Acts chapter 16. And I'll read some verses beginning
in verse 25. 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. And 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 fled. But Paul cried out
with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm, for we are all
here. Then he called for a light and
sprang in and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and
Silas, and brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to
be saved? And they said, Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." And
they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that
were in his house. And he took them the same hour
of the night, and washed their stripes, and was baptized, he
and all his, straightway. And when he had brought them
into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing
in God with all his house. An individual called me this
week. Thankfully, there have been a
number of calls of late. And that individual's question
was, what brought this to my mind, this text. Because their question was very
much like the jailer's question. As a matter of fact, that's what
I call this, the jailer's question. And we know in our reading that
this man, the Apostle Paul, is in prison. He's just been cast
into an awful prison. And we ought not to make any
mistake as to how it was that he got there. He didn't decide
himself to go there, I'm sure. And no man or no men actually
was the first cause of being there. He's there because of
the will of God. He's there because the Spirit
of God has sent Him to this place. If you look back at verse 6,
it says, Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia, and the region
of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the
word in Asia." That certainly would not square with most modern
religious thought. But it says that in this particular
area, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the
gospel there. After they were come to Mesia,
they assayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered them
not, did not allow them. And they, passing by Mesia, came
down to Troas, and a vision appeared to Paul in the night. There stood
a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia
and help us. And after he had seen the vision,
immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly
gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel to
them." Therefore, loosing from Troas, we came with a straight
course to Samothracea, and the next day to Neapolis, and from
thence to Philippi." which is the chief city of that part of
Macedonia, and a colony, and we were in that city abiding
certain days. And it is there in Philippi where
they would be arrested, arrested if you will, for casting out
an evil spirit of divination from a young woman. It says that
her masters, her handlers, her owners had made a lot of money
by that spirit of divination. And now when she no longer had
it, but was set free from it, they were angry. And therefore
Paul and those that traveled with him, they were cast in jail."
But if you remember the Apostle Paul writing from a prison, writing
in that book of Philippians, he tells us that he endures all
that he endures for the elect's sake. He's not there by accident. He's not in prison by misfortune. He's been sent there on a mission. And He is sent for some of the
children of God. He is sent here for this one
especially who is the object of God's free, sovereign, almighty
grace. He sent for these who have been
loved by God, and chosen by God, and redeemed by God in Christ. And so, the very providence of
God, as an old preacher said, the providence of God is the
handmaid of salvation. He had to come to this place. He had to preach to these people. And this one who is particularly
described here, we don't even know what his name was. But the Lord has given us his
occupation. He made us to know that He was
a jailer so that He might magnify His grace. Because in that fourth
chapter of Luke where we read, if you remember, the Scripture
says that Christ reading about Himself from Isaiah, one of the
things was that He was come to set the captives free. The captives free. But the truth is, the one who
outwardly appeared to be the captives here, they weren't the
ones who were really the captives. These others, such as this jailer,
were among that people that the Bible describes as needing being
delivered out of the snare of the devil who has taken them
captive at his will. But they are also, as Zachariah
described them, they are also prisoners of hope. Prisoners
of hope. How in the world could anyone
who is a prisoner be described as a prisoner of hope? He says in Zechariah, Turn ye
to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope. Even today do I declare
that I will render double unto thee." We are a prisoner of hope
if the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to set us free. And that is exactly what He has
done for a people, one of whom was this jailer and some in his
family, and so now they must go free. And here are Paul and Silas in
this prison. And I don't imagine it was anything
close to what some people call club fed today. A prison by name
only, which is not much less than a resort where people are
put to be pampered many days and fed and clothed and treated
and all. the kind of prison. But at this
prison, here in this prison, the apostle and those with him,
they witnessed in their attitude a good confession. Look back at verse 25. It says, And at midnight Paul
and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God." In the midst of their
imprisonment, in the midst of this hardness and this hardship,
knowing that it was the will of God, they prayed and they
sang praises unto God, and it says, "...and the prisoners heard
them." The prisoners heard them. And it was here in this, the
least likely place, at the least likely time, and to the least
likely person, the saving power of God's grace and the gospel
and good news of the Lord Jesus Christ came to this jailer. And here is a man who, like all
sinners, is captive to Satan and to his fallen nature, most
likely to a false religion, certainly to the fear of man that brings
a snare, and God sends an earthquake. An earthquake of all things. But I don't want us to think
that it was this earthquake that brought this man to the question. Because the acts of providence,
they do not save men. Not the most terrible, and certainly
not the best. If you remember those described
in the Revelation, when fire was sent of God to burn them,
it says, they repented not to give God the glory. And so sickness, will not save,
and tragedy will not save, and prosperity will not save, only
the power of God." Verse 26 says, "...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. But even God breaking loose the
foundations and the doors and the locks and the bars of that
prison, they're not enough to open a
sinner's heart. And if you notice what it says
in verse 27, it says, "...and 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 fled." He thought that was the worst time of his life. But what appeared to the natural
eye to be this man's worst hour proved to be his best hour. And
the jailer would not only be awakened out of a natural sleep,
but he'd be awakened out of a spiritual sleep. And if you notice, Paul,
when this all begins to take place and the jailer begins to
be in this sad state of mind, thinking that worse was about
to come upon him, so he was about to take his own life. Verse 28
says, But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, It serves you
right, you dirty rascal. It serves you right treating
us like you have and imprisoning us. It serves you right for being
a part of the establishment and these false religionists and
such that have hailed us into prison. Is that what he says?
It says that Paul cried with a loud voice saying, Do thyself
no harm, for we are all here. You see, that's the attitude
of grace. Because Paul reminds us that
the servant of God is to be meek, is to, in grace, instruct those
that oppose themselves. If peradventure God will grant
to them repentance, to the recovering of themselves out of the snare
of the devil, who takes them captive at His will. And so it says in verse 29, Then
he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell
down before Paul and Silas. You see, that's where God has
to bring us. That's what God has to do for
us. if we ever truly know Him. He has to bring us to an end
of ourselves. He has to bring us to an end
of every hope but Himself. He has to bring us to the feet
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because it says, He saveth such
as be of a broken and a contrite Spirit. And then the jailer asked him
a question. Verse 30, it says, that he brought
them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Now there is no what body, and
there is nothing that can put in our heart such a question
as this, that shows a real concern for our souls. Now I say this
is something that was wrought by the Spirit of God, because
if you think about it, all His physical fears were already relieved. All the prisoners were there. all accounted for, his family
was safe, his own life spared from his own hand. And yet now
he asks this question, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Now let me tell you what that
is first of all. That's a confession of being
lost. If you need to be saved, then
you're lost. If you need for God to save you,
then you have found yourself unable to save yourself. He says, what must I do to be
saved? And this man who once treated
Paul and those with him as nothing but merely prisoners, something
has taken place in him and something has convinced him that they are
not really prisoners at all. He calls them sirs. That's a
change of heart, isn't it? Sirs. And when he says this,
he evidently, in that statement, in that question, shows some
knowledge of what had been preached, and what had happened to the
fortune teller, and why Paul was in prison. And he, like the
other prisoners, even maybe unconsciously had listened to what they said. But there's something in here
that reveals the natural tendency of a sinner. Because he says,
Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And if there is one thing that
reveals our ignorance and our blindness and our self-righteousness,
and our natural thinking as to the way of salvation, it is to
imagine, as we all do by nature, and as we are all taught all
the days of our lives, and as we all feel we have the ability
to do if we wanted to, it is to think that we can do something to save ourselves. What must
I do? to be saved. And you see, that
is the tendency that was revealed in the first child that was born
into this world. It isn't something new. Because
that first child that was born into this world, that man by
the name of Cain, he thought and he imagined of himself that
he could come before God and worship God and be accepted by
God based on something that he did. And what happened to him? God
cast him away. God refused his offering. God
exiled him from his presence. And the Scripture says that his
brother, who, by the way, he also slew later, offered up that
sacrifice of blood. And God accepted his offer. Accepted that offering of blood. You see, in John chapter 6 it
says that they said unto him, What shall we do that we might
work the works of God? And Jesus answered and said unto
them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he
hath sent. The reason that religion thrives
in our day, and when I say that, I mean false religion, is because
that it offers to this natural feeling and desire to have something
to do in order to save yourself, it offers all these various things
for sinners to do to save themselves. They have their plan of salvation. Let me show you the plan of salvation. They have the ABC's of being
saved. They have their formulas. And they have a host of other
works, things that men and women can do to be saved. You can walk up to the front
of their buildings, they say, and be saved. You can pray in
repetition what they call a sinner's prayer and be saved. And it always has something to
do with being saved. You can have some water sprinkled
on your head or be dipped in some water and you can be saved. And it goes on. on and on and
on. You can give money and be safe. You can help somebody out and
be safe. So it's a natural thing, though
it's a misguided thing, when we begin to think about what
we must do to be saved. But Paul, writing to Titus, makes
this statement. He says, "...it is not by works
of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He
saved us." Isn't that plain? "...is not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us." Whenever
Paul writes to those at Ephesus, he says, "...for by grace are
ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is the gift
of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." You see, he's confessing here
not only a need, but a natural misguided way of thinking concerning
how that need could be met. You remember when the Lord, in
His good providence to that man by the name of Naaman, the captain
of the Syrian host who was a leper, And the little maid told him
about the prophet that he needed to go and see and talk to about
Jehovah God. And when he got there, and the
prophet did not even come out of his little house, but sent
his servant out there and told him to simply go and dip himself
in the River Jordan seven times, and he'd be healed. It says he got mad. Why did he
get mad? He said, I thought. I thought surely. I thought that
surely the prophet would come out here and he would at least
wave his hand over my leprous flesh. I thought. And he was about to leave in
his anger, and I think one of the servants or soldiers said,
Now, Master, if he had told you to do some great thing, you would
have done it, wouldn't you? But that's not how God saves.
He doesn't save us because of any of our doing. He doesn't
save us because of anything in us, or about us, or done by us,
or said by us, whatever it is, at any time. There's nothing
you can do to be saved. But you listen to the answer
that Paul gives to him in the next verse, in verse 31, it says,
And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt
be saved, and thy house. And somebody said, well, there
it is right there. They say the one condition to
salvation is believing on Jesus. That's not true. That absolutely
is not true. Believing on Christ is not a
condition of salvation, it's a consequence of being saved. Faith is not the cause of anything. It's not the cause of Christ's
work being applied to us or made beneficial to us. Faith is because
of what He's done. It's the consequence of Christ's
work. He said, Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, one thing. And this is why faith is considered
a condition to salvation. Because men imagine that faith
is something we do. We do believe. God does give
His people the gift of faith. But believing rather than doing
is really ceasing to do. Let me read you that verse 31
out of another translation, an amplified translation. It says,
"...believe in and on the Lord Jesus Christ, that is, give yourself
up to Him, take yourself out of your own keeping, and entrust
yourself to His keeping, and you will be saved." Many years ago, I remember reading
how lifesavers, you know, that are at pools and on the beach,
and these rescued lifesavers and swimmers, one thing that
they're taught especially, and that is when they get the call
or they see someone out in the water that's in distress, They
are to swim out, of course, as they do, out to that person. But as long as that person is
still trying to save themselves, there's a danger of them not
only losing themselves, but the one who's trying to save them.
So what do they say do? Wait till that person gives up
saving themselves, and then you can take them. and swim with
them back to the shore, and they'll be saved. And that's what faith
does. Faith just yields it up to God. Faith is described as a rest. And rest is defined in this book
as a ceasing from our labors. And you know we have to be brought
back to that time and time again. We have to be brought back to
that time and time again, not only in the salvation of our
soul, but in every aspect of our life. We are brought back
to finally, in the midst of it, bowing to the will of God, yielding
ourselves to Him, and to be saved and delivered and dealt with
as it pleases Him. He is God our Savior. In John 5 it says, "...barely,
barely, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth
on him that sent me, hath everlasting life." He doesn't get it because
he believed. He believed because God gave
it to him. It's kind of the cart before
the horse. And it's inseparable. It's totally
inseparable. No one has life or any reason
to think of life apart from faith, but don't ever make that cart
faith to be what pulls the horse. No. Life. He that believeth on the Lord
Jesus Christ, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him
that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into
condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." And we ought never to imagine
that the experience, the realization of justification, which is what
we receive by faith. We receive by God-given faith
this knowledge and this confidence that He has justified us through
the blood and the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. But
our belief in that is not the cause of it. Who will? Who does believe? And why do they believe it? The sheep believe. Christ's sheep
believe. Nobody else will believe. Oh,
they'll have that devilish faith that James describes when he
says to some, he said, you believe there's one God? You do well,
because there just is one God. But the devils believe that and
they tremble. Got to be more of a faith than
that. Got to be a different kind of faith than that. And that
faith will be demonstrated by the sheep of Christ. And that's
why the Lord Jesus Christ looked at those Pharisees who rejected
Him and despised Him, why did they despise Him? Because being
saved by Christ took all of their works and all their position,
and all their knowledge imagined out of the equation. And he said,
you believe not because you're not of my sheep. My sheep hear
my voice. I know them, they know me, and
they follow me. But you're not of my sheep, and
that's why you believe not." What does it take? Why do these
who do believe on Christ, why do they believe? What's necessary
for any sinner to believe on Christ? I believe there's a threefold
answer there. And one of them is a sovereign
act of God the Father. Whenever Paul preaches in another
place here in the book of Acts, in chapter 13, there were, as
in every occasion, so many who did not believe the gospel. And
then it says this, "...but as many as were ordained unto eternal
life believed." Who ordained them to eternal life? God did. The Father did. in His purpose
of grace which was given to them in Christ Jesus before the world
began." It takes a sovereign act of God the Father. And not only that, it takes a
sovereign act of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. You see,
when He shed that blood on the cross, not only did He purchase
that redemption and pay that ransom price. Not only did He
set them free, everyone He died for through His death and suffering
before the justice of God, now the justice of God, because of
what He did, requires that they believe. Do you ever like to buy something
and not get what you paid for? Does anything make you any matter?
You think God Almighty come in human flesh, suffer the sufferings
and the horrors of the cross, pay the debt that He paid by
the shedding of His blood? Do you think that He will not
have what He purchased? Everyone He died for, they're
going to believe. And then it takes a sovereign
act of His Spirit. Paul again writing to the Thessalonians,
he said, we're bound to give thanks always to God for you,
brethren beloved of the Lord, because God has from the beginning
chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit
and belief of the truth. You see, the Spirit of God, Christ
said, will take the things of mine and show them to you. The Spirit of God is the Spirit
and revealer of the truth. And the Spirit of God is the
one who produces faith in those that God loves and Christ died
for. They will believe. Why? Christ says in using John John's
Gospel in the first chapter. That the reason that these who
receive Him, to these who believe on His name, the reason that
they do and all these others don't, is because they're born
not of the will of the flesh or of man or of any other thing,
but they're born of God. They're born of God the Spirit,
and they believe. And so when the apostle likens
faith, likens believing on Christ to this resting, and he sets
forth Christ as our Sabbath. We sang that in one of the hymns
we sang. The hymn writer, he knew that.
Lord, sabbath his name. Why? Because we rest. We rest. We rest in Christ because
of who He is. And we rest in Christ because
of what He's done. And it won't be on the basis
of what we feel at any particular time. It certainly won't be on
the basis of what we do. It will not be on the basis at
any time on what we think we know. But it will always be a
rest because of Christ. It says that God in creation,
He rested. Did that mean He got tired? It
just means he finished it. And faith rests in a finished
work. Faith rests in that work that
Christ said, it is finished. It is finished. You can't add
anything to that which is finished. You can't add anything or make
better perfection. And so we rest. So what must I do? to be saved. You just rest in Christ, son.
You look outside of yourself. You look to the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, some people, they can say that name so easy,
or now it's pretty much shortened down to Jesus, isn't it? Some
places it says some things about believing on Jesus, but it's
always with the understanding that we know that he's talking
about the Lord Jesus Christ. The name of His sovereignty,
the name of the Messiah, the name of His perfect humanity
and His mediatorial work. The Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the certainty. He's
the certainty. And his work is the certainty
and assurance of salvation to all believers. Did you notice
he didn't tell him to do anything before believing on Christ? He
didn't say, son, you need to get out and straighten your life
up and get you another job and make sure that you're living
right. For you can never have any hope
of salvation." He said, Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. And this is something else that's
critical. In verse 32, And they spake unto him the word
of the Lord. He no doubt had heard a little
bit already. But they didn't just say, this
is all the gospel that you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They
spake unto him the Word of the Lord. They told him more than
simply, Jesus died, was buried, and rose again. I feel fairly
sure of that, knowing what Paul wrote in his epistles. They spake
unto him the Word of the Lord. But notice what he says. And
they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be
saved. I'll tell you, the older I get,
there are two things I get more convinced of with every passing
day. One of them is I need to be saved. And the other is I
need to be saved. If I'm saved, I'm going to have
to be saved. Be saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. But look, it says, "...thou shalt
be saved in thy house." Now is he talking about what some people
call household salvation? Is he saying something that will
firm up a notion such as covenant theology sets forth? Is that
a support for infant baptism and all this? No. He's simply
saying the same thing there he says elsewhere in Scripture when
he uses terms like all men. Not only would you be saved through
trusting Christ, but everybody in your house. He'd have all men to come to
salvation. All kinds of people. Rich and
poor and young and old and some in this place and some in the
other places. Gentile as well as Jew. And he must have asked this question. How can that be? How can God,
who is just, save a sinner like me? You say it's a finished work.
That sounds good. You say it's an accomplished
fact. That sounds good. But for me to really rest, I'd
have to know how. You know God does not leave people
just simply to, that's what some people call blind faith. There's
no such thing as that. Job asked, how can man be just
with God? You and I cannot just take the
word of somebody who says, if you do this, you'll be saved.
No. Unless it's based on the facts
that God has given us. How could God save this man? Now, in that day, he had to be
a pretty rough customer. If he's in charge of a prison,
He must have done some pretty rough things to get to that position. He was probably a heavy-handed
individual. Probably a man of strength. Probably
a brutal man. How could God save a sinner like
him? He does so by what the Bible
calls imputation. God helped me never to take that
word lightly, because it has to do with the real and genuine
transfer of responsibility. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Didn't he have sins? Just like
me, a multitude, probably not as many as me, but he had sins. What happened to those sins?
Well, God, in a sovereign act of His own justice, made the
Lord Jesus Christ accountable for all His sins. All of them. The Lord hath laid
on Him the iniquity of us all. And that's what Christ is doing
on that cross. He's being dealt with at the
hand of God's justice in the matter of the sins of his people.
This jailer sins. But not only that, God made him,
this jailer, the righteousness of God in Christ. Christ got his sins. He got Christ's
righteousness. And that's the way every sinner
that's saved has been saved. For He hath made Him who knew
no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. He looked to Christ. He rested. He rejoiced. And he gave evidence
that his faith was real. Because it's always that faith
that's manifested in love. Look at what happened. Verse
33, it says, And he took them the same hour of the night, and
washed their stripes, and was baptized, He and all His straight
way. He washed them. He might have
even helped put some of those stripes on them, those wounds
on those men, but He washed them. They weren't prisoners anymore
to Him. They were His brothers. He washed them. And when He had
brought them into His house, He brought them to His house.
Rule number one if you're the head of a prison, don't get close
to the prisoners. He took them to his house, and
he set meat before them, and he rejoiced, believing in
God with all his house. He confessed Christ. Can you
imagine what he knew in his mind? What happened to him when his
superiors found out that he had not only taken those prisoners
to his house, not only washed their wounds, but submitted himself
to be baptized by them? He didn't care what they thought.
Because he had been set free. Set free from his sins. And when
you look at all these circumstances, you find out that that's the
case in everyone God saves. He uses all these circumstances
in some way to bring us to this point when we call out to Him to save
us. He sent the messenger. Sometimes
He sends us to the messenger. He brought about circumstances
in his life to show him the weakness of human flesh, and the brevity
of life, and the reality of eternity. And then he brings him to the
question, what must I do to be saved? And the answer is simply, Cease your doings, which is what it is to believe
on Christ. Oh, we do. We do good works,
being enabled of God's grace. But we do no work to be saved. And it's only a good work if
we are saved in Christ the Lord. alone, by His grace alone. May the Lord put that question in a lot of hearts
to bring us to an end of ourselves and cause us to look to His Son.
Our Father, this day we praise You as God our Savior. We thank you that you give us
this desire and show us this need to be saved, that you might
show us, reveal to us through the gospel of our salvation,
the fact, the glorious truth that you have saved us through
the doing and the dying of your Son. We pray that you'd break
your word of blessing and encouragement to your people and bring us always
to trust in Christ alone, to plead only his blood and look
to his perfect work of righteousness as all our salvation and all
our hope. Lord, all your people, wherever
they are scattered on this big earth, help each one. Strengthen and encourage each
heart. Increase our faith. For we pray
in the name of Christ. Amen.