Salvation
Acts 16:25-34
The Doctrine of Salvation
I Salvation is a Work of God.
1Tim 2:3-6 “…God our Savior, 4 who desires all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and one mediator …the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave Himself as a ransom for all...”
• God’s plan and purpose is the salvation of all sinners, and we are all sinners.
• God’s mercy saves sinners. He withholds the eternal punishment that we deserve. Why do we deserve it? We are sinners. We have ALL sinned! Only Jesus lived a perfectly sinless life. Not even a bad thought!
• Salvation is a free gift from God. There is nothing we can do to earn our salvation. It is by grace. God giving us something we do not deserve. Eph 2:8–9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.”
Sadly, not everyone will be saved even though God desires it. The salvation God offers is conditional. It must be asked for and accepted. It is a possession that you hold in your heart. Is there anything God can’t do? He cannot and will not force you to accept His gift of salvation!
II Salvation involves Knowledge of the Truth.
This means you must be personally acquainted with the truth. It is this knowledge that leads to repentance. You understand you have sinned and are separated from God because of sin. This understanding leads you to faith in Jesus Christ as Savior. Together, repentance and faith are the two conditions of salvation.
III Salvation involves Action
It is faith that leads you to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. That is action. Baptism is a public pronouncement that you are a disciple of Christ. In Mark 16:16 the Bible says: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved.”
Saving faith that leads to repentance also leads you turn from your sinful ways. This is action! Repentance literally means turn around and go the other way. You will no longer have the desire to do the sinful things of the past. You may make a mistake or succumb to temptation, but it will not be your lifestyle. You will have the Holy Spirit living within you and He will help you when confronted with temptations. The fact that you are saved will cause you to take actions that will make your salvation known to everyone.
Having said all of that by way of introduction, let’s get to the scripture for today’s message. Acts 16:25-34.
“25 But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them; 26 and suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. 27 When the jailer awoke and saw the prison doors opened, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here!” 29 And he called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, 30 and after he brought them out, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house. 33 And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household. 34 And he brought them into his house and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with his whole household.”
So we see Paul and Silas in chains, in prison. And what do we see them doing? They are singing praises to God. If you want to see a true salvation experience, look to Paul. He was actually persecuting the Christian’s because he felt they were acting against everything he had ever been taught about the Scripture. And then he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. BTW, he was on his way to Damascus to look for Christian’s to bring back to Jerusalem, bound up in ropes or chains, to be punished! You can read about it in Acts 9. But Jesus stops him and asks him why he is persecuting Him. It’s interesting that his response is, “Who are you, Lord?” The word Lord is kyrios and means “he to whom a person or thing belongs, about which he has power of deciding; master, lord; the possessor and disposer of a thing; the owner; one who has control of the person.” Paul didn’t know who Jesus was but yet recognized that Jesus was in fact, Lord! Paul had been schooled in the Bible his whole life. He knew Scriptures. But he didn’t know Jesus. He thought Jesus was a fraud. He had never met Jesus. He had only heard about Jesus. Maybe that is you today. You have heard about Jesus but you’ve never met Jesus. When people truly meet Jesus they will recognize that He is indeed Lord. Paul recognized Jesus as Lord and has a salvation experience right there on the road to Damascus.
Okay, so Paul and Silas are in prison, praising God and singing hymns. They are having church worship service right there in prison. And they were severely flogged prior to being tossed into prison! Praising God and singing hymns. Their praying and singing was heard not only by God but by the other prisoners. How much more happy are true Christians than their enemies! There is no place, no time we are unable to cry out to God in prayer. No trouble, no circumstance, should hinder us from prayer and praise. Christianity proves itself to be of God, in times of greatest trial and trouble in our own lives.
Consider the condition of these two brethren. Besides the physical pain of sitting in a dungeon, with their backs bleeding from the beating, and their feet locked in stocks to prevent gaining relief by changing positions, their minds disturbed by a sense of injustice which had been done to them, as well as anticipating the fate awaiting them. Most would be wild with rage, full of doubts concerning the presence of God. But in this hour of sufferings; “Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises to God, and the prisoners heard them.” Men do not pray when they are enraged or hopeless. We must recover from violent passion, before we can offer thoughtful prayer. Even greater composure is necessary before we can engage in singing. When in deep distress we might be soothed by the music of other voices, but we would not be inclined to join in the singing. The fact of Paul and Silas praying is the clearest evidence of their feelings. And after praying, they “sang praises to God,” which indicates the soothing effects of prayer at calming and cheering their spirits. Can you see them? Certainly the fellow prisoners must have wondered at what this was all about. I am assuming that prayer and praise are not commonplace in a prison. The enemies of Christians cannot destroy our peace. They may incarcerate our body, but they cannot bind up our spirit. They may remove earthly comforts, but they cannot shut out the presence and sustaining grace of God Almighty.
In the Roman world, most prisoners were either awaiting trial or execution. Paul was chained in a common holding cell in Philippi. Philippi being where Paul founded his very first church. Paul got busy after his salvation.
Why are they even in prison? Well, they were going about preaching the Word of God and this woman with an evil spirit, meaning she was demon possessed, kept taunting them. Paul finally got aggravated and commanded the spirit to come out of her. The man that owned the woman, she was a slave, had been making a lot of money from her telling the future for people, he gets wind that she no longer has the evil spirit. He goes to the authorities and has Paul and Silas arrested. So here they are in a common jail cell, chained to the floor! Unlike most of us, Paul sees this as an opportunity to evangelize! We have no way of knowing but I believe that many, if not all of the prisoners, received salvation because of what happens. There is an earthquake and everyone’s chains are broken loose and the doors fall off their hinges. But rather than taking advantage of this to escape, they stay and continue to hold church services! Can you imagine that? An earthquake, in such circumstances would have been regarded as a symbol of the presence of God, and an answer to the prayer by Paul and Silas. The intent of this was to furnish them proof of the presence and protection of God as well as provide a way of escape. It was one of many wonders by which the Gospel was established, and the early Christians being protected in the midst of dangers.
So this Philippian jailer responsible for these prisoners, who had been sleeping on the job BTW, was awakened by the earthquake and assumes they are gone. He would be held responsible for their escape and would have to forfeit his own life. So he stands poised and ready to fall on his sword. Certainly a man in this position would naturally be thinking about eternity. But Paul seeing what he was about to do calls out to him and says “Wait! We are all here. Nobody has left. So don’t kill yourself.” And notice the jailer’s response. He asks what he must do to b saved. And the word he uses is sozo which means obtain salvation. He recalled that Paul had been preaching salvation in the name of the God of Israel. He immediately perceives the earthquake, the opening of the doors, and the unlocking of chains were all of divine power and inquired of his own salvation. True salvation comes from a recognition of God as the power in the universe. When you see the Divine power and nature of God Almighty it will cause you to recognize your own smallness and sinfulness and helplessness to do anything about it. We can bring no righteousness of our own before God. It is only Jesus Christ who lived sinlessly in this world and brings righteousness before God the Father. The jailor realizes this in an instant. That realization always preceeds salvation. You cannot accept the gift of salvation before you understand that you are completely helpless to save yourself. You might say that God has placed salvation upon a shelf and you cannot reach it. You need to stand on a stool to reach it. The understanding that you are helpless to save yourself is the stool you stand on to reach the free gift of salvation.
Never was a more important question asked than “What must I do to be saved?” Paul and Silas evidently understood him as referring to eternal salvation. Certainly to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ would have no effect in saving him from any punishment from what had occurred.
Notice also the contrast between Christians and sinners. The guilty jailer was agitated, fearful, distressed, and terrorized; the Christian’s were peaceful, calm, joyous. The one filled with thoughts of self-murder; the others, concerned with saving life and doing good. In sorrow, in sickness, times of pestilence, death, the Christian is calm; the sinner is agitated and alarmed. The Christian can live through such times with peace and joy while the sinner endures these times with terror and dread. Look at what has been happening in the world with the COVID virus. Men and women are terrorized by the thought of being infected. They wear masks and cover themselves and keep their distance from others. They avoid going out into public places. They will do whatever the government suggests they do without question. I realize there are those that need to take precautions. I’m not discounting that at all. But the true Christian’s have stood with peace and joy in the midst of the pandemic and declared that God will protect them and keep them safe. They have refused to live in fear or be terrorized by the pandemic or the government! None of what has been happening has caught God off guard! If you claim to be a Christian and you have lived in fear and panic and have avoided attending church because the government has said to avoid public gatherings, and yet you have gone shopping or to work or vacation, you had better reevaluate your Christianity. It is not my place to judge you. It is my place to preach the Gospel and declare the good news of salvation. I can also look to a dog and declare him to be a dog without being a judge. I can also look to a life filled with fear and trembling and declare that that person is not a Christian because the God of Christianity is not a god that allows His people to live in fear. Again, I’m talking about a lifestyle filled with fear. And it will continue beyond the grave. On resurrection morning, the Christian will rise with joy and triumph, singing and shouting; the sinner will cower in fear and terror. And at the judgment seat, the saint will triumphantly proclaim the Judge as his Savior; while the sinner will be filled with horror as he silently listens to the sentence of eternal damnation! Which crowd do you fall in to? How is your life described? Fear and trembling or peace and joy?
