Well, I would invite your attention
this evening to Acts chapter 16. Acts 16. And as you're turning,
let me thank you for having this conference. Caleb, I thank you
for inviting me. It's an honor and a privilege.
And I have been greatly looking forward to it. And Drew, I thank
you for that message. Anytime somebody reminds me to
lean on Christ, it's a blessing. It is very, very good for me
to see some new faces and a lot of old, very familiar faces.
Not that your faces are old, but old friends, old friends. I thank God for you. I titled
the message this evening, what must I do to be saved? I would
assume since you're here tonight, you have some interest in this
subject of salvation. What must I do to be saved? Now, before we work down to the
main verse, let's begin looking at verse 22. Paul and Silas had
been thrown into prison for preaching the gospel. Verse 22, and the
multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates ran
off their clothes and commanded to beat them. And when they 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 stocks. Now, can you imagine Paul and
Silas? I mean, they have to be in a great deal of pain. They've
been beaten. They've been thrown into the
inner prison. It's dark and dank and dirty. Their feet are in
stocks. They're chained to the wall.
They can't move around and get comfortable. Can you imagine
the pain that they're in? And this is very interesting
to me. Instead of complaining about it, instead even of praying
and asking the Lord to deliver them, look what they did. Verse 25. And at midnight, Paul
and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard
them. Paul and Silas were in such pain,
and I would assume that they kind of figured, we're in a real
bad situation here, Tomorrow, more likely, they're going to
kill us. And instead of grumbling and complaining, they had a true
worship service. Now, I bet you're like me that
you'll find the times that you have a true worship service is
when the Lord lays you low. I mean, we don't like that. It's
painful. But that's when we worship. We cannot worship until the Lord
cast us at his feet. I mean in the dust, at his feet. And these men were having a worship
service. In verse 26, suddenly there was
a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were
shaken, and immediately all the doors opened, and everyone's
bands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison,
awaking out of his sleep and seeing the prison doors open,
drew out his sword And he would have killed himself, supposing
that the prisoners had been fled. Now, there's this great earthquake. I mean, you can imagine all the
prison doors opening and, you know, unlocking. And the warden,
he'd been asleep on the job, wakes up and sees all the doors
open. And he just naturally is going to assume all the prisoners
have escaped. Now, that's his responsibility.
And, you know, they didn't just give you a written warning in
those days. He figured they're going to kill him in a slow,
painful way. It's better for him to commit
suicide rather than suffer the consequences of this. In verse
28, Paul cried with a loud voice saying, do thyself no harm, for
we're all here. Then he called for a light and
sprang in and came trembling and fell down before Paul and
Silas. And he brought them out. and
asked the question of questions. Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Now, I can think, I can kind
of imagine the relief of this jailer that the prisoners, you
know, were still there. And I don't know what had gone
on before this. I mean, he'd been sound asleep.
I don't think he was listening to them pray and sing praises.
I mean, he was asleep. Maybe he heard something about
these men. These were men of God. He heard something about
what they preached, that they're here in prison for preaching
this gospel. And he asked a very, very important question. What
must I do to be saved? I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble. The only person that needs to
be saved is somebody that's in trouble. The Lord's put me in
trouble. And I must be saved. If I'm not,
if I'm left to myself, I'm going to perish. I must be saved. So what must I do to be saved? Now let me answer that question,
first off, very simply. There's nothing we can do to
save ourselves. Not one blessed thing. There's nothing that I
can do to obligate God to save me. I hear these false prophets
on TV saying, now repeat after me. Say these words, this prayer
after me. Well, if you did, you're saved. Well, if me repeating those words
make God save me, sounds to me like that's obligating God to
save me. Don't you? I may not know everything, but
I know this. God's not obligated to me. He's not obligated, the
only thing God's obligated to do is give me justice. That's
what God's obligated to do. There's nothing that I can do
to save myself. But that doesn't mean there's nothing I can do. You know, this question is asked
quite a few times in scripture. Remember the rich young ruler? The rich young ruler came to
our Lord, said, what good thing can I do to inherit eternal life?
And the answer wasn't, there's nothing you can do. The answer
was sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and follow
me. Follow me. Look back at Acts
chapter two. Peter preached this great, great
message on the day of Pentecost. Acts chapter two. Verse 36. Here's how Peter ended
his message. Therefore let all the house of
Israel know assuredly that God, have made that same Jesus whom
you crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this,
they were pricked in their heart and they said unto Peter and
to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall
we do? What are we gonna do? I'm in
trouble, what shall I do? And the answer wasn't, well boys,
there's nothing you can do. You just have to wait and find
out if you're one of God's elect. If you're one of God's elect,
well then you'll be saved. And if you're not, you won't
be. There's nothing you can do. That wasn't the answer at all. The
answer wasn't there's nothing you can do. Look what the answer
is, verse 38. Then Peter said unto them, repent
and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ
for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of
the Holy Ghost. The answer is repent. And repent doesn't mean
be sorry for your sin, be sorry that you did that. Repent means
turn from your idols and turn to Christ, trust Christ. That's the commandment of all
the scripture. God's commandment is that we
believe on the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and you confess
him publicly. The answer is receive salvation. Don't earn it. Don't try to earn
it from God. You receive it as a free gift
of God's grace. You receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit. You don't do something to turn
over a new leaf and make yourself better than you used to be. You
receive the new birth. You receive a brand new nature
that wasn't there before. That's salvation. So let's look
at this question for just a few minutes. What must I do to be
saved? Well, if we're gonna know anything
about salvation, we have to know, first of all, this. How is salvation
really accomplished? You know, there are some specific
things that has to happen in order for a sinner to be saved.
You know, you and I are so sinful, it takes the work of the entire
Godhead to save a sinner like you and me. I mean, that's how
sinful we are. So first of all, salvation takes
the work of God the Father, doesn't it? God the Father must elect
a people unto salvation, and he had to do it before time began.
He had to do it before God created the heavens and the earth. It
certainly had to be before you and me were born, because there's
nothing we did after we were born that's gonna earn it. God
the Father, before he created anything, he elected a people
to save. He chose them out of Adam's fallen
race. He chose to save them. Not because
they were good, because they're just as lost as everybody else.
The Father chose to save a people because He's good. That's where
the entire golden chain of salvation begins. It's the Father's electing
love that He chose a people to save out of Adam's fallen race.
And if the Father hadn't chosen a people to save, no one would
be saved. It would be impossible. Because
of our nature. Listen to what our Lord said,
John 5, verse 19. He said, you will not come unto me that you
might have life. Your nature is so dead in sin.
It loves darkness rather than light. You will not, you refuse
to come unto me that you might have life. Then in John 6, verse
44, the Lord said, no man can come unto me, except the Father
which has sent me drawing. We don't have the ability to
come to Christ. Because friend, you and I are
born spiritually dead. And dead men can't do anything.
My dad used to say dead men can't do anything but stink. We can
do that, can't we? We can think. But this is what
the Lord said to his disciples. And what he says to every believer,
you have not chosen me, but I've chosen you. That's where salvation
begins. Look at 2 Thessalonians 2. 2
Thessalonians 2. Verse 13. But we're bound to give thanks
all the way to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God had from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth. Weren't you? He called
you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, where did that all begin?
It all began with God's electing love, that God chose to save
sinners. And if the Lord's going to save
you and me, this is where it's going to begin. It's going to
begin with His electing love, that He chose a people to save.
That's the work of God the Father. The second, if I'm going to be
saved, it's going to take the work of God the Son. I must be
redeemed. Somebody's got to pay the redemption
price. I must be redeemed by the person and the work of God
the Son come into flesh. Now the father elected a people.
He elected a people to save. And you know who else he elected?
He elected a savior for those people. He elected his son, behold
mine elect, he said, in Isaiah 42. He elected a people, a savior,
to save those people because his son's the only one who could
save them. And at that time, when only God existed, the son
agreed to become surety for those people. He promised his father,
I'll save those people. I'm going to save them. I'm going
to make them righteous. And I'm going to bring every
last one of them to you. Just a few pages after you quit there,
Judah told his father Jacob, you send Benjamin with me. I'll
be surety for him. I'll bring him to you. And if
not, the blame's mine. The son said the same thing to
the father. I'll be surety for them, and I'll bring him to you.
So in the fullness of time, Do you know what the Son did? This
is, I'm talking, this is God the Son, whose glory the heavens
cannot contain, became a man, was born of a virgin. He became
a man to be the second Adam. He came in our flesh so that
he could be our representative. See Adam, the first man God created,
he's the first Adam. He's the first representative
man. The whole human race was in Adam. Every one of us did
what Adam did in the garden. And when Adam sinned, every one
of us sinned. When Adam became guilty, every
one of us became guilty. When Adam died spiritually, every
one of us died spiritually. That's why we're born in the
mess that we're in. That's why we're born in such
sinful people because we all died in Adam. But in the wisdom
of God, God made his people righteous the same way they are made sinners,
by a second representative man. Christ came in our flesh to be
our representative, and we did, all of his elect did what he
did. When he obeyed the law, so did
we. He came in the flesh to be our
representative. But then in order for us to be
saved, the redemption price gotta be paid, doesn't it? From all
of eternity, the son agreed that he would pay the redemption price
for his people. He told his father that he'd
do it, and he came to do it. He agreed to be the sacrifice
for the sin of his people, even though he knew what that would
entail, what the suffering that that would require. He loved
his people so much. He loved his father so much.
He was so determined to honor his father that he agreed. that
he would be made guilty of the sin of his people. Now, he never
committed a sin, but he was made guilty of it. And he would suffer
and die under his father's wrath so that he would cry from the
cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The father
turned his back on his son. From eternity, the son was daily
the delight of his father. But at Calvary, the father showed
him no love, showed him no mercy, didn't cut him a break because
he didn't really do it. He poured out his wrath upon
his son, and he kept pouring it on, and he kept pouring it
on, and he kept pouring it on until sin was gone, until all
the sin laid on him was gone. And then Christ paid the last
penalty. that the law requires, he gave
up the ghost and died. He died so that his people would
never die. That has to happen if a sinner
like me is going to be saved. Somebody's got to pay the price.
Somebody's got to take that sin away. God cannot accept me and
my sin. It must be taken away. And I know this, if the Lord
Jesus Christ does not take my sin from me, and take it into
his own body upon the tree and put it away by his precious blood,
I'm gonna die in my sin and I'll perish. But thank God, the Son
came and he sacrificed himself to put the sin of his people
away. But then here's the third thing. If I would be saved, it's
gonna take the work of God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit
is gonna have to cause me to be born again. And here's why. Because the nature of Adam, the
nature of the flesh that all of us are born with, the nature
that I was born with in 1965, I just recently turned 60, and
I didn't even have to take a survey of my life to find this out.
It ain't got no better. It's gotten no better. That which
is born of the flesh is flesh, dead, rotten, stinking flesh,
and that's all it ever will be. When God saves a sinner, he doesn't
take the flesh and make it any better. He causes a new nature
to be born within us. Look at 1 Peter 1. That nature has to be a nature
that God will accept. It has to be holy. It has to
be righteous. It has to be perfect. Then I
can't be born like I was born the first time from the sinful
seed that I was born with the first time, because the nature
is going to have the nature of the seed from which it was conceived.
If I'm going to be conceived with a nature that God will accept,
it's going to have to come from sinless seed. Isn't that right?
1 Peter 1 verse 23, being born again. not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth
forever. And that new nature, born from
the Word of God, when we preach the Word of God, we're sowing
the seed. And if God causes it to take
root in good ground, it's gonna grow. It's gonna grow to a life
that is sinless and perfect and holy and it can never sin because
it's just like the seed that conceived it. Look over at 1
John 3. 1 John 3, verse nine. Whosoever is born of God doth
not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot
sin, because he's born of God. Now that can only be talking
about the new nature that's born of God in the new birth. Now
the believer is still gonna have a nature of sinful flesh, as
long as we're on this earth. But the believer's got a second
nature, a nature that's opposite of the first one, a nature that's
holy and righteous and believes Christ and will never believe
anything but Christ. And those two natures are gonna
fuss and fight and feud and fight against each other with everything
they got as long as you live. The flesh will never quit. trying to get you to trust in
your own self, to trust in your own works. And the new man will
never do anything but trust Christ. One of my very favorite Don Fortner
quotes is this. Someone asked him one time, do
you ever not believe, do you ever not believe Christ? And
Don said, I try to every day, but God won't let me. The believer,
with these two natures, fussing and fighting and feuding against
one another, is the happiest, most joyful, most miserable person
on the face of this earth. That's the believer. And that's
what we're gonna have to live with as long as we're on this
earth. But let me tell you something. I wanna tell you what a job that
the Father did in election, the Son did in redemption, and the
Holy Spirit did in the new birth. The very moment this flesh finally
dies, that new man with no probationary period, without going somewhere
else first, he's gonna go directly into the presence of God Almighty
and be accepted there because he's been made perfect, been
made perfect. All right, now look back in our
text, Acts 16, here's the fourth thing. If I would be saved, I
must hear and believe the gospel of Christ. Verse 31, now, sirs,
what must I do to be saved? Notice the answer isn't there's
nothing you can do. They said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved and thy house. Anyone who believes it
shall be saved. And they spake unto him the word
of the Lord and to all that were in his house. Now, Paul told
the jailer, if you're gonna be saved, you must believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. All three, the Lord, Jesus Christ,
all three. The Savior is the Lord. He's
the Almighty. Now, he's coming to flesh. But
He's the Almighty. Don't ever mistake that. He's
the Almighty to whom we bow. Isaiah said that a child is born,
but now the Son was given. The Son was given. He wasn't
born, He was given. And here's His name. Wonderful,
Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the Prince
of Peace. This One who's come in the flesh
is Almighty God. And since He's God, He's got
the power to save. He's got the right to save. He's
got the righteousness to save. And you and me better be found
bowing to him. We better bow. But this Savior is also Jesus,
Jesus of Nazareth, our real man, Mary's firstborn son. This is
a great mystery, a great mystery. God was manifested in the flesh.
The Son of God is also the Son of Man. Now, Bryant figured that
out. But if a sinner like me is gonna
be saved, the Savior, he has to be God. So he's got the holiness
and the righteousness and the power to save, but he has to
be a man so he can be my representative. The Savior's got to be a real
man, a man who can die for my sin. God can't die, but a man
can. An animal can't pay the price
for my sin. We've got a different nature.
But a man can. So God became a man. And this Savior is also Christ.
He's the Messiah. He's the one who's been appointed
of the Father to save his people from their sins. You see, the
Savior, he has to have a righteousness. He has to have a holiness. He
has to have a sacrifice that the Father will accept. So the
father appointed the only one who can save his people from
their sin. He sent his son to do the job. And if a sinner like
me is gonna be saved, it's gonna take all three. The Lord Jesus
Christ. It's not just believe on this
Jesus business, you know, that's another Jesus. It's the Lord
Jesus Christ. I must hear him preached and
I must believe him. Now listen, this can't be overstated. Drew already said it, but I'm
gonna say it again. When I hear the gospel of Christ preached,
I must believe him, him, him. It's not a new way of thinking.
It's not coming to a new set of doctrines. I used to believe
this, and now I believe this. It's I know whom I have believed. I love the doctrines of Christ.
Don't get me wrong. These doctrines that point me
to Christ, that reveal the different characteristics of Christ. But
I'm not in love with a set of Calvinistic doctrines. I mean,
even though they're all true. I mean, you know what I'm saying.
I'm not in love with a thing. I'm not in love with a what.
I'm in love with a person. I don't need a what. I need a
person. Salvation is a person and I need
Him. Righteousness is not a state
of being. Righteousness is a person. The
Lord, our righteousness. I need Him to be my wisdom, my
righteousness, my sanctification and redemption. I believe Him. He's who I trust. Look at Ephesians
chapter one. Ephesians one. Verse 13. In whom you also trusted after
that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
In whom after that you believed you were sealed with the Holy
Spirit of promise. Paul doesn't say what you believed after you
heard the word of truth. He said in whom, in whom you
trusted. You trusted in a person. Now
that's the gospel that Paul preached to this jailer, and that's the
gospel that the jailer believed. But now here's the fifth thing.
If I would be saved, I must endure to the end. We were talking about
this around your counter there this afternoon. If I would be
saved, I must endure to the end. Now that is not to say I have
to keep myself. That is to say if I'm gonna be
saved, God has to keep me. He has to keep me, he has to
keep me faithful until the end. Our Lord said in Matthew 24 verse
13, but he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be
saved. And I can tell you who's gonna
have to keep me. It's that one, that person whom
I trusted unto him. that is able to keep you and
present you faultless. But it's him, I cannot keep myself. This is one of the great fears
of every believer. I will fall away in a heartbeat
if God will let me. If he'll take his finger off
of me, I'll follow, that's my greatest fear. But my greatest
comfort is this, he's able to keep you. And He will, He will. I promise you if the Father elected
you, the Son died for you, the Spirit gave you life, He'll not
let you perish. He will keep you to the end. Now that's how salvation is accomplished. What in there gave you something
to do? Not one thing. God did it all, didn't it? That's
what makes it secure. All right, back to our original
question. What must I do to be saved? Again, I remind you, Paul
and Silas didn't say there's nothing you can do. Now, salvation's
of the Lord. Salvation's by the will of God,
by the doing of God, by the keeping of God. If God does not do all
of the saving for you and me, we'll perish. But that doesn't
mean that there's nothing I can do. I'm gonna give you three
things every sinner can do if we desire to be saved. And these
three things aren't something we do once. What I'm getting
ready to describe to you is the life of a believer. Number one,
now I can't save myself. I can't make myself righteous.
I can't take my sin away. But I can take my place before
God as a sinner that deserves to be sent to hell. Remember
that publican that prayed in the temple? God be merciful to
me, the sinner. It's not like there's all these
other sinners in the world and maybe I'm better than some of
them or worse than some. I'm the sinner. It's like I'm the
only one. I am the sinner. I am the chief
of sinners. God be merciful to me, the sinner. What did our Lord say about that
poor man? He went down to his house justified. That Canaanite
woman, she came, her daughter was so grievously vexed with
the devil. Oh, she loved that girl. I mean,
she loved that girl. And she begged the Lord to heal
her. First, the Lord ignored her.
Then he called her a dog. He called her a dog. He's not
right for me to give the children's bread to dogs. This woman took
her place before God as a sinner that doesn't deserve the least
of his mercies and said, Lord, that's true. I'm a dog. Not like
one of your cute little dogs. I mean, this is a mongrel. This
is a dog that doesn't deserve anything, but dogs eat the crumbs
that fall from the master's table. She took her place before God
as a sinner that deserved to be sent to hell, and God gave
her her heart's desire, and that very hour healed her daughter. That poor woman that came to
the feet of our Savior, she's a great sinner. I don't know what it was. Seeing
herself in light of who the Lord is, I don't know. But her heart
was broken. And she knelt down at his feet. Women's Lib was not anywhere
in her mind, was it? She got down at his feet in public
and wept and wept and washed his feet. with her tears and
dried his feet, his dusty, hot feet with the hair of her head. And the Pharisee there said,
why, this guy's supposed to be some prophet. If he knew what
manner this woman was, he wouldn't let her touch him. You know what
the Lord said about that woman and his feet? Her sins, which are many, are
forgiven. She took her place at the feet
of the Savior as a hell-deserving sinner, and God forgave her.
I can take my place before God. Number two, I can seek the Lord. I can be, I can't save myself.
You can't either. But I can be where the gospel's
preached, and I can ask the Lord to give me faith to believe Christ
when I hear Him preached. I can't give myself faith, but
I can ask God to give it to me. It's hard, really, to overstate
the importance of being here when the gospel is preached.
Those of you who live within driving distance of this place,
I know this weekend, if I was you, Wednesday night, I'd be
right here. Because God saves his people
through the preaching of the gospel. Faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God. I can get, I can't save myself. But now listen, I can make a
priority and I can get myself here when the gospel's being
preached and ask the Lord to reveal himself to me. Cornelius
prayed and he asked God for a preacher. And God sent him Peter. And when
Peter got there, Cornelius said, now we're all here to hear. Whatever it is God's commanded
you to say, we're here to hear. And the Lord saved that man and
his house. Lydia must have had some sense of sin, must have
had some need of God. She didn't know what to do, but
she heard there was a group of women down by the river where
prayers want to be made, and she thought, well, that's where
I'll go. And God sent her a preacher. And Paul preached to that group
of women that day, and scripture said the Lord opened her heart.
She was looking for the Savior, and she found him in the preaching
of the gospel. I tell you, if I was lost and
knew it, and boy, I can remember the time
that I was, I'd make it my business to be where the gospel's preached.
I really would, because that's where God reveals himself to
his people. And here's the third thing. I can beg God for mercy. I don't know how long I preached,
but y'all got a minute. I grew up from the time I understood
language under the sound of the gospel. I knew it frontwards
and backwards. By the time I was a teenager,
Brother Henry said of me, he said he could recite to five
points of Calvinism going down the stairs on his head at midnight
backwards. And I could. But I was lost. And I was dating my dear wife,
and I told her one day after the surface, you need to get
away from me. You need to get away from me.
I've been a rebel so long. God's never going to save me.
And you need better than me. You need to get away from me.
I've been here all these years and God's not going to save me.
And she looked at me like I had snakes coming out of my ears. And she said, well, Frank, have
you ever asked God to forgive you? I'd asked God 10,000 times
to show me I was one of his elect, but Drew, I never asked him to
forgive me. I can beg God for mercy. You
know what God said? You have not because you ask
not. Beg God for mercy. Brother Henry
said one time, Quit lying, quit trying, and quit buying, and
start begging. That's what we need to do. Now,
you can't make God save you. Just because you beg for mercy
doesn't obligate God to save you, but you beg God for mercy. And bless your heart, you know
what? God delights to show mercy to sinners. He delights. The
thief on the cross. Dying agony said, Lord, Would
you remember me when you come into your kingdom? And that very
day, that thief was with the Lord in paradise. He just begged
for mercy. That leper you talked about,
he came to the Lord and said, Lord, if you will, you can make
me clean. I don't know if you will. You
don't have to, but I'm gonna stay right here at your feet.
I'm begging you, Lord, would you make me clean? And Lord said,
I will. And he was cleansed. Jacob found himself one night
wrestling with the Lord. And the Lord said, now the day's
about to break. You let me go while I got to
go. And Jacob said, I will not let you go except you bless me. And the Lord blessed him. Now this is not just a one-time
thing. This is the life of a believer. You see if this is not so. that
I find myself at the feet of the Savior, begging him for mercy. And Lord, I'm not going anywhere.
I need mercy, and you're the only one that can give it. Now,
like I say, I can't save myself, but I believe the people who
find mercy are those at his feet begging for mercy. I want that
to be me. I hope it's you too. All right,
the Lord bless you.