Acts 16:30 - 31 “And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved…And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.”
What a most beautiful image of salvation God has painted for us here. It took a miracle to save this man’s soul, but God did it. Here was this poor lost sinner that was a jailer and God shook the place causing this jailer to think about his eternal life, and what he saw was horrible. God brought this old sinner to his knees and asking the glorious question “what must I do to be saved” and Paul and Silas answered “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” and this jailer believed and was saved. This is put together like a play right before our eyes. God is the entire creator of this play, director, producer, writer, and etc. but it is not a play, it is real, real in that a poor sinner was saved and God did so much to deliver this man to Jesus Christ. Yes, it is true that God could have just had Paul or Silas to preach a salvation sermon and God could have used that sermon to have saved this man, but God wanted to show His glorious power in this man’s salvation. God ordained this entire event in order to save this jailer to show us His glorious power in salvation. People have belittled salvation by making it possible by man to bring about their own salvation, therefore leaving God out of it. These two men could have preached till they were out of breath and this jailer would have never believed in Jesus Christ. So God cause an earthquake in order to bring about this one man’s salvation. What did God do to save you? I believe if you search back to your own salvation that something happened, something different, something out of normal that caused to you seek Jesus for salvation. God may not have cause an earthquake but God did something special in your own salvation. I have heard many stories or testimonies of many people telling me about their own salvation and some of them are simply amazing. Some people God simply brings them to salvation and some are as exciting as this event here, but we all have a story of our salvation.
It has been debated much as to what is meant here in the scriptures. I have heard things like “well they did not finish the answer to the question, they only told him the beginning, they are other things to salvation”. Folks, the question is “what must I do to be saved” and the answer is “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” there is nothing more to salvation. Jesus Christ is the Saviour, ("Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Acts 4:12) and nothing else is needed. We have the complete gospel in 1 Cor. 15 1-4 and here we have the complete necessity for salvation. We do not need to add anything, works, baptism, church membership, and etc. are all wonderful things for the person who are saved but for the lost sinner, as this jailer was, Christ Jesus is the need. That is the truth and to add to it or to take away from it is to change the truth into a lie. This change is made to take God out of the act of salvation and to put it into the hands of the man. However, as we can see by this glorious event, God delivered this sinner to Christ and all Paul and Silas did was to point him to Christ. If we point in any other direction, baptism, works, church membership, or etc. we are pointing to a dead-end and not to eternal life. "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus...Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." 1 Timothy 2:5 – 6
What must you do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Folks, to believe anything different will only get you eternal damnation.
