak to other folks in heaven? It's an awful thing. You know
what it's due to? I can tell you what it's due
to. S-I-N. That's the reason. It's evil. It's evil. We just won't swallow our pride. We won't say, listen, maybe this
is my doing. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But sometimes God's people, they
just get out of sorts with one another. And the Apostle Paul,
hey, listen, you're not going to find anybody who's a stronger
defender of the faith than the Apostle Paul. And Brother John
Mark, well, used of God to write a book of the Bible. Thankfully, later on, Paul had
a good word to say about him. But they separated. And that's
evil. But here's the thing of it. You
see, God takes evil and He brings good out of it. Because now you're
going to have Paul and Silas going out and Barnabas and John
Mark going out. Now you've got two sets of preachers
going out to preach the gospel. I don't know what purpose God
has in these divisions that exist and it's evil on our part. And
there's no question about the fact that we're evil and sinful
and the divisions, they happen because of us. But whatever does
happen, I know this, it's all of God. It's all of God. And He can bring good out of
evil. Things happen according to His
purpose. And so Paul and Silas, they go forth preaching the gospel.
Now as they go forth preaching the gospel, they pick up another
member of their preaching team, and he's a doctor. That's Luke. Luke. Evidently, as the Apostle
Paul, when they finally got to Troas, they'll pick up that doctor.
But even before that, they picked up Timothy. They got Paul and Silas and Timothy,
and then they'll pick up Luke. And they go forth preaching the
gospel. But before they got Luke, before Luke joined them, The
Apostle Paul and Silas and Timothy, they go forth preaching the gospel
and they visited several of the churches that had been established
during Paul's first missionary journey. And it just seemed natural
that they should then go into Asia preaching the gospel. After
all, there were great cities in Asia. Philadelphia, Sartis,
Thyatira, Pergamos, Ephesus, etc. These great cities are strongholds
of idolatry and godless religion. It just seemed natural to go
that way. But go back, go down in chapter
16 and verse 6. When they had gone throughout
Phrygia and the region of Galatia, chapter 16, verse 6, and were
forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the Word in Asia, they
were come to Mysia, they assayed, they attempted to go to Bithynia,
but the Spirit suffered them not. They just kept running into
no. No, you can't go this way. Well,
we'll go this way. No, you can't go this way. Well,
we'll go preach in this city over here. No, you can't go preach
in that city over there. Well, Lord, where do we go? Where
do we go? And they did a little bit more
traveling, and in verse It says, passing
by Mysia they came to Troas. A vision came to the Apostle
Paul in the night and there stood a man of Macedonia and prayed
to him saying, come over into Macedonia and help us. We need help. Can you come help
us? I wonder what kind of help Paul
could give them. I tell you the help that He'll
give them. He'll preach the gospel to them. The best help they could possibly
receive was to hear the message of glad tidings of salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ, a message altogether by grace. They couldn't help them by come
building orphanages and hospitals. They couldn't help them by bringing
about changes to their society or changes to their political
system, changes to their culture. They didn't go into Macedonia,
which is Greece, by the way, present-day Greece. They didn't
go there to change the way the government was ruled or the way
things happened. They didn't go there to bring
about social reform. That's not why they went forth.
They went forth to preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The
mission of God's servants is not to change the world. The
mission of God's servants is not to reform the world. The
mission of God's servants is not to get involved in these
social issues, these economic issues, these political issues. The real help that people need
is preach the gospel to them. How could I help you this morning?
Well, we'll have a family life conference, and I'll tell you
how to be a better husband, you wives be better wives, you children,
you ought to obey your parents in the Lord. And we need to speak
to those things as they're found in the Scriptures. But where
is our real help going to come from? Our real help comes from
He who made the heavens and the earth. He's the only one who
can help us, and here we need help in a spiritual way. In a spiritual way. I'm not here
to make you wealthy. I don't know how to be wealthy
myself. I'm not here to make you healthy. I'd like to be healthier
myself. I'm not here to bring about social
reform. I'm very much opposed to abortion,
but I'm not out here trying to close the abortion doctors, shut
their doors, and that sort of thing. There are lots of things
that I'm very much opposed to, but I can't help the world by
getting involved in all those things. The only real help that
a preacher can render to a community, to a city, to a group of people,
is preach the gospel of the free grace of God in Jesus Christ
to them. There's your help. And if you
ever come to love the Lord Jesus Christ and appreciate the grace
of God, you'll stop aborting babies. It will bring about a reformation
in your own life and in your own heart. A man in Macedonia said, can
you come over and help us? Can you come over and help us? And you'll notice something does
happen in verse number 10. After he had seen the vision,
immediately we endeavored. This is where Luke joins him.
He joins him at Troas. If you'll notice before this,
it's always they and they and they. Luke is the writer. Luke the physician is the writer,
inspired by the Spirit of God. He wrote Luke, the book that
bears his name, and he wrote this book, Acts. But he joined
them at Troas. He joined Paul and Silas and
Timothy. Somebody said Paul got sick in
Troas. And whatever his physical infirmity
was, it kind of flared up. And somebody said, is there a
doctor in the house? And Luke said, yeah, yeah, I'm
a physician. I don't know about that. But
I do know that this is where Luke joined them. Then loosing verse 11 from Troas,
we came with a straight course to Samothracia, and the next
day to Neopolis. From thence we came to Philippi,
which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia and a colony. So now they get into Philippi. When they got there, they looked
for somewhere to worship. You'll notice at verse 13, on
the Sabbath, we went out of the city by a riverside where prayer
was wont to be made. Do you know where God's people
want to be found? They want to be found where prayer
is wont to be made. That's where we want to gather.
You go on vacation, you go to another city, Is there somewhere
here where prayers want to be made, where the gospel is being
preached, where God is being worshipped? And they got to Philippi,
chief city in that part of Macedonia, and they couldn't find a decent
church in the whole city. They couldn't find anybody preaching
the gospel. You see, in many ways it hadn't
changed much. You go into a lot of cities today
and you start checking around, is there anybody here preaches
the grace of God in Christ Jesus? Anybody here preaching the message
of sovereign grace, God's election? of some people unto salvation,
of our Lord's effectual redemption of His elect on the cross. Anybody
here preaching free willism down and God's will up? Anybody here
preaching the need of the effectual work of the Spirit of God? I
know the first time we went over to Hawaii, we went to Maui. And I got the phone book out.
I got the yellow pages out. And I called. I can't tell you
how many churches I called. I asked people, what message
do you preach? I'm talking about Baptist churches
and churches that were listed as reformed churches. I finally
got a Grace Baptist church and I asked this lady, I said, do
you all preach the message of sovereign grace? She said, what's
that? It's a bad sign when we don't even know what the word
sovereign means. That's not a good indication. Well, I was glad
to tell her what sovereign grace... She said, I don't know anybody
that preaches anything like that on this island. And I told Nancy, I said, well,
we won't be going to church today, so we just had a scripture reading
and prayer amongst ourselves and then we went snorkeling. And just to tell you a little
bit more of that story, Brother Gary Shepard was preaching for
me He called me, it was in the afternoon when he called me,
it was afternoon over there, nighttime in Almonte. He called
me and he said, well, what have you been doing today? I said,
well, I tried to go to church somewhere and worship, but there's
nobody over here preaching the gospel. We decided we'd go snorkeling. He said, uh-huh, snorkeling on
the Sabbath. There's a whole city of Philippi,
nobody preaching the gospel. No groups of people meeting together
to honor God as He set forth in this book. And so, four preachers. Four preachers. Here's Paul,
Silas, Timothy, and Luke. They go out walking. They go
down by Riverbank. There are a few women there they've
met together for prayer. Now, you understand that in Macedonia
these are It's a polytheistic society. They believe in many
gods. But they had come to understand,
somehow or other, God sent them the Word, that there's one God,
the God of Israel. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. And so they're seeking to worship
this one God, but it's in ignorance. They need a preacher. God didn't
just send Him one preacher, He sent Him four preachers. They
sent four preachers, and here these four preachers walked up,
and here these women, sitting maybe on rocks, or sitting on
the sand, or whatever, and they said, mind if we join you? And
they said, that's fine. And they set out, and the Apostle
Paul, then he began to preach. And as he preached, something
happened. One of those women, Lydia, says the Lord opened her heart.
You know, it doesn't say anything about the other women. God says,
I'll be merciful to whom I'll be merciful. What about those
other women? Nothing said about them. But
there was, I want you to look at the word, verse 14, a certain
woman, a certain woman, If you were here Wednesday night, I
worked on that point. I went through the New Testament.
How many people are caught? A certain man. A certain woman. You see, the gospel is for certain
people. It's only for certain people.
The good news of salvation by God's grace through the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It will be good news only to
certain people. Here's a certain woman marked
out in old eternity. Her name is written down in the
Lamb's Book of Life. She's a vessel of mercy. Our
Lord Jesus has redeemed her. He has washed her sins away.
She's justified by His blood. She's an heir of God, though
she knows nothing about it. A certain woman. And God the
Spirit miraculously opened her heart. Opened her heart. The Apostle Paul didn't say,
now Jesus is knocking on your heart's door, would you open
up and let Him in? No. The Lord opened her heart. He put His hand into her heart,
as it says in the book of Song of Solomon, because He knows
how to unlock the heart that is barred against Him. He puts
His hand into the heart and He opens it. Yea, rather He gives
a new heart, a heart of faith, to believe Him. This is what
the Lord did for Lydia. The Scripture says she attended
to the things that were spoken of Paul. She attended. She gave them her full attention. Here are two words that begin
with A to remember what this word means. Attention and addiction. Those are the two words. Attention
and addiction. She gave to the gospel her full
attention. And the meaning of the word is
this, and she became addicted to it. We read a lot about addictions
today. Addictions. This addiction is
a good thing. She's addicted to the gospel.
Are you? I'm addicted to the gospel. I
don't want to hear any other message but the gospel. It's
the only one I want to hear. I'm addicted to it. I'm addicted
to it. She attended, she gave attention
to, she became addicted to the things which Paul had spoken.
Verse 15, she was baptized and her household. Doesn't say anything
about the other women. But those in her household, they
believed as well. I had a man tell me one time,
he said, I baptized a husband and wife. And he came to me after
the service, he said, I don't think their conversion is genuine.
I said, well, you base that on, he said, because God doesn't
save families like that. I said, well, maybe you need
to look in the Scriptures. There are some times that He
does. With a Philippian jailer? His family believed. His household
believed. They were baptized. And with
this woman, those in her household believed. And she said, now if you believe,
if you in your heart, you preachers, if you think I'm genuine, that
I really believe this gospel, would you just stay here with
us? Would you just stay here with us? Says she, constrained
them. And they did. Well, after a few
days, these four preachers walked down the road, and there was
a woman come up behind them, or met them, and she said in
verse 17, she said, these men are the servants of the Most
High God, which show unto us the way of salvation. But she's
a fortune teller. She's demon possessed. And she
did this several days. And it just irritated Paul. It
just got on his nerves. And I think because no servant
of God needs or wants the, what shall I say, commendation
of one of Satan's servants. It got on his nerves. And one
day she was doing that and the Apostle Paul just stopped and
he turned and said to the spirit, verse 18, I command thee in the
name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he did. She is filled with an evil spirit.
Then she couldn't fortune tell anymore. Then her masters saw,
the men who had invested in her, who had kept her going, provided
for her, They saw they couldn't make a living off this woman
anymore and they got really mad and so then they drug Paul and
Silas into the marketplace. Evidently, Timothy and Luke kind
of slipped away. Maybe younger, maybe faster,
I don't know, but Paul and Silas, they didn't get away. They arrested
them, threw them in the marketplace, took them in front of the magistrates,
said, these men, they're teaching things, they're unlawful in our
society. What are we going to do with
them? They said, well, we'll beat them. And they beat them with
rods. Beat them with rods. That was after they rent off
their clothes. And they said, throw them in
a dungeon. Throw them in the prison. And they did. And you
could only imagine the filth in that dungeon. What unsanitary
conditions existed is beyond our comprehension. And in that
darkness, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises to God. And somebody was listening. The
last of verse 25 says, the prisoners heard them. Ungodly, unbelieving
men heard them, what they were saying. Children of God, be careful
what you say in the presence. of unbelievers. If you're fussing,
if you're murmuring, if you're bad-mouthing how things are going,
those unbelievers are not going to believe a word you say when
all of a sudden you switch tracks and you kind of make an about
face and say, I believe God's in control of everything. They'll
say, yeah, sure you do. Sure you do. The Apostle Paul
and Silas, what did they do in prison? Did they bellyache? Did they say, this isn't fair,
this isn't fair, let me out of here, let me out. That's probably
what we'd be doing. Unlock this jail cell. No. They prayed. Sang praises to
God. And then some happened, God sent
an earthquake. And every cell door just flung
open. And the keeper of the prison,
realizing that if one of these men escapes, I got to, whatever
sentence he's in here for, I got to serve that sentence. And if
he's in here to be executed, that means I'm going to have
to be executed. Well, he's just ready to commit suicide. But Paul said, don't harm yourself. We're all here. Two-fold miracle. God shook the place with an earthquake
and God forbade any prisoner from leaving. You can't leave.
Even though your cell's open, you can't leave. Paul said, don't
do yourself any harm. A man called for a light, come
in trembling, and he brought them out, brought these preachers
out. He said, what must I do to be saved? He had heard them
praying. He had heard them singing. He
had heard them praising God. He had heard the magnifying Jesus
Christ in the midst of such awful circumstances. These men are
different. What is it that these men have? What is it that these men know
that I don't have and I don't know? I want to be saved. Evidently, they talk Paul and
Silas is praying about and singing about salvation. Praying and
singing about the grace of God. Praying and singing about the
Lord Jesus Christ. So the man called for a light
and he brought them out and he said, What must I do to be saved? I want what you've got. I want
the salvation that you've got that gives you peace even when
you're in a jail cell, even when you're in a dungeon. I want peace
in my heart that all is right with God. What must I do to be
saved? And the message comes back. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. You'll be saved. That is what
I say to you this morning. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
as He is revealed in the Scriptures. God said He is Savior. He is
Savior. I tell you, everybody ought to
be interested in this from the youngest to the oldest. From
the very youngest person in this building to the oldest person
in this building and everybody in between. Oh, that God would
give you an interest in salvation, in this deliverance from sin,
deliverance from Satan. Who's got to bring about this
salvation? The Lord does. And in bringing
about this salvation through the substitutionary death of
the Lord Jesus Christ, He brings it home to our hearts by a mighty
work of the Spirit who enables us to believe. Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. and thou shalt be saved. And
your house, if they believe, they'll be saved too. That's
what he said. I'm going to pick up right there
and kind of elaborate on that this evening. So that's kind
of an introduction for tonight's message. Okay? Let's sing 393.