Acts 16:30 - 31 “And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? (31) And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.”
This is the single most important question a human
soul will ever ask, “what must I do to be saved?” The problem is, depending on
who you ask if you get a correct answer. Salvation of the human soul is the
most misunderstood question in humanity, because so few know the true answer.
Here Paul and Silas answered the question asked by the Philippian jailer, “Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved”. The salvation of the
human soul is not difficult because Jesus did all the work to save us. And God
told us right here through this account how a person is saved. So how do so
many get salvation so wrong? People get salvation wrong because they do not
believe God’s word, they do not believe that Jesus Christ can save a lost
sinner, they believe that they somehow have enough power within themselves to
complete their own salvation. No matter what God said some people just cannot
comprehend the truth of the scriptures. God calls them “spiritually
discerned” meaning they are lost and have no human ability to piece
together the scriptures to reach the truth. Therefore, they belittle the birth,
life, suffering, crucifixion, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus
Christ and create their own salvation thru their own works and power. God said
many times in the bible that works are not a part of our salvation, but for
some reason many believe it is. “Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
Ephesians 2:9 So here in this passage we see God cause a great earthquake, open
the bands of all the prisoners, and not one prisoner escaped. All of this to
bring this one jailer to the point of conviction to ask this all-important
question, what must I do to be saved? The question is, did Paul and Silas lie
to him, did they not completely answer the convicted mans question, why do so
many people tell it differently? Some will tell you that Paul and Silas only
partially answered the question here and there was so much we must do to be
saved. But why, why must we be required to labor in our works to be saved? And
how is it that we can labor for our salvation when Jesus said, “Come unto
me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew
11:28 Why didn’t Paul and Silas explain this impossible labor to this jailer?
And where in the bible does God even tell us by our works we will be saved? And
how can God tell us that we cannot be saved by works and them demand that we
must have works to be saved? How can we have rest in Jesus if we must labor an
impossible labor to complete our salvation? The truth is that God went thru a
great detailed event just to save this one single lost soul. Those that believe
man instead of God must understand they will never be saved believing a lie. God
said, “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind
lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” Matthew 15:14 People who
believe that works are part of our salvation are spiritually blind they cannot
spiritually decern what the bible says therefore they make-up lies to lead
people into the ditch that is so deep it ends in the fires of hell.
