Here's the subject today. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Now, we're
turning to Acts chapter 16. I'll be reading two verses, verses
30 and 31. Acts 16. Listen to the Scripture. He brought them out, speaking
of the Philippian jailer, and he says, Sirs, what must I do
to be saved? And they said, Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house. And my
friends, one of the complaints, and this is a legitimate complaint,
one of the complaints against modern preachers is that they
call upon men and women to believe, to believe, but they do not tell
them what to believe. Now that's a legitimate complaint.
I hear preachers on television, I hear them in other places,
radio and other places, and they continually call on men and women
to believe, to believe, to believe. But they fail to tell them what
to believe. And preachers continually talk
about faith. They talk about faith, among
other things, but they seldom define faith. They seldom instruct
sinners in the doctrines of faith. And they seldom clearly preach
Jesus Christ, our Lord, who is the object of faith. Now, if
you were to ask me this morning, what must I do to be saved? If you just directly put that
question to me, you and I are talking one-on-one, and you look
at me and you say, well, tell me, just tell me, what must I
do to be saved? Well, my friend, I could not
improve on the reply of the Apostle Paul to the same question. This
Philippian jailer is asking Paul the same question. He said to
Paul and Silas, 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. Believe, believe, faith in believing. The Scripture says in Ephesians
2, 8 and 9 clearly, listen to this, For by grace, that is,
by the grace of God, have you been saved through faith." Salvation
is through faith. It's by the grace of God, but
it's through faith. And that's not of yourselves.
Faith is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should
boast. Hebrews 11, 6 plainly declares, without faith, it's
impossible to please God. He that cometh to God must, must
believe that he is. and that he's the reward of them
that diligently seek him. So faith, vital. Faith, important. Faith, imperative. Faith, essential. Salvation through faith, by grace,
through faith. But, now, I'm going to take the
time today to tell you what is involved in faith, what is involved
in believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, what must I
do to be saved? And I reply, believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's not sufficient. I'm going
to have to define believing. I'm going to have to instruct
you in the things that are to be believed. And I'm telling
you this, believing is not just to believe there's one God. James
says in James 2.19, you believe there's one God, you do well. The devil believes that. For
the more he trembles. And believing is not just to
believe that Jesus Christ lived on the earth, died on a cross,
and was buried and rose again. Everybody who witnessed the crucifixion
also was aware of those other facts. That he lived. The one
who died lived. And the one who died was buried.
The one who was buried rose again. And they all knew those things.
They all knew those things. And so that doesn't constitute
faith alone. It's involved in faith, no question
about that, but that's not the extent of faith. And then it's
not just to believe that Christ was a good man. Nicodemus said
that. We know your teacher come from
God. We know you're a healer. We know you're a miracle worker.
This thing of believing on Christ is not just to acknowledge some
of his characteristics or some of his attributes. Well, preacher,
what is it to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? You say, in
order to be saved, I must believe. Now watch this. He said, what
must I do to be saved? Now listen carefully. Believe
on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now you think a little
bit, and you listen to me, and I'm saying this. What we are
to believe, what we are to believe in order to be saved, is clearly
set forth in the name, the very name that we just declared. It
wasn't just belief. It was belief on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And it wasn't just belief on
Jesus. It was belief on the Lord Jesus Christ. He clearly, clearly
set forth that full name. He said to that trembling jailer,
in order to be saved, you believe on the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And what we are to believe is
set forth right there in that name. And I'll show you this
in other places in the Scripture. Romans 10, 13 says, Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord, the name of the Lord shall
be saved. Another Scripture says there's
none other name, name unto heaven given among men whereby we must
be saved. Listen to Luke 24. The Master
is speaking here, and he says to his apostles, Thus it is written,
And thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead
the third day, that repentance and remission of sin should be
preached in his name, in his name among all nations. Do you see what I'm saying? The
name. There's none other name unto
heaven. Believe on the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. What we're saying is this, my
friend, that all of his character, His work, His redemptive work,
His glory, His offices, His redemptive glory is set forth in that name. You can't have half a Christ
or a third of a Christ or a part of a Christ. You've got to have
the whole Christ. And when that trembling jailer
fell at the feet of Paul and Silas and says, what must I do
to be saved? Paul knew exactly what he was
saying. He knew what was incorporated in this reply. He said, if you
believe, if you can believe, if you are enabled to believe,
if God grants you the faith to believe on the name, on the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll be saved, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, let's break that down, show
you what Paul is saying. And I'm sure Paul did break it
down to him and teach him more perfectly the Word of God. But
first of all, he's called the Lord. He's called the Lord. This one in whom we're to believe,
this one upon whom we're to trust, is called the Lord. Not a Lord,
not some Lord, not any Lord. The one and only Lord. The Lord our God. That's what
we're saying. Thomas summed it up. When Thomas
fell at his feet, he called Him what He is. He called Him, My
Lord and My God. And the Lord Jesus Christ said
himself, you call me Lord, you say well, for so I am. And Paul
later on said, if you confess with your mouth Jesus to be Lord,
that's who he is, he's the Lord. And God hath made him Lord and
Christ. And God hath given him a name
above every name, that every knee should bow and every tongue
shall confess that he's what? The Lord. Not a good man, not
a prophet only. Not a healer or a great teacher,
but the Lord. Now that's who He is. He's the
Lord. What have we here in the name
Lord? Believe on the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. What have we here in the name
Lord? First you have His deity. His deity. I and my Father are
one. There's only one Lord. Israel,
the Lord our God, is one God. The Lord our God is one God.
And He is the Lord. Paul speaking to the elders as
he was about to leave them, he said, now you feed the church
of God. You feed the church of God, which He purchased with
His own blood. Who purchased it? God did. It's
His church and He bought it. It's His blood, He shed it. It's
His people, He redeemed them. You feed the church of God, which
God purchased with His own blood. Jesus Christ is God. The Father
said to Him, Thy throne, O God, is forever. So I'm saying this,
believe on the Lord, on the name of the Lord, is to declare your
confidence in His deity. And not only that, but in His
eternality. In His eternality, John said,
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 this Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us. Our Lord Jesus Christ prayed,
Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with Thee before
the world was, His eternality. He said, before Abraham was,
I am. Moses said, when God spoke to
him out of the burning bush, way back down in Genesis and
Exodus, when God spoke to him from the burning bush, He said,
well, do you want me to go down there and tell Pharaoh to let
Israel go? Whom shall I say has sent me? And God said, tell Pharaoh,
I am hath sent thee. I am. And that's what Jesus Christ
is saying here. Before Abraham was, I am. And if you believe not that I
am, you shall die in your sins. And when they said to him in
the garden, we seek Jesus at Nazareth, he said, I am. And they fell backward. Believe
on the name of the Lord. That's his deity, his eternality,
and his authority. His authority. The Lord has authority
by decree, by design, and by death. He died that he might
be Lord of the dead and the living. He said, the Father has given
me authority over all flesh, saved and lost, old and young,
white and black. that I should give eternal life
to as many as thou hast given me." He said in Isaiah 7, 14,
the Lord himself will give you a sign. A virgin shall be with
child, and thou shalt call his name Immanuel, God with us. That's what I'm saying, God with
us. And in Isaiah 9, 6, he declared
this, under us a child is born, under us a son is given. And
his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the
Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." He is the Father. He is the Son. That's right. The Father revealed Himself in
the person of His Son. Now that's the first thing we're
saying. This thing, what am I to believe? Say, what must I do
to be saved? Believe on the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that word, Lord, indicates
his deity, his eternality, and his authority, and his power. All right? Secondly, Jesus. Now,
when the angel came to Joseph and told him that Mary was with
child, he said to Joseph, don't be afraid to take Mary to be
your wife. For that holy thing which is
conceived in her is conceived by the Holy Ghost. And I shall
call his name Jesus. Jesus. And that's what he's called
all the way through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, through
the four Gospels. He's called Jesus of Nazareth. He's called
Jesus of Galilee. He's called Jesus. And that word
Jesus is the Old Testament word Joshua. And it's Savior. And his name is Jesus, which
denotes and reveals his humanity. His humanity. When we believe
the foundation of our faith is the Lord Jesus, God became a
man. God became a man. Jesus Christ
is a man. I can't explain this to you.
I just know the Scripture declares it. That Jesus Christ is very
God of very God. He said, I and my Father are
one. He's as much God, He's equal with the Father. He's as much
God as if He were not man at all. And He's a man, that's right,
so complete a man, so fully a man in a man's nature, tempted, tried,
tested in all points as we are, yet without sin, as much as if
He were not God at all. He's the God-man. God took upon
Himself human flesh. There are two atoms, and God
considers everybody in these two atoms. In the first atom
we died. In the second atom we'll have
made a life. By man came death. By man, the God-man, came resurrection
from the dead. That's right. By one man's disobedience,
we were made sinners. By the other man's obedience,
we were made righteous. As we have borne the image of
the first Adam, we'll bear the image of the second Adam. The
first Adam is of the earth earthy, and the second Adam is the Lord
from heaven. Jesus, a human being. That's right. Believe on the
name of the Lord. He's God. deity, eternality,
authority, absolute God, eternal God, Jesus, a man. That's his name of humanity.
Not only that, but his name of humiliation. Humiliation. He was despised and rejected
of men. A man as sour as acquainted with
grief. His humiliation started right there in that Bethlehem's
manger. There was no room for him in
the inn. That's humiliation. He was born when he came into
this world, when his mother gave birth to this child. He wasn't
put in a fine cradle in some hospital somewhere. He was born
in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.
That's right. Surrounded by cattle and sheep
and oxen and shepherds and poor people. That's humiliation. The
king has humbled himself. And all the way through his life
he worked in a carpenter's shop. He owned no property. He owned
only one garment. He wore a seamless robe. Our
Lord Jesus Christ's friends were publicans and sinners. Let this
mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who thought
it not robbery to be equal with God, yet made himself of no reputation,
took upon himself the form of a servant, and became obedient
unto death, even the death of a cross." Humiliation. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. That's right. That's his name
of humiliation. And that's his name of obedience. Obedience. That's how he gave us a perfect
righteousness. As a man, he obeyed God's law.
As a man, he was tempted and tried. And these temptations
were real, or the obedience wasn't real. These temptations were
real, or the righteousness is not real. And Jesus is his name
of obedience. And this is His name in death,
His substitutionary name. He's Joshua, He's Jesus. He redeemed
His people. He's their Savior. So when I
say, believe, you say, what must I do to be saved? And I reply
the same thing that Paul replied. Believe on the name. It's all
in the name. The whole story's in the name.
The whole foundation's in the name. The whole gospel's in the
name. The whole message is in the name.
He's the Lord. He's Jesus. You see what I'm
saying? He's the God-man. He's the God-man. Now watch this. He's the Christ. Lord Jesus Christ. He's the Lord
Jesus Christ. You can't have Him as Jesus if
you don't bow to Him as Lord. You can't have Him as Jesus if
you don't see Him as the Christ. That's right. He's the Lord Jesus
Christ. Here you have His office. In
the name Lord, you have his Godhead, you have his deity, his eternality,
his authority. In the name Jesus, you have his
humanity, you have his humiliation, you have his obedience, you have
his death, you have his submission. In the name Christ, you have
his office. He's the ordained one of God, the Christ, the Christ,
the Messiah. He's the anointed one. He's the
one the Father promised. He's the one the Father prophesied.
He's the one the Father sent. The Old Testament, all the way
from Genesis 3.15. For 39 books, it says someone's
coming. Someone's coming. Someone called
the Christ. Someone, Job, called Him the
Redeemer. Jeremiah called Him the Branch.
Jacob called Him Shallow. Moses called Him that Prophet.
And I'll tell you, He's the Christ. Now, the word Christ is the Messiah. He's the Redeemer. In other words,
when the disciples found Him, one of them said to the other,
We found Him of whom Moses wrote. Is not this the Christ? And when
they went out to the wilderness to hear John the Baptist, they
said, Are you the Christ? He said, No, I'm not the Christ.
They said, Well, who are you? He said, I'm a voice in the wilderness
crying, Make straight the path for our God. Are you the Christ? The woman at the well talking
to Jesus of Nazareth said, we know that the Christ is coming.
And when he comes, the Messiah, the Christ, he's going to tell
us all things. And our Lord said, I am he. I
am the Christ. The Pharisees came to him one
day and said, if you be the Christ, tell us plainly. Are you the
Christ? And he said, I told you, but you didn't believe me. You
didn't believe me because you're not of my sheep. My sheep hear
my voice, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life."
My friends, He is the Christ. He's the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Christ is the Anointed
One. The Christ is the Redeeming One. The Christ is the Emancipator. The Christ is the One who would
set us free. In John chapter 20, verse 31,
listen to this scripture. But these are written that you
might believe that Jesus is the Christ. He is the Christ. and believing you might have
life through his name." Do you hear that again? Through his
name. These things are written that
you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and believing you might have life through his name. It's in
the name. There's none other name under
heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. It's the Lord
Jesus Christ. And when that Philippian jailer
came trembling and fell at the feet of Paul and Silas and said,
What must I do to be saved? Paul declared the whole gospel
message in that one sentence, Believe on the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. One day our Lord said to His
apostles, Whom do men say that I am? Whom do men say that I
am? And they said, Well, some say
you're John the Baptist, and some say you're Elijah, and some
say you're one of the prophets. They've got all kind of compliments
dropped your way, and he said, But whom do you say that I am? And what Peter replied, Thou
art the Christ. Thou art the Christ, none other
than the Christ, the Son of the living God. And our Lord Jesus
said, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona. Flesh and blood didn't
reveal that to you, but my Father which is in heaven. And John
wrote in 1 John 2.22, Who is a liar? For it's serious to call
a man a liar, isn't it? Well, he said, who is a liar?
But he that denies that Jesus is the Christ. He's an antichrist and denies
both Father and Son. You see what I'm saying? And
that's what I'm doing. I'm defining this word believe.
What must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The name. of the Lord Jesus Christ
reveals his character, reveals his redemptive work, reveals
his glory, reveals his office, and salvation is to believe,
salvation is to receive him as he is in all of that office work,
Lord Jesus Christ. Now let me say a few words about
the person to whom these instructions were given. It was a man in trouble.
Here was a man who had beaten these apostles. He was a pagan,
a heathen, a Gentile. And he'd beaten these apostles
and cast them into prison and gone out there and sat down and
gone to sleep. He was the keeper of the prison. They were given
under his care. He was in charge. And that night
God sent an earthquake. and shook the prison, literally
shook the doors off the cells, and shook the chains off the
arms and legs of Paul and Silas and the other prisoners, but
Paul and Silas didn't leave the jail, they just stayed right
in there. And the jailer awakened out of his sleep, and he saw
the doors open, he saw the earthquake had shaken the doors off, And
thinking that the prisoners had fled, he took his sword and was
going to kill himself, because he was responsible for these
men. If they were gone, it was his problem. He was in trouble,
and he would have killed himself. And Paul said to him, Do thyself
no harm, we're all here. And he was startled. And he came
in, and he fell down at the feet of these men. And he cried, Well,
what must I do to be saved? What must I do to be saved? And
Paul delivered this good news to a man in trouble, a man in
trouble. And I'm telling you this, the
good news of salvation in Christ and deliverance in the Lord Jesus
Christ is only good news to those in trouble. Are you in trouble?
Have you ever been in trouble? What kind of trouble are you
talking about, preacher? I'm talking about are you in trouble
with the law of God. You are, whether you know it or not. The
Scripture said, Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things
written in the book of the law to do them, and to offend in
one point of the law is to be guilty of the whole law. And
all its sin comes short of the glory of God. So we're in trouble
with the law of God. And not only that, we're in trouble
with the justice of God. Be sure your sins will find you
out. The soul that sinneth shall surely
die. God will by no means cleanse
the guilty. And not only we're in trouble,
but we're helpless to do anything about our troubles. Jeremiah
said, can the Ethiopian change his skin? You reckon he can?
No, he can't. Can the leopard change his spots? Well, you know he can't. And
neither can you do good. There's none good, no, not one.
There's none that understandeth. There's none that seeketh after
God. Even our wills are in bondage to sin because Christ said, you
will not come to me that you might have life. Well, Paul found
a man in trouble, and he set forth for that man the only way
out of his trouble, and that was to believe on the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm saying that to everyone
out there today who's in trouble with the law of God, who's in
trouble with the justice of God, who has no power or ability to
satisfy the holiness of God, who knows there's no way out
except by God's grace, I'm saying to you, here's the way. Here's
the only way. Here's the way by the authority
of God's Word. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved. 1 John 5, 11 says, this is the
record. God hath given to us eternal
life, and this life's in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he that hath the Son of God
hath life. He that hath not the Son of God
hath not life. Now, if you want a good definition
of faith, I'll give it to you. One of the best I've ever found
anywhere. It's in 2 Timothy 1, 12, in which Paul says, I'm not
ashamed. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed.
I know whom I have believed. I know who he is. He's the Lord. He's Jesus the man. He's the
Christ ordained of God. I know who he is. And I'm confident,
I'm persuaded that he's able to do all that He promised. He's
able to present me faultless before His throne with exceeding
joy. He's able to keep me from falling. He's able to raise my
vile bodies. He's able, He's able to keep
that which I've what? Committed to Him. Committed to
Him. So faith is to know Him. It's
to trust Him. And it's to commit ourselves
to Him. And that's what I'm saying. It's to trust Christ. The hymn
writer says, Plenteous grace with Him is found. Grace to cover
all my sins. Let the healing streams abound,
cleanse and make me pure within." To trust Him, to receive Him,
to confess Him, confess Him, and then, my friend, to rest
in Him, to rest in Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. Now, I have these
two messages on a cassette tape. Two messages on one tape. On
one side, I have the message that I preached recently, the
gospel is a command, not merely an invitation. And I deal there
in that message with a controversial subject, but a very important
subject. The gospel is a command. If you
didn't hear that message, it's on this particular tape. On this
side is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
And I, in this message, define faith. Don't just say believe,
but what is it to believe? So these two messages are on
one tape, and we'll send it to you by return mail for $2. Send a $2 donation, we'll mail
you this tape. Until next week, at this same
time, God bless you, everyone.