Ti " Sirs," cried the Philippian jailor, " what must I do to be saved ? " It had been not unnatural to say, " First of all, let us out of prison. Play the man, run the risk, keep a higher law than you break, obey a holier duty than this low one, and bear the penalty. Act, do ! " But instead, the evangelists begin deeper down. " Believe," they cry. This is their appeal to the soul. Their own condition affected them not at all in comparison with the condition of this awakening spirit struggling in the dark towards duty and light and peace. Whether they were to be set at liberty was a matter of insignificance compared with the urgency that this jailor should be set at liberty to become a man and a Christian. If he once trusted himself to Christ, he would play the man, he would take all risks, he would dare every- thing and do anything. But he must begin at the beginning.
i. Believe.
The answer says first " Believe," and next it gives the object of belief — Believe on the Lord Jesus. What is it to believe ?
1. Alter the word. Translate the verb "receive." We are eager to do, to give. First we must learn, we must receive. 1 Christina G. Rossetti.
ACTS xvi. 30, 31 145
^[ The demands of God upon the soul are first that we should accept His gift. We want to make a sacrifice for Him, and do not propose to accept His sacrifice for us. This is the commandment of God — that we receive. The first duty of that child-like spirit, which is the key to the kingdom of God is willingness to be taught. The "better part" in Christianity is to sit at the feet of Christ. Before we can give out we must drink in the very life and spirit of Christ.1
2. Again, believing is relying upon, or trusting. It is not a mere assent to a dogma, or the acknowledgment of a fact of the past. It is trust — trust in that Christ who died upon the Cross, that, through His merit, He can remove the guilt and punish- ment of sin ; and also trust in that Christ who rose from the dead and is gone into heaven, that, by the power of His eternal Spirit, He can cleanse us from the dominion and habit of sin. That is the faith which saves — trust in the living Jesus, who is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.
^[ I saw not long ago a woman who said to me, " Is it indeed true that upon trusting in Jesus I shall be saved at once ? " I replied, " It is even so." " Why," she said, " my father, when he got religion, was nearly six years a-getting it ; and they had to put him in a lunatic asylum part of the time. I thought that there was no getting saved without going through a very dread- ful process." 2
^f Protracted seasons of conviction are generally owing to defective instruction. Wherever clear and faithful instructions are given to sinners, there you will generally find that convictions are deep and pungent, but short?
T[ Before his conversion Charles Wesley, then apparently near death, was visited by a poor mechanic, a Moravian, who asked him, " Mr. Wesley, do you hope to be saved ? " He answered, " Yes." " For what reason do you hope it ? " was next asked. " Because I have used my endeavours to serve God." The poor mechanic shook his head, but said no more ; and Wesley tells us, " I thought him very uncharitable, saying in my heart, ' Would he rob me of my endeavours ? ' " But that shake of the head, silent, sad, solemn, for ever shook Wesley's confidence in his
1 C. S. Home. 2C. H. Spurgeon.
3 C. G. Finney, Revivals of Religion, 429. ACTS & ROM. — IO
146 WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?
endeavours. The light dawned at last; he gave up doing, and wrote these words : —
Other refuge have I none; Hangs my helpless soul on Thee.
He believed on the Lord Jesus, " and was saved." x
T[ There is a word in common use in Scotland — lippen — which expresses the condition of a person who, entirely unable to support or protect himself, commits his interests, or life, to the safe keeping of some person or object. Thus a man crossing a chasm on a plank lippens to the plank. One day Dr. Chalmers visited a poor old bed-ridden woman who was dying. He tried to make her understand the way of salvation. But, alas ! it seemed all in vain. The mind he strove to enlighten had been closed so long that it appeared impossible to thrust into it a single ray of light. At last she said, "Ah, sir ! I would fain do as you bid me, but I dinna ken how. How can I trust in Christ ? " " Oh, woman ! " was his expressive answer, in the dialect of the district, "just lippen to Him." " Eh, sir," was the reply, " and is that all ? " " Yes, yes," was his gratified response ; " just lippen to Him and you will never perish."