I'm going to read a passage of
scripture from the book of Acts, the 16th chapter of Acts. And
I'll begin reading with verse 22 and read through verse 34. I've got an unusual subject today,
but I think interesting. I think it'll be very helpful
to you if you listen carefully to the whole message. The title
of this message is Some Questions. some questions the Philippian
jailer may have asked Paul. Some questions the Philippian
jailer may have asked Paul. You suppose that the only question
he asked Paul was, what must I do to be saved? Did he not
have other questions? Let's read the story. Beginning
with verse 22 of Acts 16, and the multitude rose up together.
And the magistrates rent off their clothes and commanded the
apostles to be beaten. And when they'd laid many stripes
upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer,
the jailer. Now that's the first time we've
run across this man's name or his business, who he was, the
jailer. Charging the jailer to keep them
and not let them go. who having received that charge
thrust them into the dungeon, 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. Suddenly there was a great earthquake
so that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately
all the doors of the prison were open and every prisoners bands
loosed and The jailer here he is again and the jailer Awaking
out of his sleep. He wasn't under conviction He
wasn't out there listening to Paul sing these hymns or Psalms
and pray he was asleep The man was asleep. Awaking out of his
sleep and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword.
Here's a man on the verge of committing suicide. The magistrate
had instructed him to keep these men in the dungeon and not let
them escape, and he thought they were all gone. And he knew being
responsible for their safekeeping, he would be slain. So he was
going to do it himself. He took out his sword and would
have killed himself, supposing the prisoners had fled. But Paul
cried with a loud voice, wait, do thyself no harm. We're all
here. And then the jailer called for
a light, came into the dungeon, trembling. Fell down before Paul
and Silas and said sirs what must I do to be saved and Paul
replied believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved
in thy house now watch these next verses and They spake unto
him the word of the Lord and to all that were in his house
and And he took them the same night and washed their stripes,
gave them food. He brought them into his house
and set meat before them and was baptized, he and all his,
believing in God with all his house. Now, you know, I've heard
a lot of sermons on the Philippian jailer, and I know you have too.
And it's about as far as most folks go on this matter of the
conversion of the Philippian jailer is to tell about his frightening
experience in the earthquake and his question, what must I
do to be saved? But I just know, I just know
that that evening he spent with the Apostle Paul, he spent a
whole evening in his home with the greatest preacher who ever
lived outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. He spent a whole evening
in his home with the man who left the deepest mark on the
human race of any man except Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul. And I know he must have had question
after question after question. The scripture says he took Paul
and Silas into his house. He ministered to them. He washed
their stripes. He tended their wounds. The scripture
said that he set food before them and entertained them at
his table. The scripture says that Paul preached to him, taught
him the word of God and all that were in his household. So what
must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
is certainly not the whole conversation between the Philippian jailer
and the Apostle Paul, because I'll tell you this, a man can't
call on him in whom he has not believed, and a man cannot believe
in him of whom he has not heard. So I'm sure the Philippian jailer,
and men are no different, If I'd have been born 2,000 years
ago, I might have been the Philippian jailer. And so I know there were
some questions. There would be some questions
that I would have for the Apostle Paul. This man was an ignorant
Gentile, and he was awakened by the power of God, and he was
seeking mercy, and he asked Paul some questions, and I have what
I believe to be the questions that he would have asked the
Apostle Paul. I want to give them to you today. First of all,
as he and Paul sat in his house at the table or in the family
room, he would say to Paul, you said
to me that salvation, I ask you, what must I do to be saved? And
you said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And you say that
salvation is by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Who is
the Lord Jesus Christ? Now you just tell me, who is
Jesus Christ? And I believe that Paul would
say to him, well, first of all, his very name indicates his person. The Lord Jesus Christ, Lord meaning
God Almighty. There's one Lord, one faith and
one baptism, one Lord, the God of heaven and earth. You know,
the scripture says in Isaiah 9, 6, unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given. A child is born, a son is given. You say, preacher, is that the
same thing? No, that's not the same thing. A child is born from
a woman's womb who never lived on this earth before. A child
is born. When a woman gives birth to a
child, that's the first time that child has seen the light
of day or day has seen the child. A child is born. But he says,
and a son is given. In the body of that child that's
born, a woman, there's a son, not born, but given. Christ wasn't
created or born. He's the only begotten Son of
God, with God from the beginning. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and all things
were made by Him. Without Him was not anything
made, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. He's the
Lord. Isaiah said, Emmanuel, God with
us, Lord. And then he's named Jesus. He's
Lord Jesus. Lord, son of God, Jesus, son
of man. When the angel appeared to Joseph,
he said, fear not to take unto thee Mary to be thy wife. That
holy thing conceived in her is the son of God. And she shall
bring forth a son, and thou shalt call the name of that son, who
is the Son of God and the Son of man, Jesus. Jesus. For he shall save. Jesus. The New Testament word Jesus
is the Old Testament word Joshua. And Joshua is God, my Savior,
Savior, Savior. Call His name Jesus, Savior. Joshua, God, my Savior. God,
my Savior. You see that? He shall save His
people from their sins. Christ. As He talked to the Philippian
jailer, He said, He's the Lord. The Lord, our God, is one God.
Three persons, one God. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, but
one God. He's the Lord. He's Jesus, the man, son of man.
And he's the Christ. You see, the Christ is not a
name, it's an office. Jesus, the Christ. He said to
the religious people, what think ye of Christ? What think ye of
the Christ? And they said, he's the son of
David. Yes, he's the seed of woman. He's the seed of Abraham. He's the root of Jesse. He's
the lion of the tribe of Judah. And he's the son of David. Jesus
Christ is the Messiah. He's the Redeemer. He's the Christ. God said to Moses, from among
the people, I'll raise up a prophet like unto you, him you shall
hear. He'll speak my words. Christ is that prophet. He is
the priest after the order of Melchizedek. He is the king like
David. He's prophet, priest, and king.
You see, in the Old Testament, there were prophets, there were
priests, and there were kings. No man ever held all three of
those offices. They were all types and pictures
of Christ. When Christ came, He's our prophet to reveal God. He's our priest to redeem us
from sin. He's our king to reign over us.
Prophet, priest, and king. That's who He is. He's the Christ.
He's the Christ. The angels of God announced His
birth. They said, unto you is born this
day, unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior,
Christ the Lord. And then the angels announced
his resurrection. He's not here, he's risen. And
then when he ascended to heaven, the angels said to the disciples,
this same Jesus will come again. Well, the man would sit there
and he'd say, I'm seeing what you're saying. I have another
question. You say he's the Christ, the Messiah, the Redeemer, the
promised one, the prophesied one, the pictured one. He's prophet,
priest, and king. He's the Messiah, the Savior
of the world. That's right. That's right. He
is the one for whom we look. Then I ask you this question.
Who appointed him to this office? Did he take it upon himself?
Who says he's the Messiah? Who says he's the Redeemer? Who
says he's the Christ? Moses didn't appoint himself
prophet. God did. Avon didn't make himself
high priest, God did. David didn't even make himself
king. No man taketh this office or
honor unto himself, but he that's called of God. David did not
make himself king. So also Christ glorified not
himself to be made the high priest, but he who said unto him, thou
art my son. This day have I begotten thee. God made him our high priest.
Scripture says in Hebrews 10, 4, Wherefore, when he cometh
into the world, he saith, A body thou hast prepared me. Lo, I
come to do thy will, O God, by the which will we're sanctified
through the offering of that body of Jesus Christ once and
for all. Who appointed him the Messiah?
The Father. Who sent him? In the fullness
of time, God sent forth, made of a woman, made under the law,
his own son to redeem us who were born under the law. God
sent him. God made him high priest. God
made him the Christ. He said, I come not to do my
will, but the will of him that sent me. Who sent him? As my
father sent me, I send you. Well, I have another question. I see He's the Lord Jesus Christ. I see that God the Father appointed
Him, anointed Him, ordained Him, sent Him. What did He do when He came?
You say He came to the earth. He lived on this earth. What
was the purpose for His coming? Did He come as a reformer? Did
He fail? Did he come as a king who was
rejected? Why did he come into this world?
What was the purpose for his coming into this world? For God
becoming a man, for God taking upon himself the form and likeness
of sinful flesh. Why did he do that? Paul would
say, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation
that Christ Jesus, the Lord, came into this world to save
sinners, to save sinners, to redeem sinners, to deliver sinners
of whom I'm chief. That's why he came. He would
say Christ said himself, I'm not come to condemn the world,
but that the world through me might be saved. The world's already
condemned. I am come that they might have
life. I am come that they might have life. That's why I'm come. And have it more abundantly.
He said that the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the
lost. The Apostle Peter said Christ has suffered for sins
and just for the unjust that he might bring us to God. And
in 2 Corinthians 5, 19, it says, God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself. While our Lord was here on this
earth, he went about doing good. He healed the sick. He gave sight
to the blind. He made the lame to walk. He
opened deaf ears. He raised the dead. But these
acts of mercy were done to illustrate his spiritual mercies to sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ came not
just to cause a blind man to see physically. He illustrated
why he came by that deed. He came to make those spiritually
blind to see, to see the glory of God, the mercy of God. He came that spiritually deaf
men may hear. Blessed are your ears, he said,
they hear. He said, the natural man has
eyes, but he does not see. He has ears, but he does not
hear. He has a heart, but he does not understand. But when
Christ opens our eyes and opens our ears, we see and we hear.
He came that the spiritually dead might live. When he stood
outside the grave of Lazarus, who had been dead four days and
was corrupted by that time, four days he had lain in the tomb. And Christ said, Lazarus, come
forth. And he came walking out. He did that to illustrate the
fact that the Son quickeneth the dead. They that are dead
in sin hear His voice and live. He came that the spiritually
lame might walk. All of these physical miracles
but illustrate His spiritual miracles. It took a miracle to
put the stars in place. It took a miracle to put the
moon in space. But when He saved my soul, cleansed
and made me whole. That took a miracle of love and
grace. Why did he come? He came to seek
and to save the Lord. He came on a mission. He came
to perform a task. He came to redeem a people. I am come that they might have
life." That's why he came. He didn't come down here to set
up a kingdom. He didn't come down here to reform
the Roman government. He didn't come down here to make
the world a better place in which to live. He came to call out
of Adam's race of people and make them like unto himself.
He said, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were
of this world, my servants would fight. My kingdom is not of this
world. My kingdom is righteousness and
peace and to do the will of my father And that's why he came
to redeem a people Well You say that he came to earth to bring
us to God to save a people What did he do to bring us to God
what had to be done to save these people? Couldn't God just decide
that he was gonna overlook everything and make a people his own, take
them to heaven? No, sir. Christ had to come down
here and meet two obstacles. The two obstacles that stand
in the way of God redeeming sinners and forgiving sinners. One of
them is his law. And one of them is His justice.
You see, God is a holy God. He is holy. God is holy. That's what, and we're sinners.
God is light, we're darkness. God is truth, we're lies. We're
liars. All men are liars. God is life,
we're death. God is holy, we're unholy. We're
not like God. We're not like God. We've lost
the image of God. There's nothing about us from
the sole of our feet to the top of our heads is like God. We're
full of dead men's bones. We're putrid, running sores that
have not been mollified or bound up with ornament. There's nothing
good in us. And God being infinitely, incomprehensibly
holy, dwelling in a light to which no man can approach. And
Christ had to come down here in the dunghill and meet two
obstacles to take these beggars to the throne. First, he had
to meet the obstacle of God's law. The holy, unchangeable,
immutable, infinite, perfect law of God, immaculate law of
God is still in effect. Now, if you wanna go to heaven
by what you do, I'll tell you what you do. You keep God's law
perfectly. Perfectly in jot and tittle words
indeed But it can't be done It can't be done, but Christ did
it Christ did it Christ the man did it he came down here. Our
Lord came down here as a man Bone of our bone flesh of our
flesh born of a woman made under the law He was subject to the
law of the family the law of the land the law of the Levites
and the moral law of Moses and And he perfectly obeyed. He loved
God with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength, his neighbors,
himself. He was tempted in all points, yet without sin. He perfectly
pleased God Almighty. That's never been said of any
human being. But it had to be so. And he did it representatively. He did it as our federal head.
He did it as our substitute. He did it not for himself, but
for us. You see that? By one man's disobedience,
many were made sinners. That's Adam's fall. By one man's
obedience, we were made righteous. By Adam's disobedience, sin and
death, judgment passed upon us by Christ's obedience. It's just
two men, the first Adam and the second Adam. In Adam all die,
in Christ they're made alive. The first Adam is the man from
earth, red earth, Adam. The second man is the Lord from
heaven. As we have borne the image of
the earthly, we shall bear the image of the heavenly. That's
representation. Christ obeyed God's law. I have
a righteousness. You say, Preacher, you aren't
any more righteous than I am. You're right on that count. My
thoughts are like your thoughts. Imaginations are like yours.
But my righteousness is not my own, it's His. He did it for
me. He did it for all who believe.
We have the righteousness of God in Christ. He's our representative. That's the reason we lay hold
on Christ, believe in Christ, because he is our righteousness.
Read Romans 10, see if it doesn't say that. And Romans 4 uses the
word imputed nine times. Imputed, counted, and reckoned.
The second thing that Christ met, the second obstacle, was
the justice of God. God must and will punish sin. He said, I will in no wise clear
the guilty. The soul that sinneth shall die.
Have you ever sinned? Then you gotta die. Sin, when it's finished, bringeth
forth death. Do you believe that? God said that. That's why Christ
died. He came down here and he met
the law of God and obeyed it. And then at Calvary, he met the
justice of God. And the sword of God's justice
plunged into my substitute because he was made sin for us. He knew
no sin, but he bore our sins in his body on the tree, and
sin killed him, sin slew him. He made his soul an offering
for sin. And you say, well, why won't
we die? Because Christ has died. Why
won't we go to hell? Christ went to hell, not literally
into the lake of fire, but hell is to be separated from God,
and he was separated. My God, why is thou forsaken?
Christ did all this as a representative. I can't teach you that. I wish
I could. I can tell you, but the Holy Ghost has to teach you.
There are two words to learn in this thing of salvation. Substitution
and satisfaction. Christ, our substitute, in my
place. You boys that play ball, you
know what a substitute is. He goes in, you come out. You can't both be at the same
time. He's not a substitute not yours anyway, but when he goes
in you come out and when Christ came down here and met the law
and obeyed it He did it for me in my place in my stead when
he went to the cross. I came down He hung there in
my place and it's finished Well, I believe that man and
look at Paul and I believe he's He's liking what he hears I like
it. I Like what I hear That's my only hope. This sinner's only
hope is a substitute before a holy God. Well, why was all this necessary? Seemed like an awful price to
pay. It is. It is. But God's holy. And God sent Christ down here
in order that He might be holy and forgive folks like me and
you. In order that He might be just and justify the ungodly. That's why he did it. That's
why he did it. He died under our sins. He was
buried and rose again. Well, Paul, let me ask you this. He's the Son of God and the Son
of Man. He's the Messiah. He obeyed the law that we might
be righteous. He died that we might live. How
do I know that the Father accepted Him? Now, if I trust Christ and
believe Christ and rest in Christ and cast my soul upon Christ,
how do I know that the Father accepted Christ, Jesus? Paul would say, I'll tell you
how you know. In Acts 17.31, God hath appointed a day in which
He'll judge the world. in righteousness by that man
whom he hath ordained, whereof he has given assurance to all
men, in that he raised him from the dead." When Jesus Christ,
as my scapegoat, bore my sins and died and was put in that
tomb, if he's still there, then I'm still lost. My sins aren't
paid for and God's not satisfied. But when God Almighty raised
him from the dead, raised him from the dead, like this said,
he was giving assurance to the whole world that he had accepted
all that Christ did and all that Christ obeyed and all that Christ
performed. Back there in the Old Testament,
when the high priest went into the Holy of Holies once a year
with the blood to make an atonement on the mercy seat under the Shekinah
glory of God, how did the people out there outside the tabernacle
know that God had accepted the atonement? How did they know?
I'll tell you how they knew, when he came out of that Holy
of Holies. If he had not come out, if he
died in there, it would say God didn't accept it, but he came
out. And our Lord Jesus Christ went into the grave, but he came
out. Well, I have another question.
The man would say, where is he now? Well, Paul would say he's
at the right hand of the majesty on high. Well, what's he doing?
He's our forerunner. He has entered the veil, within
the veil for us. He's our advocate, pleading our
cause. He's our intercessor. He's our
mediator. He prays for us. Paul, have others
believed on him? Yes, sir. Other sinners like
me? Yes, sir. I believe, and I obtain
mercy. And if God can save me, he can
save any sinner. I have two messages on this tape.
This one, Questions the Jailer Asked, and the one I brought
last week on Saving Faith. Send $2. We'll send both messages
on one tape. God bless you. Till we meet again.