I would like to begin reading
with verse 16, and read down through verse 34. And it came to pass, as we went
to prayer, a certain damsel, possessed with a spirit of divination,
met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying. The
same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are
the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us the way
of salvation. And this did she many days. But
Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, or to the
demon, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come
out of her. And he came out the same hour. And when her masters saw that
the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas and
drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers. and brought
them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly
trouble our city, and teach customs which are not lawful for us to
receive, neither to observe, being Romans. And the multitude
rose up against them, and the magistrates ran off their clothes,
and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes
upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to
keep them safely, who, having received such a charge, thrust
them into the inner prison and made their feet fast in the stocks. 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 been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice,
saying, Do thyself no harm, for we are all here. Then he called
for a light, 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. forthwith straightway promptly. And when he had brought them
into his house, he sat meek before them, and rejoiced, believing
in God with all his house." Now, before we begin to enter into
an exposition of some of the events that are in this chapter,
I would like for you to hold your finger here so you can turn
back to it, but turn with me to the Gospel of John, chapter
10. I want to preface our remarks
this morning by reading a couple of verses out of John, chapter
10. It's verse 15 and verse 16. John 10, verse 15 and 16. As the Father knoweth me, even
so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. Now, I want you to underscore
a few things in verse 16. If you don't do it literally,
do it mentally. Underscore here three things
that I want to read to you. I have which are not of this
foe, other sheep I have, underscore that in your mind. And he goes
on to say, them also I must bring, them also I must bring, underscore
that. And then he goes on to say, and
they shall hear my voice. Underscore that in your thinking,
and there shall be one fold and one shepherd." Now, as we begin
to look here into this chapter this morning, I want us to see
some things that are quite obvious, but things that I believe will
be a blessing to us. We have other sheep, our Lord
says. He has other sheep. He says,
I must bring them, and they shall hear my voice. Now, if you're
back in Acts chapter 16, the other sheep refers to the Gentiles. Our Lord will call a people from
among the Gentiles for his name, and they will be brought into
the fold by the grace of God. Now I have some other sheep which
are not of this fold, not of this Jewish fold, but God has
chosen a people from among the Gentiles. If you'd look back
with me to Acts chapter 13, I'd like for you to look at verse
47 and 48 of Acts chapter 13, where the Word of God says, For
so hath the Lord commanded us. In the last part of verse 16,
he had said, You judge yourselves, speaking of the Jews, unworthy
of everlasting life. Lo, we turn to the Gentiles. We are directed by the Spirit
of God to turn unto the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded
us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that
thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And
when the Gentiles heard this, when they heard that the brethren
had been commanded of God to speak to them the word of salvation,
had been commanded of God to bring them the glorious message
of reconciliation with God through the shed blood of the Son of
God, they glorified the word of the Lord, and as many And
as many as were ordained to eternal life believed, as many as these
Gentiles that had been set aside in the covenant of grace from
before the foundation of the world, and had been given to
the Lord Jesus Christ, when the gospel was preached to them,
it was effectual in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, and they believed
on the Lord Jesus Christ. And so our Lord has a people
that he must bring, and he will bring these Gentiles in. Now,
the Gentiles are going to hear his voice. They are going to
hear the voice of the Son of God. Now, you keep that in mind
as we get into this chapter. Now, our text here in Acts 16,
I believe, is proof of that, that the Lord has other sheep
that he must bring them in and will bring them in, and they
will hear his voice. Now, Paul was on his second missionary
journey, and it is amazing here how the Lord closed some doors
to steer him in the direction of these other sheep. It is amazing. In Acts 16, you
will take note of the fact that he came across a certain damsel
here. And I believe that she was one
of the sheep he had just preached in verse 14 to Lydia, a seller
of purple. I believe she was one of these
Gentile sheep. And then in a little while we'll
see where he spoke to the Philippian jailer. And he must hear the
voice of the Lord. He's one of these Gentile sheep
that will be brought in. Paul and his companions were
on their journey And I want you to underscore this if you would
look here in verse 6. It says, Now when they had gone,
that's in Acts 16, verse 6. And when they had gone throughout
Phrygia and the regions of Galata, and were forbidden of the Holy
Ghost to preach the word in Asia. I want you to notice that the
Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost, he forbade them to preach the
word in Asia. And then as we go on here, and
the reason was because there were other sheep in another place
that must hear his voice and must be brought into the fold. Now in verse 7, they assayed,
the scripture says, and that word means endeavored, to go
into Bithynia. But the Spirit allowed them not. The Spirit suffered them not.
And the chief cause being because they were not of his sheep there,
and God at that time would not send a messenger into that area. And his sheep are going to hear
the gospel. And so he closes these doors
in Asia and Bithynia to get them to go where his sheep are, in
order to get them where his sheep will be listening to hear the
voice of God. Notice in verse 8 and 9, and
verse 10. In verse 8, And so they passed
by Mysia, and came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul
in the night, There came a vision unto Paul in the night. You say,
this is unusual, isn't it? Well, it might be unusual for
us. Paul was an apostle of Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of God
was mightily upon him, directing him in his mission work. And
certainly I would not say that it's impossible that God would
give a man a vision in our day. Certainly I would not say that
there's nothing that would hinder God from doing it. God can do
whatever he will, whenever he wills, however he wills. But
we take note here that there stood a man in this vision of
Macedonia and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia and
help us. Come over and help us. Now, this
man is not the goats that are in Macedonia, this is not the
heathen of Macedonia that are not in the covenant of eternal
grace, but these are the sheep of Christ This man represents,
this man who is saying in the vision, come over into Macedonia
and help us. This man represents all the sheep
of Christ that will hear the voice of the Lord through the
ministry of Paul and his fellow laborers. He represents all of
these. And so we see here Lydia represented
in this man. We see the damsel who had the
demon represented in this man. And we see also the Philippian
jailer represented in this man. You say, well, the Philippian
jailer was still dead in sin. He wasn't awakened yet. Well,
as far as God was concerned, he was as good as in the fold.
God was going to send his messenger with a live message that would
make him live as he heard it, as he listened to it. Come over
and help us! And it's wonderful vision that
Paul had, a mighty vision from the Lord. They were going to
hear the gospel at Paul's mouth. He said, you come and show us,
you come over and help us. Come and help us! Well, Paul,
how in the world would you help these people? Well, Paul would
help them by preaching the gospel to them. He would preach the
everlasting gospel of the free grace of God unto them. He would
declare the mercies of God in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He would preach the truth of
God's holy word unto them. And in so doing, he would be
ministering help unto these individuals. Now, in verse 10, assuredly gathering,
I want you to notice that, and when he had seen the vision,
immediately he endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly
gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto
them. Now, the Apostle Paul knew that
the commission that he had received of the Lord was not to go over
into Macedonia and start a social program or somewhere or another
get involved in the politics of the country, but to go over
there and preach the gospel unto them. That's what he was about.
That's all he was about, was the gospel of God's grace. And I want you to recognize this,
that he was as certain of this call to go into Macedonia as
he was certain of the fact that God closed the door to Asia and
Bithynia. He was just as sure, assuredly
gathering, that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel
unto them. Therefore, loosing from Troas,
we came with a straight course to Samothracia, and the next
day to Neopolis. We come with a straight course.
We had a lot of them around. We got there just as soon as
possible because we knew that the Lord was in us going. We
knew that the Lord was going before us. We knew that God was
going to work. We knew that the power of God
would be present in Macedonia. So they went on a straight course,
got there just as quick as possible. And from thence, they went to
Philippi. which is the chief city of that
part of Macedonia, and a colony, and we were in that city abiding
certain days. Now then we see that in verse
13, we're going to see now the sheep that Jesus was talking
about in John 10 brought in. Oh, get you a, if you will, get
comfortable and see the Lord Jesus Christ bringing his sheep
into the fold through the instrumentality of the apostles. Look at it.
Lydia is one of them, as we mentioned earlier. Here she is, a certain
woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of the city of Farratah. What's she doing here? What's
she doing in Philippi, the chief city? Well, somebody suggested
she was there selling her goods. Might have been, but that was
a secondary reason as to why she was there. Well, she was
there because this is where God is going to cross her path with
the gospel. This is where God's servant is
going to be preaching the gospel. That's exactly the reason why
she was there, because she had an encounter with a holy God. She had an encounter with the
gospel of redeeming grace, and she was going to meet the Lord
Jesus Christ, and hallelujah, she did. She is a sheep that
she must be brought in. Now she was brought in. We see
that she heard, and her heart the Lord opened. The Lord opened
her heart, my friend. Now you say, well, was her heart
closed to the gospel? Well, apparently it was. And
you may be here this morning and you say, well, I came to
this place as Lydia came down by the riverside where prayer
was to be made. I came here thinking maybe my
heart was already open. Well, my friend, you might have
come here this morning, but your heart may be as closed as it
can be. because the Lord has not yet
opened it. You say, how long, preacher,
will my heart be closed? Until God opens it. Until God
is pleased to visit you, as he did Lydia. Until God is pleased
to bring the power of his Holy Spirit upon your soul and open
your heart to the glorious gospel of God's free and amazing grace. Well, then we go on here to this
damsel. Of course, we want to take note,
and we will maybe later, about Lydia. She was baptized in obedience
unto the Lord in verse 15. But we come to this damsel. I
must move along because my time is going to get away from me.
Now, this damsel was a fortune teller, but she's one of the
Lord's sheep. The Lord is about to deliver
her, and he's about to bring her out. Well, you say, well,
now here's Paul, he's over here in this area now, but what about
the people over in Asia? Might be some of you still thinking
about them. Paul closed the door to them.
I don't know. I don't know anything about that.
That's God's business. And you say, what about the people
in Bithynia, preacher? Well, only God knows. All I know
is that God is at work here in Philippi. and he's going to bring
his people in. So they went to prayer. Paul
said in verse 16, it came to pass when they went to prayer
that a certain damsel who was controlled by demonic force permitted
her or enabled her to tell others fortunes to predict the future. And the scripture says that she
had a good business, had a very good business, lucrative business.
That's in the last part of verse 16. Those which were her masters,
she brought them much gain by her telling the future of other
people and predicting the future of other people. These men, her
masters, they were kind of like pips, if you please. They owned
this woman. And they made a living, a good
living, off of this woman. Well, verse 17, it says she followed
Paul. And that word followed there
is a very strong word. It literally means that she dogged
his heels. She dogged his heels. She just
went around following Paul all the time. Now the demon that
was in her moved her to do that. And she dogged Paul's heels.
And you remember what she said. She said, these are the servants
of the Most High God. Verse 17, which show unto us
the way of salvation. She was right. She was right
in what she said. But she was always crying this
out, and Paul was very much grieved about it. She was doing it ludicrously,
making a joke out of it, doing it, if you please, sarcastically. And what she said, as we said,
was abundantly true. But Paul was grieved not with
her, but with the Spirit that had her under its control. And
so he turned and he said, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ
to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.
Now, does anybody here Would anybody here question that this
demon actually came out of this damsel? No, I don't think that
you would. Would you question that she came
out in the hour in which Paul had commanded him to come out?
I say you would agree with that. Well, when the Bible says that
they were baptized the same hour, when they were baptized straightaway,
then you have to admit that there was not a lengthy time that passed
between the regeneration of their souls and their baptism. I just
throw that in and it won't cost you anything extra at all. Now
in verse 19, what Paul did was bad for the economy. It was real
bad for the economy because he destroyed their business. He
shut them down. And now the power of God, my
friend, can put the devil out of business any place. when it's
pleased to do it. And don't you forget there is
one spirit that can control the spirit of this age, and that
is the Spirit of God. Do we believe that? We shall
go forth in the name of the Lord with the power of the Spirit
of God, and the enemy will have to surrender. The enemy will
have to back up. Now then, let me read to you
down through verse 22. And I want to show you here what
happened. And when her masters saw that
their hope of gains were gone, they caught Paul and Silas, drew
them into the marketplace, into the rulers, and brought them
to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly
trouble our city. They weren't exactly troubling
the city. They shut them down, put them out of business, ruined
their business, and teach customs. This might have been true in
a certain respect. which were not lawful for us
to receive, neither to observing Romans, the multitude rose up
together against them, and the magistrates tore off the clothes
of Paul and his companions, and commanded them to be beaten."
Commanded to beat them, going to beat these men who have been
brought here by the power of God in order that the message
of salvation might come forth. Now, in verse 25, I want you
to notice this, they were beaten and thrown into the prison, and
the jailer was charged to keep them safely. And then in verse
25, and at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises
unto God, And the prisoners heard them. Now, this is a tremendous
portion of the Word of God always has blessed my soul. They prayed and sang. Don't you
think that it was a very unusual time to be singing or to be praying
and singing at midnight? Mark that down in your mind.
It was an unusual time. How many folks do you know of
who sang and prayed at midnight, especially after having a day
like Paul and Silas had just had? They had just been beaten
with many stripes. They'd had an encounter with
a demon. And they'd put some folks out of business, and they'd
had a lot of trouble that day. But here they are singing and
praising the Lord. Most Baptists won't even sing
at 12 noon, much less at midnight. Especially, you know, being it's
dinner time, we haven't got any time to pray and sing now. We've
got to eat. We've got to feed this old body.
Well, bless the Lord, you can sing and pray any time, day or
night, or both. You can sing and pray any time.
Well, it was midnight. Not only was it an unusual time,
but I'd say it was in an unusual place too. Beloved, it was in
jail. They were in jail praising the
Lord. Think of it. Praising God in
the jail. Now, they wasn't murmuring and
complaining. They were singing and praising the Lord. Well,
what do you suppose that they might have been singing? Here
they were. Now, you see, I know their wounds were open because
you know the Philippian jailer after he got converted after
a while? Why, he took care of their wounds. I know they were
suffering bodily. They had to be suffering. Don't
you see that? Well, but they wasn't murmuring
and complaining. They were singing and praising.
What do you suppose they were singing? Well, maybe they might
have been singing Psalm 34. Do you have that? Psalm 34. Kevin lead us in singing the
first few verses. This might have been what these
brethren were singing. Listen to these words. Everybody
that's got their Bible, turn to Psalm 34 and sing out as the
brother leads us in this psalm. Go ahead. The first four verses
of Psalm 34, I don't even know them. It goes like this. I will bless the Lord at all
times. His praise shall continually
be in my mouth. My soul shall make nearer to
God, O Lord. And in heaven be glad. For the Lord is mine, the Lord
is me. Yeah, well that's just an example
of what they might have been singing. They might have been
singing Psalm 103. You know, they had the Psalms.
They knew the Psalms. Psalm 103, verse 1 and 2. Bless
the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his
holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
forget not all of his benefits. Bless God they weren't singing
this, remember, in a tent meeting or in a revival. They were singing
this in jail, in jail. And they had an unusual congregation. So we have three things here.
Unusual time, unusual place, and an unusual congregation. They didn't have the scribes
in the past, Pharisees, and the elders in the Senate, no right
reverend father and gods here in this place. No, it was the
prisoners that heard them. And when it says they heard them,
it means that they were listening intently. They listened intently
to Paul and Silas as they sang these praises unto God. I was
reminding, when I was reading this and thinking upon it, that
somebody, somebody is listening to us. Somebody is listening
to you, every day of your life, people all around us, and they're
watching and they're listening. The question is, when listening
to us, what do they hear? Do they hear praises unto the
Lord, or do they hear moaning and groaning, complaining, griping,
criticizing, judging? Oh, my friend, sometimes I hear
people say, nobody's got any trouble like I got. My trouble
is worse than anybody else's. Well, praise God, and it'll come
to an end. I firmly believe that whenever
the devil tempts you to murmur and complain, Now what you ought
to do is just begin to praise the Lord. Give thanks unto God
and praise Him, and I believe that you'll be cured. You'll
be cured. Your soul will be cured, and
you'll quit this moaning and groaning and complaining and
whining. Somebody said the 11th commandment
is, Thou shalt not whine. And I think that that could very
well be inserted, not that I'm writing scripture and I wouldn't
want you to, but it certainly is scriptural not to whine. Like
it or not, beloved, someone is observing and listening to you. Someone is. Paul and Silas was
doing the right thing, amen? They were in prison. They were
doing the right thing. I mean, they knew the Lord. I
mean, God had saved them. God's Spirit was in them. They
were being directed to the Lord. They came there by God's leading. They knew God put them in that
place. They were doing the right thing. They were singing and
praising the Lord. Now, in verse 26, a phenomenon
occurred. The Bible says it was a great
earthquake. Foundations of the prison were shaken, and all the
doors in every band were loosed. Amazing what God can do in just
shaking the earth. Now let us look at this man,
the jailer. He's one of God's sheep, if you remember. He was
in that vision. Come over and help us here in
Macedonia. God knows just what to do to
get a man's attention, doesn't he? He knows just what to do. He must get your attention. You must hear, the sheep must
hear the word. John 5 and 24 says, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him
that sent me hath everlasting life, shall not come into condemnation,
but is passed from death to life. Watch how God saves this man. Now the first item on the agenda
in verse 27, and the keeper of the prisoner awaking out of his
sleep. He wakes up out of his sleep. Mark it down. Everything else
that you find him doing after this point, he is doing as the
result of an awakening that took place. Everything else that he
does comes after that. If he had not awoke, he wouldn't
have done the rest of it. He would have never done the
rest of it. The first need he has was to be awakened. That
brother-sister is a type, I believe, of regeneration by the Spirit
of God. This is not something you can
do for yourself any more than he could. You do not wake yourself
up, my friend. You go to bed, you go to sleep,
and a sovereign God has to wake you up. You cannot wake yourself
up. And the same is true spiritually.
You cannot awaken yourself out of the death of sin. The power
of God only coming down on your soul can awaken you out of sin. This is not something you can
do. You are awakened by an external power and an external influence. Now, if God does not wake us
up, we're dead. And we'll remain dead until the Lord comes back to
bring us out of the grave. If God don't waken us up, and
if God don't waken you, my friend, you're going to remain dead in
sin. There isn't any way in the world that you can ever wake
up to your condition. He was awakened out of his sleep.
Sleep is a short death. Somebody says that death is a
long sleep. Sleep is a picture of death in
the scripture. He was not aware of what was
going on until. He was awake. He didn't know
anything about that singing going on. He didn't know a thing about
what was happening in that prison until God awakened his soul. And there's some of you that
have sit here and you sit and you've listened and listened
and listened, but God maybe recently has awakened your soul. He's
awakened your soul. Now you're alive. Now you're
awake. Now you know what's going on. And when people are singing
and when people are praying, you know what's going on because
you're awake. You're awake. to the things of
God and to the truth of God. Now then, this is a picture of
a lost sinner. He does not have enough life
to know he's dead until he is awakened by the Spirit of God.
And that's how you are. You might have thought you were
alive. Old Glenn used to think he was alive until the Spirit
of God came down on him and he was regenerated, regenerated,
made alive all over. And he knew that he'd been dead,
but he didn't know it until the Spirit of God came upon him,
and some of you are just that way. You don't have enough life
till your death. You think you are alive, but
you're not alive, and you'll discover it one of these days
when the Spirit of the Lord comes upon you, and we're praying for
you. I'm not talking altogether about physical sleep. You understand
that. Some of you are awake physically,
asleep spiritually, and you couldn't care less about spiritual things. We that are the saved of the
Lord were dead, and he quickened us. Ephesians 2 and verse 1,
you hath he quickened. Well, when this man was awakened,
he knew his danger. He knew what his predicament
was. Well, we have the awakened sinner here, and as soon as he
wakes up, he becomes desperate. why he would have killed himself.
It was an oriental practice to commit suicide in order to avoid
shame for having failed in his duty. And so he would rather,
for honor's sake, rather kill himself than live and face the
magistrates, which probably would have put him to death. Now, you
remember how the Japanese used to commit Harry Carrey. He felt it was the only honorable
thing he could do, just kill himself. He drew out his sword
and would have killed himself. He knew he was in trouble. He
knew he was. But you know, there are many
that they don't know that they're in trouble. They don't know the
predicament they're in. They don't understand that just
like that you can drop dead, fall into eternity, and have
to face God. It's appointed that a man wants
to die, and after this, my friend, the judgment. You don't realize
the predicament that you're in. You cannot get out of this world
without dying. You have to die to get out of
this world, and you're going to die, and you're going to face
God at the judgment. And you don't realize the trouble
that you're in. But a holy God will judge you. in righteousness by that man
whom he hath ordained, whereby he hath given assurance to all
of us, in that he hath raised him from the dead." Christ has
been raised from the dead. So this man knew he was in trouble.
No man will ever get saved until he gets in trouble. And so you
face it. People are not turning to the
Lord. People say, why don't people turn to the Lord? Well, it's
because they're not in trouble. This man was trembling. He was
fearful. He was a fearful sinner. The
Bible says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an
angry God. And the Bible says God is angry
with the wicked every day. Every day God is angry with the
wicked. He was a humble sinner. He fell
down before Paul and Silas. Wasn't any of this business of
walking up the aisle, never missing a look, and lick on your chewing
gum, saying you want to be saved? No, no, no, no, no! This man
was a humble sinner! He was a broken, humble sinner.
And he fell down before Paul and Silas. He was a seeking sinner!
He said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? In verse 30. You
know, Jeremiah 29 verse 13 and 14 says, And ye shall seek me,
and shall find me, when ye shall search for me with all of your
heart. And I will be found of you, saith
the Lord. He was now a seeking sinner,
you see. Now this is the only place that
I know of in the Word of God where this question is asked
with such emphasis and clarity. Sir, what must I do to be saved? Well, they answered him in verse
31. in verse 31. Now I want you to
listen carefully. We're going to finish up here
in just a little bit. And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house. There are two things
about this answer that I want to give you. Number one, I want
to say that it was a complete answer. It was a complete answer. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shall be saved in thy house. You say, what do you mean,
preacher, about it being a complete answer? Paul didn't give him
50% of the answer and tell him that if you want to know the
rest, come back in two weeks and I'll give you the rest of
it. I'll tell you all the other things that you have to do in
order to be saved. No, no. When he could get around
to it, come back and I'll give you the rest of the information.
No, we give him a complete answer. Sir, believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved. Number two, it was a correct
answer. Churches today, denominations
today, each have their plans, each have their little schemes.
You can't go to heaven without having it their way. It's got
to be their way. It's got to be that denomination's
way. No, no, my friend. I'll tell
you this is the correct answer that we have here. This is the
correct answer. This is the Word of God. Look
no further. Here it is. Here's the answer
to that age-long question that's been perplexing myriads of souls
from the beginning. What must I do? to be just before
a holy, a thrice holy God. What must I do to have my sins
pardoned, put away, my guilt removed? What must I do to be
reconciled unto God? What must I do? Well, Paul gave
him a correct answer. Well, Paul didn't say just wait
a while until you understand it all. And then obey God. He didn't say, God's sovereign
and he'll save you when he gets ready. Dismiss the thought. You
don't need to be thinking about this. God's sovereign. He'll
save you when he wants to. He can save anybody he wants
to, anytime he wants to. He didn't even say that. That's
true. But Paul, listen to me now, my
friend. Listen to me. This is something
you must face. Paul has been led here. The Spirit
of the Lord sent him here to Philippi. And the power of God
is present right there in that place. God's power has already
come down. And there's been this tremendous
earthquake. God is at work. And my friend,
it's been so here in this church. We believe in the absolute sovereignty
of Almighty God, the covenant of election, predestination,
irresistible grace, perseverance. Yes, we believe all those doctrines,
but God is here in power today to heal souls, to deliver souls,
and I'm here to tell you today, sir, believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved. Now then, he said, believe on the Lord Jesus. Somebody
says, well, what kind of faith was he talking about? Well, it
wasn't an intellectual faith in a historical Christ. No, it
was not. But it's the full committal of
one's life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. I say to you this
morning that these that believe on the Lord Jesus Christ have
been given a faith from God to believe, to fully commit themselves
unto the purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that
Christ died They would say, for my sins, I not only believe He
is my Savior, but He's my resurrected, ever-living Lord, and I give
my life to Christ. He is my Master, He's my Lord,
and I bow to Him in full surrender and full committal. The flag
of my rebellion has been taken down, and I now line up. I'm in agreement with King Jesus,
and I'm submitted unto Him. And my friend, Thou shalt be
saved, Paul said, if you come believing on the Lord. You won't
be saved until you do, sir. You won't be saved until you
do believe, sir. I can defend this. You show me
one person who ever got saved disbelieving the things of God.
Disbelieving the Lord. Show me one person that ever,
ever experienced the joy of forgiveness of sin, who didn't believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. You must believe on Christ. No
salvation until faith comes into the soul. Well, what happened
to this man? Well, quite frankly, I believe
the Lord saved him. How do you know that, preacher?
Well, there are several obvious manifestations, I believe, in
the word of God here to support this. Notice in verse 33, he
washed their stripes. He washed their stripes. Look
at verse 33, and he took them the same hour of the night, same
hour they were converted, and washed their stripes. Now as
I look at that, I believe what that suggests to me is restitution. Restitution. He would do, he
would right the wrongs that he had done. In Luke chapter 19,
verse 8, talks about Zacchaeus. You remember who was up the sycamore
tree? And our Lord came by, and after Zacchaeus came down, said
to the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the
poor, and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation,
I restore him fourfold. And Jesus said, This day is salvation
come to this house. If a man has been mean and ugly
to other people, He'll go and say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for
the way I treated you. I want to right the wrongs that
I've done to you. There's a lot of people in Baptist
churches that are mean and ugly spirited. Ugly spirited, I say,
mean people. And Baptists have been given
a name. Many, many places of being just downright ornery and
mean. I remember hearing a story about
a Old Quaker man, he had a milk cow. And every day he milked
this milk cow and this cow was mean and ornery. And she'd take
her tail and thrash him in the face with it. And some days when
he got the milk bucket half full, she'd just kick it over. And
one day he was sitting there milking this old cow and She
picked up her hind foot and set it right down in the bucket of
milk. And he said to her, Thou knowest that I, being a Quaker,
cannot hit thee, but I can sell thee to a Baptist. I can do that. And so it is, my friend. Baptists
have gotten a bad name for being a little bit mean-spirited. But it would be a wonderful thing,
wouldn't it? If the Lord would save them mean-spirited
Baptists and they would go out to make restitution, begin to
heal some of the wounds that they had opened up in other people,
and heal some of the wounds they opened up in their own children,
heal some of the wounds that they opened up in members of
their own family, left a trail of people in bondage and death
every place they've been, wouldn't it be wonderful if they just
get saved and just begin to heal where they've been? and make
restitution. Well, that's what this fellow
did. And I say that's one of the evidences of salvation, one
of the evidences of eternal life. And then in verse 33, the second
thing I see was that he was baptized. It says, and was baptized he
in all his straight way, meaning promptly, meaning forthwith,
meaning immediately, He submitted to baptism. Does your Bible say
that he was baptized? Does it say that? And was baptized? That's what my Bible says. And
I believe that's what people that are genuinely converted,
genuine, one of the Lord's sheep that's been brought in, I think
they ought to be baptized like this man to picture what he was
trusting to save him. the death, the burial, and the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ to publicly confess before
the world that he was believing in the death of Jesus and his
burial and resurrection. Now in verse 34, the third thing
I see was that he was full of the love of God. By this, the
Bible says, that we know we have passed from death to life because
we love the brethren. And here in this 34th verse,
and when he had brought them into his house, he was hospitable
to them. He said, meet before them and
rejoice, believing in God with all of his house. And that's
the fourth thing. He got happy and he rejoiced. He was believing
in God with all of his house. Now you Baptists, you don't have
to worry about that. You folks don't have to worry
about, you know, rejoicing very long. Most Baptists don't. Like
one fellow said, you couldn't get a hallelujah out of a Baptist
if you run him through a ringer, and most Baptists are that way.
They just will not praise the Lord because there are many of
them that are still dead. It's against the law to bury
them, but they're dead in sin. If God ever saves you, there'll
be some rejoicing. in your soul, some rejoicing
in your heart, some gladness, like there was in this fellow.
Now, he'd just been through an ordeal. He didn't know yet whether
they were going to kill him or not. He didn't know, but he was
rejoicing. He's ready. He could rejoice
in the Lord, and that's what he was doing. There was springing
up, there was a well in his soul that was springing up unto everlasting
life. And he had a testimony. He believed
in God with all of his house. Now you know these that were
in his house, they were old enough to hear the same word of God
that he heard himself. Now there have been a lot of
people trying to make it out that these were infants. But
when it says up here, thou shalt be saved in thy house, and they
spake the word of the Lord unto him and to all that were in his
house, These people were old enough, these were people that
was at the age where they could hear same thing this man was
hearing. And when they were all baptized,
it says that they believed in God with all his house. Everybody
in his house got converted, got saved. Ain't nothing wrong with
everybody in a man's house getting saved. You having trouble with
that? Why, hallelujah, praise be unto
God. There's nothing wrong with everybody
in a man's house getting saved, knowing the Lord. Nothing wrong
with that. No, we can rejoice and praise
the Lord. Well, dear soul, has God ever
awakened you to the need of the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you have
in you a desire to know the Lord, to experience God in the very
heart of your soul? Well, my friend, believe and
live. Blessings will follow from the Lord. Christ is Lord. Trust
Him. Christ is life. He is life. Trust Him. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Thou shalt be saved. Let us pray.
Father, in that lovely name which is above every name, I am a poor
wayfaring stranger. Traveling through this world
below There is no sickness, toil, or danger In that bright land
to which I go I'm going there to see my father. I'm going there no more to roam. I'm only going over Jordan. I'm only going over home. I know dark clouds will gather
o'er me. I know my pathway's rough and
steep. But golden fields lie out before
me, where weary eyes no more shall weep. I'm going there to
see my Savior. He said he'd meet me when I come. I'm only going over Jordan. I'm only going over home. I want to sing salvation stories. in concert with the blood wash
band. I want to wear a crown of glory
when I get home to that bright land. I'm going there to see
my Savior Who shed for me His precious blood I'm only going
over Jordan I'm only going over home. I'll soon be free from
every trial. This form shall rest beneath
the sun. I'll drop the cross of self-denial
and enter in my home with God. I'm going there to see my Savior. He said he'd meet me when I come. I'm only going over Jordan I'm
only going over home I'm only going over Jordan I'm only going
over home