All right, Acts 16. We'll read the question from
the Word. Acts 16, verse 27. And the keeper of the prison,
awaking out of his sleep, seeing the prison doors open,
drew out his sword, would have killed himself, because he was
given charge of these prisoners, and had they escaped, he would
have been held responsible, probably killed, supposing that the prisoners
had fled. But Paul cried out with a loud
voice, saying, do thyself no harm, we're all here. And then the jailer called for
a light and sprang in, came trembling, fell down before Paul and Silas,
brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Sirs,
what must I do to be saved? That's my subject. And you know
that question has been asked more than once in the Scriptures. You remember when the rich young
ruler came to our Lord and said to him, good master, what good
thing must I do to inherit eternal life? And then when Peter finished
his message at Pentecost, it said that the whole crowd pricked
in their hearts and they cried out, well, men and brethren,
what must we do to be saved? What must we do? Saul of Tarsus
on the road to Damascus, when the Lord Jesus appeared to him,
being a chosen vessel to bear the name of Christ, he said before
thrones and kings, but a great light smote him down. He fell to the ground. And the
boy said, Oh, why persecutest thou me, voice from heaven? He
said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus
of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. And he said, Lord, what would
you have me do? What must I do? And then this
man here, God sent an earthquake. And he sprang into the prison
there and fell on his knees and said, Sirs, what must I do to
be saved? Well, the answer to that question,
first of all, the answer is not what a lot of people say. In
grace circles, there's nothing you can do. of the Lord. Now, that's not
the answer to that question. There's nothing you can do. If
we reply to that question, if someone asks us, what must I
do to be saved, we say nothing, nothing. It's all done. Well,
that's an error, because every one of these questions, I look
back at them in the Bible, they didn't receive that as an answer.
When the rich young ruler said to our Lord, good master, the
Lord said, why did you call me good? There's nothing good but
God. But what must I do? What good thing must I do to
be saved? And the Lord answered now. The
man asked what good thing I should do. The Lord answered him and
said, keep the commandments. If that's the way you want to
be saved, keep the commandments. Well, the young man didn't realize
the commandments applied to the heart. He was basing it on his
outward behavior. He says, I kept them from my
youth up. Then Christ said, go sell what you have and distribute
it to the poor and you come and take up your cross and follow
me. And the young man in turn walked away because he had great
riches. But I guarantee you, if he had
done what the Lord told him to do, he had been saved. The Lord told him You follow
me." And if he had followed Christ and hung around with him for
a few days, he'd been saved. So that was the answer. All right,
take the next one, Pentecost. After Peter finished his message,
and they realized with their hands they had crucified the
Lord of Glory, Peter made that plain to them
that the one whom they crucified, God raised from the dead. And
you can just be sure, 40 days after he arose, this was 40 days
after he arose, and he appeared to countless, 500 people at once,
the word spread. These people who were listening
to Peter realized this Jesus had been raised from the dead.
And they were afraid. And when Peter preached it, this
Jesus whom you crucified, God had made both Lord and Christ,
and it shook them to their toes. And they said, What shall we
do? He said, Repent and be baptized in the name of
Jesus Christ for the remission of sin. He didn't say nothing. And then Saul of Tarsus, the
Lord himself answered the man. when he said, Well, Lord, what
would you have me do? And our Lord said, Arise and
go to the city, and it will be told you what to do. And he arose and went to the
city, and God sent a preacher called Ananias. And he said,
Saul, receive thy sight. And then he told him the gospel. And the jailer here, now, you
But Bob just read it. He said, what must I do to be
saved? Now let's read the next verse, 31. And they said nothing. They didn't say that. Paul said,
you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. Now look at the next verse. And
they spake to him the word of the Lord and to all that were
in his house. The jailer lived in the jail.
That was his house. The jail was a part of his house.
He was given charge of the prison. His wife cooked for him. And when they brought our Paul
and Silas out of the prison, they just took them out over
to his own home, his own part of the prison, washed their stripes. And they sat around, I don't
know how long, that they sat there and talked about the gospel. But I understand. Now, I understand
when some people ask that question, what must I do to be saved? I
understand they answer, you can't do anything, and there's nothing
you can do to give yourself a new heart
and a new nature. I realize that. I understand
why they're tempted to reply that, considering what salvation
is. When you consider what salvation
is, you can certainly understand why when somebody says, what
must I do to be saved? But if you're talking about actually
doing something to merit salvation, the answer is nothing. Because
let me show you five things briefly, what salvation is, what we're
talking about. Number one, salvation is a new
birth. If any man be in Christ, he's not the old man reformed. It's a new creation. That's what
Christ said to Nicodemus. You must be born from above.
You must be born of God. You must be born of the Word
and of the Spirit. And John wrote about that in
the book of 1 John. He said, He that doeth righteousness
is born of God. He that saith is born of God.
He that loveth is born of God. He that believeth is born of
God. To as many as received him, to them gave he the privilege
to become sons of God, who were born, not of blood, not of natural
family genealogy, and not born of the will of man, and not born
of their own will, but born of God. So salvation is due birth. And secondly, salvation is a
resurrection from the dead. In Adam, all died. But in Christ,
we are made alive. The Scripture says, "...you hath
he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sin." Man can't
quicken himself. He can't burn himself nor raise
himself from a spiritual grave. "...you hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sin." Wherefore, by one man sin entered
this world, and death by sin. So death passed upon all men.
By man came death. Only by man can come life, and
that man is Christ Jesus. That's right. If the dead live,
they'll have to hear the voice of him that spoke to Lazarus
come forth. I know that. So when you consider
that salvation is a birth from above, resurrection from a spiritual
grave, the answer then is nothing. And salvation is to know God.
It's to know God. I mean to know God. Like I was
talking about this morning, Adam in his original creation knew
God. Commune with God. Enoch walked
with God. And that's what our Lord is talking
about when he said this. He said, Father, Thou hast given
me power over all flesh, that I should give eternal life to
as many as Thou hast given me. And this is life eternal, that
they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom
Thou sent. Can you by searching find out
God? No. Can I know God? What can I do
to know God? That's just so, not to know God. Can you find out the Almighty
unto perfection? No. Why? It's higher than heaven,
he said. What can you know? It's deeper
than hell. What can you do? And Christ shut
the door on that. He said, No man knows the Father
but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him. But thank God. It says over here
in 1 John, the Son of God has come and given us an understanding
that we may know God, that we may know Him that is true, that
we are in Him that is true. Even in His Son, Jesus Christ,
this is the true God, this is eternal life, to know God. Salvation is a birth. a miraculous,
supernatural birth. It's resurrection from the dead.
That's the reason I say, Salvation is of the Lord. It is to know God. Actually,
in my heart, to know God. And all these saving graces are
the gift of God. Paul said, When it pleased God
who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace. He revealed his Son. He revealed
his Son in me." And then fourthly, awesome what
salvation is. Fourthly, it's to be absolutely
righteous before God. Now try that one on. That's the reason Paul, Isaiah said our righteousness
is a filthy rag as far as God is concerned in his sight. And
salvation is to be righteous, perfectly righteous in God's
sight. Listen to these verses. He's
chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world that
we should be holy and without blame before him. Now, I know
that we do our best to put up a good front in front of people,
and I wouldn't have you do otherwise. I don't think people have to
know everything we think, and do you think so? I don't think
so. John Wesley had the Wesley Confessional Societies, in which
they had the following rules. I can't name them all, but one
of them was, when they met together, they confessed their sins to
one another. And the rule was, you withheld nothing. I wouldn't
want to be in that club, would you? But we've got to, before our
children and other people, we've got to put up a certain front. Isn't that right? That's exactly
right. But this righteousness I'm talking
about is before Him. I just don't have it and can't
produce it before Him because He sees the heart. We don't have
to have a club to tell Him what we are. He knows what we are.
He knows what we are. But Christ has made us righteous.
He said, holy and without blame before Him. You can't produce
that. And so if you're going to be
righteous before God, you say, how can I be righteous before
God? I say, nothing. And also Colossians says, through
the blood of His cross, He gave us peace and presents us holy,
unblameable, unreprovable in His sight. In His sight, holy,
unblameable, unreprovable. And then Jude 24 says, Now unto
him that's able to keep you from falling, I mean to keep you from
falling, that's finally falling. That
doesn't mean stumbling or stripping or slipping, because you're going
to do that, I promise you. But to keep you from falling
and to present you hopeless before his presence with exceeding glory,
now that's salvation. And that's not all. This salvation
is a new birth. It is life from the dead. It is to know God, intimately
know God in Christ. It's to be holy, unblameable,
unreprovable, faultless in his sight. And fourthly, it's to
be totally justified before God. Now, I tell you, these are two
awesome tasks that our Master undertook to perform, and he
did, effectually, to make us not only righteous before God,
but sinless, just as if we'd never sinned, just as if we'd
never sinned, thoughtless. So if the question is, what must
I do To bring that to pass, the answer is nothing. But if the
question is, what can I do? A man who desires to know God,
to be born again, to be resurrected, to be righteous, to be justified,
I'll say there's five things you can do if you're dead serious, if you're
serious. Number one, here they are. I'll
give them to you. You can take your place before
God as a sinner. You can admit what He says about
you. If that was the charge against
those old Pharisees, they wouldn't justify God in His condemnation. They wouldn't agree with God
in His condemnation of them. You can take your place, I can
take my place before God as a sinner. From the sole of my feet to the
top of my head, a sinner. in need of mercy, in need of
cleansing, in need of grace. The publican did. He went down
to that temple just bent over and broken because of his sins. He wouldn't even lift his eyes
to heaven, let alone his hands, and just smote on his breast.
He said, Oh God, be merciful to me. I'm a sinner. The Canaanite woman came to our
Lord seeking mercy. And he didn't even answer her.
Not a word. Not a word. She's a Gentile. And she kept on. She wouldn't
leave. And finally he turned to her and he said, It's not
right to give the children's bread to dogs. Well, now she could have left
on that, couldn't she? But she didn't. She said, That's
true, Lord. I'm a dog. But I'm your dog. And dogs eat the crumbs that
fall from their master's table, brush some crumbs off. Our Lord
said, blessed are you. I've heard language like that
in these Jews. Go thy way, thy faith hath made
thee whole. What'd she do? She took her place
as a dog. And all dogs go to heaven, you
remember that? Real dogs, that's right. The
thief on the cross did. Well, he was as pagan as they
come. He was as ignorant, I guess, as they come. He was even in
cohorts with the other thief when he reviled Christ. Both
of them reviled Christ. Finally, he quit reviling. He
said, now, wait a minute here. I'm a sinner. I'm dying. He said, this man hasn't done
anything wrong. I'm getting what I deserve. Lord, when you come
into your kingdom, would you think on me?" Our Lord said,
more than that, I'll take you with me. No other sinners around
here. I came to seek and to save the
lost, and this man is lost. Your sins won't keep you from
Christ, but your righteousness will. God has never saved a righteous
man. God has never, ever in the history
of this Bible, saved a righteous man. He didn't come to call the
righteous. He came to call sinners. When
you say, there is no righteous man, ask them. They think they
are. I tell you, one old writer said, a sinner is a sacred thing, hard to find. Because the Holy
Ghost is the only one who can make him so. A sinner is hard
to find. And over there in the book of
Job, let me just read you this. Over there in the book of Job,
Job said this. He said, in Job 33, he said,
verse 27, The Lord looks upon men, and if any say, I have sinned. I have sinned. I have perverted
that which is right. It has profited me nothing. He
will deliver his soul." That's the promise. He'll deliver his
soul from going down to the pit, and his life shall see the light.
Can you do that? Can I do that? Here's the second
thing he can do. A sinner can seek the Lord. I
read you in the book of Acts this morning that sermon Paul
preached on Mars Hill, and he told about all these fellows.
He said they should do what? Seek the Lord. Feel after him. Try to find him. They should
seek the Lord. The Bible all the way through
says, Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call on him
while he is near. You shall seek me and find me
when you search for me with all your heart. Listen, the Bible
doesn't say men can't seek God. It says they won't seek God. They can't because they won't.
They will not. That's what it says. They will
not seek Him. There are many examples of men
who did seek Him and found Him. The wise men I preached on not
long ago from the East, only a star to guide them, But they
came seeking him that was born King of the Jews, and they found
him. The Greeks who came to the disciples,
and their comment was this, Sirs, we would see Jesus. Would you
tell us how we can see? Zacchaeus ran ahead and climbed
up in a tree. For what purpose? To see the
Lord. The woman with the issue of blood,
Been sick 11 years, nobody could help her. She said, if I, if
I can just touch the hem of his garment, I'll be made whole.
And she came crawling and reached out and touched it. What was
she doing? Seeking the Lord, seeking mercy. The eunuch who had journeyed
all the way to, all the way to Jerusalem, Riding
in a bumpy chariot. Why? Seeking the Lord. Seeking
the Lord. And on his way back, reading
Isaiah, didn't know what it meant, didn't know what it said, didn't
know who the man was, but he wanted to know. sent for Peter and said, you
come down here and tell us about the Lord, would you? I tell you,
a man can seek the Lord if he's a sinner and he wants to know
the Lord. He'll come and sit and listen
to a man and he'll keep coming till he either hates it or loves
it. That's right, if he's serious. Where would a person seek the
Lord? Seek Him in His Word. Seek Him in the preaching of
the Word. Find somebody that's preaching the Word. Seek Him
among people who know Him. That's a good way to find out
who He is, is hang around somebody that knows Him. And then seek Him continually. Tell you the third thing a man
can do. A sinner can do. I wouldn't say
nothing. I'd say he can take his place
as a sinner. Christ came to save sinners.
Secondly, he can seek the Lord, hear the Word. Thirdly, he can
ask God to save him. I actually talked to a person
one time that told me, this person said, I don't know the Lord.
I'd like to. I'd like to know the Lord. But I said, you've
been coming and listening to me preaching a long time. He
said, I know it. But you're not saved now. I said,
have you ever asked the Lord to save you? No. I said, you haven't asked Him
to? He said, no. I said, why don't you ask Him? He said, ask
and you'll receive. Knock and it'll be open. Seek
and you'll find. You have not because you ask
not. Have you ever fallen on your knees and said, Lord, like
the public, and saved me? Have mercy. Bartimaeus did. Yeah, but he
was blind. So are you! And he was in trouble. So are
you! See, if you don't know the Lord, and everybody tried to
hush him up, he wouldn't hush. Jesus, Son of David, don't leave
here without helping me. The leper did. Our Lord came
down from the mountain. This man just covered with leprosy.
Went up to him, fell on his face, said, Lord, if you will, you
can make me whole. Wouldn't you? The Lord Jesus said, I will.
I can't think of anything else he'd say, can you? I can't think
of anything else a loving, gracious, merciful Christ would say to
a man who sincerely and earnestly and truthfully, a woman, said,
Lord, I'm a sinner. Would you save me? The faith did. Preacher, you make the gospel
of grace sound like a beggar's religion. That's exactly what
it is. Let me read you what Ruth said
about that. She said, The Lord bringeth up the low, lifteth
up the low, raiseth up the poor and the needy out of the dust.
The Lord lifts the beggar from the dunghill and sets him among
princes and makes him inherit the throne of glory. It's a beggar's
religion. and beggars fall at the feet
of Christ and seek mercy. The next thing a sinner can do,
the fourth thing, is he can walk in the light that God gives him.
You know, Paul said to Timothy, he said, you know, from a child
you have known the Holy Scriptures able to make you wise unto salvation.
And you boys and girls here, I'm talking to some 6, 5, 7,
12, 10, 15, 16, listen. You've heard. You've
heard the truth, at least here. That's what Brandon told me that
I'm on. We're going to baptize Brandon Shively tonight. He's
going to confess Christ after I get through preaching. And
he grew up hearing the gospel. He heard my son Paul preach since
he was, what, 10 years old? He told me this. I've been sitting
here listening to you, I've been down here listening to Brother
Tom. And I heard it here, I heard it here, and I believed it here.
He said, I'd get mad when I went somewhere and they didn't preach
this truth. He said, I didn't really believe it, but I'd get
mad if they didn't preach it. But he said, this past few days,
the Lord's revealed it to my heart. It's not just up here
now, it's down here. I've heard and heard and heard
and heard, and now I've heard it. Well, let me tell you something.
You wouldn't hear it now if you hadn't heard and heard and heard.
That's right. You see what I'm saying? And
you children, walk in the light you've got. Your mommas and daddies
have told you the truth. Your pastors told you the truth.
This is the truth. This is the gospel. There's no
other gospel. This is the gospel. And if God hadn't been pleased
yet to reveal it to you, by his grace he will, in his own time. in his own time, salvations of
the Lord. But now you can walk in the light you have. That centurion
that had the son, you know, that demon possessed, and he said,
Lord, if you can do anything, help him. You remember he said,
Lord, if you can do anything, help him. Your disciples couldn't,
but if you can do, well, the Lord turned it around and said,
if you can believe, If you can believe, all things are possible
to them that believe. And he broke down and cried.
He said, Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief. I do believe. Not too strongly, but I believe.
I don't know everything I want to know, but please tell me some
more. Help my unbelief. You remember that man with the
withered hand? Walk in the light you have. Stay in that light.
Do what God tells you to do. and wait on the Lord. But that
man with a withered hand had never used that hand, and Christ
said to him, Stretch out your hand. He couldn't, but he did,
and it was awful. With the command comes the ability. There's a man lying on a bed
38 years by the well, by the fountain. that pool, Bethesda. And the Lord came by and said,
would you be made whole? Would you? He said, Lord, he
said, but I don't have anybody to help me into the pool. I'm
crippled, and by the time I get there, somebody else is beating
me to it. He said, why don't you take up
your bed and walk there? He couldn't, but he did. And that's what happens
in one of these days. Walking in the light you have, you'll get more. Do what He told
you to do. And then here's the last thing
I'm going to say. If anybody asks you next week, what must
I do to be saved? You tell them. You can take your
place as a sinner. God saves sinners. You can seek
the Lord. You seek Him with all your heart,
you'll find Him. You'll be found in Him. You can ask Him to save
you. You can get in your closet and
shut the door and ask God to, like the publican in the temple,
like the thief on the cross, like old Barnabas, Jesus, son
of David, have mercy on me. Like the leper, Lord, if you
will, you can make me whole. And you can walk in the light
that God's given you. You know who He is, at least
up here. You know these things. Now walk
in them. And last of all, And here's the greatest key. Turn
to Isaiah 45. Isaiah 45. In Isaiah chapter
45, you see, you don't have to be
a theologian to be saved. You don't have to be a Bible
scholar to be saved. You have to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. You ask me, do you think so-and-so
is saved because he believes on the Lord Jesus Christ? Well,
yes. That's all there is to believe on Christ. And that's what he
said here in Isaiah 45. Listen to this. Here's the fifth
thing. You can look to Christ. You can
look to Christ. In Isaiah 45, verse 20, Now assemble
yourselves, and come, draw near together, you that are escaped
of the nations. They have no knowledge that set
up the wood of their graven images. Those folks are not very smart.
They've got no knowledge. And those that pray to a God
that can't save, He wants to, but He can't, well, they have
no knowledge. Tell ye and bring them near,
yea, let them take counsel together, all of them. Who hath declared
this from ancient times? Who hath told it from that time?
The coming of a Redeemer, the coming of Christ, the cross.
Have not I the Lord? I told this from ancient times.
This is the gospel before there was a world. This is the gospel
before there was a center. Have not I told it from ancient
times? And there's no God else beside me. I'm a just God. I'm
a Savior. There's none beside me. So look
to me and be your Savior. All the ends of the earth. I'm
God. There's none else. Look to Christ. But I can't see Him. I can't see, but you know, that's
the reason a lot of religious people give some people something
they can see or something they can feel. Like that fella sent
me that cross that time to carry around in my pocket when I got
down in the spirit, just reach and feel on it, you know, and
get lifted up. That's right. He listened to
me on television. He said I was one of his favorite
preachers, me and Jimmy Swigert. I can't see." He didn't say,
see, he said, look. He did not say you had to see.
He said, you look to me and be saved. And I'll show you an illustration
of that. I found this in the book of Jonah.
Just let me read it to you. Jonah, listen, Jonah was down
in the whale's belly. He couldn't see anything. You
talk about darkness, you talk about the impossibility of even
knowing the direction where anything was. And there he was. And he says in verse 1 of chapter
2, Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly.
And he said, I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord.
That's what we need to do. And he heard me. Out of the belly
of hell I cried, and he heard me. For thou hast cast me into
the deep, into the midst of the seas, and the floods compassed
me about, all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. And
I said, I'm cast out of thy sight, O Lord. Yet I will look again
toward thy holy temple." He couldn't see anything. What kind of looking
was he talking about? I don't know how to explain.
I don't know how to explain that. I just know this. He looked to
him. And like I told you this morning,
he wasn't that far from him either. Because he said, I'll send him
into heaven, dart there. If I make my bed in hell, dart
there. In the grave, dart there. If I take the wings in the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even in a fish belly,
dart there. So what I'm going to do, Lord,
is just look to you. I looked. And you know something,
he lived. So that's my, that's it. Look to him. Come humble sinner in whose breast
a thousand fears revolve. Come with your guilt and your
fears oppressed and make this firm resolve. I'll look to Jesus. Though my sin hath like a mountain
rose, I know his courts I'll enter in whatever may oppose.
For prostrate I'll lie before his throne, and there my guilt
confess. I'll tell him I'm a wretch undone
without his sovereign grace. Now I can but perish if I go,
but I'm resolved to try. For if I do not look to Him,
I must forever die. So sinner, talking this one right
here, look to Christ and be you saved. All the ends are there.
See, He's God. He's God and there's none else.