In the sermon 'The Most Important Question You Could Ever Ask' by Trent Moody, the focus is on the story from Acts 16 where Paul and Silas, imprisoned for casting out a spirit from a slave girl, respond to their dire situation not with complaints, but with prayer and hymns. This supernatural response serves as a catalyst for the jailer’s pivotal question, 'What must I do to be saved?' The sermon contrasts the poor questions often asked in history, driven by misguided motives, with the jailer's crucial inquiry, highlighting the profound transformation that follows. The jailer, initially driven by fear of Roman retribution, is on the brink of suicide when an earthquake facilitates an encounter with divine truth. Paul assures him of God's presence, and upon hearing the gospel message, the jailer and his household believe and are baptized. The sermon emphasizes the power of trials to reveal true faith, encouraging believers to view difficulties as opportunities to witness God's glory. The jailer's story demonstrates how personal faith can lead to broader household and community transformation, underscoring the eternal consequences of believing in Jesus Christ.

Acts chapter 16 and we will begin in verse 25 where we left off last time, Acts 16 and verse 25. And verse 25. Thus says the word of the Lord. At midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken.

And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's chains were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword, and was about to kill himself. But Paul called out with a loud voice saying, Do yourself no harm, for we are all here. And then he called for a light, and ran in and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

So they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. And then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them that same hour of the night and washed their stripes and immediately he and all his family were baptized and now when he had brought them into the house he set food before them and he rejoiced having believed in God with all his household. This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray.

Most gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, that you do not leave us to our own thoughts and our own devisings about salvation. But Lord, through holy men of God inspired by the Holy Spirit, you have given us the Word of God. You have given us great understanding. You have given us the truth as it is found in Jesus Christ. And Lord my prayer today is for any of those here this morning who have not trusted in Jesus Christ, who have never come to the point where they cried out as this man, sirs, what must I do to be saved?

Oh God, would you grant by your power the converting of souls this morning? And I pray, oh God, that Jesus Christ is glorified in all that is said and done. And we ask it in His name. Amen. You may be seated.

You have an outline in front of you and please forgive any of the typos that are there. There's a couple. My apologies. But what I want you to think about this morning and the main thrust of today's message is the most important question you could ever ask. Have you ever contemplated that most important question as we see here in our text?

Have you ever considered that sometimes we ask really bad questions? We don't think through the implications of the questions. We may have bad motives in the questions. In 1775, war loomed between England and the American colonies. Although no formal declaration of hostilities had yet begun, American farmers and British redcoats had clashed at Concord and Lexington.

The Continental Congress, in turn, decided to organize an army and formulate plans to invade Canada, hoping to strike at the British who were in Quebec. En route to Canada though, the American army arrived at Newbury Port where on September 17th in 1775 the soldiers filed into the Presbyterian meeting house to hear a sermon from their chaplain, the Reverend Samuel Spring. At the conclusion of the service, several of the officers, among them David Morgan and the infamous Benedict Arnold remained behind with the Reverend Spring. These men approached the Sexton with a question, a question that was not well thought out and most likely had impure or misguided motives, they asked this man if they could enter the burial vault and view the corpse of George Whitfield. The sexton offered no objections.

The small group went below the communion table, opened the door to the vault, and trooped into the chamber before the casket that held the body of George Whitfield. Then the sexton pried open the lid of the coffin to reveal the body. The corpse with the clothes still upon it greeted their gaze. At this point the solemn scene might have ended and the soldier's request had been satisfied, But the visitors had one last act to perform. Bending over the body of George Whitfield they removed parts of the collar and the wristbands and these they cut into smaller pieces to distribute among themselves.

They departed soon afterward for Canada and in their trek north these officers led an American army upon one of the most arduous marches of the entire war. With approximately 1, 100 men, Arnold's forces endured 350 miles of Canadian wilderness in the winter. Through Maine and through that wilderness, it was actually twice as far as what the map told them it was. They faced hypothermia, starvation, and flooding, forcing men to eat rawhide, to eat their own candles, and to chew upon leather. By the time they arrived in November, only about 700 of them survived.

Though they did successfully surprise the British defenses, the attack failed due to the poor conditions, heavy British resistance, and harsh winter weather. General Montgomery was killed, Arnold was severely wounded, and over 400 Americans were captured, and the invasion of Canada collapsed. This tragedy was the result of a poorly asked question that was highly misguided in thinking that this relic would somehow benefit them in the day of battle. But what we find in our text this morning is not such a tragedy. It could have been a tragedy.

It was on the cusp of tragedy. This jailer having seen that the doors were open, having pulled his sword, ready to kill himself. And Paul calling out and telling him to do himself no harm, he ran in and said to these apostles, Paul and Silas, and said, "'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' In this example, we've seen one of the worst questions you could ask and also one of the most important questions that has ever been asked and that is, what must I do to be saved? And that is what I hope to bring to our attention and to our understanding this morning because our text focuses upon this most glorious question. I want to tell you where we're going though and you see it there in your outline.

First, I want to show you the catalyst that incited the question. Secondly, I want you to see the crisis that fomented the question. Third, I want to examine the content that unveils the question, and then lastly I want us to take notice of the consequences of embracing the answer to that question. So let us get started into our text this morning in verse 25, the catalyst that incited the question. We know the story.

We pick up right where we left off a couple of weeks ago, where Paul and Silas had cast out the spirit, this python spirit is the Greek term, and this evil spirit out of this slave girl. Her masters were so upset that they drugged them to the magistrates in which they stripped them, beat them, and put them into the inner prison to fasten their feet in stocks. But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. I think one of the most fascinating things, at least in this first part of this text, is this fact. Their response to their circumstances, their response to this situation that they have now found themselves in.

Remember where they were? They were simply just going to the place of prayer. They were going to have a prayer meeting and now they find themselves in a prison. But the glorious truth about this is that though they started out to a prayer meeting, they continued with their prayer meeting. They did not let the the location of their prayer meeting hinder their prayers.

They continued to pray and to sing hymns to God. And so we remember from this that the last time they cast out this steaming girl and now here they are in the midst of a prison and no doubt in great agony and pain from what they had endured. You know in this situation I've asked myself the question over and over this week, what would have been my response? What was it that would have come out of my mouth if I was in this situation? And so I think that one of the things I want us to look at this morning in this first point is the catalyst that incited this question was such a supernatural response.

It was a a Holy Spirit produced response to very trying circumstances. To complain to God, to doubt the love of God would not have been unusual for the natural man. Think about it. How often do we experience some minor trial in our lives? And the first thing that pops out of our mouth is a complaint or some sort of negative word, hopefully nothing that would need to be repented of, per se, but definitely not prayers and hymns.

But yet what we see here with Paul and Silas, they could have so easily complained to God, they could have doubted his love, they could have complained about that wicked master of the slave girl, the masters of the slave girl, they could have complained about the magistrates, they could have complained about the man who beat them, they could have complained about the jailer who put them in the inner prison and who fastened their feet in the stocks. To complain would not have been unusual. This was not a massage chair like you see at Costco sometimes when you're going through and you see these chairs you sit in and you can just sit right back down and they'll rub your legs and rub you back. No, these were the stocks that would stretch your legs out to the extent that it was highly uncomfortable and most likely while they were still awake at midnight. This was not the Holiday Inn Express.

This was not something that would have been enjoyable. Can you imagine how easy it would have been in this moment to have self-pity? Can you imagine how easy it would have been to play the victim mentality card to realize that hey I don't deserve this I was preaching to God I was going to prayer and all of these things have happened to me simply because I was wanting to pray to God They could have blamed the other people for their misery, but instead they blessed God for his goodness. They could have said that life is conspiring against them, but instead they submitted themselves to the plan of God. They could have easily been pessimistic seeing the glass as half empty or in reality all the way empty but instead they saw that heaven was fully open to them.

They could have been cynical but instead they were optimistic. They could have easily catastrophized about this situation and blown it out of proportion, but instead through their prayers and praise they blew the doors open and the chains fell off because of the power of God. They could have felt that others were trying to bring them down. They would have been right. But instead, they lifted up their prayers knowing that God exalts the humble.

They could have felt singled out, and they were. But they realized that they had been called to live a life poured out before God. They could have spent endless hours reliving their painful memories, but instead they spent hours in prayer with hopeful expectation of the future. They could have felt powerless, but instead they experienced the power of God. They could have said, I can't cope with this.

But instead, they said, I can pray about this. They could have felt like victims, but instead, they were victors. You see, they could have thought about everyone else having it better than they did, but instead they saw themselves seated in heavenly places. They could have viewed the world as a negative place, but instead they saw it as their mission field. They could have shared their troubles with the other prisoners they would have been ready to hear, but instead they shared their faith with them.

They could have self-deprecated, but instead they exalted their Lord. I said all that to say brothers and sisters how easy it is for us to get our eyes focused upon the wrong things, to be looking inward in a negative light, looking at our circumstances as something as being the reason for our complaining but in fact it has been said that your trials do not rule you they reveal you and so what is it that comes out of us when we respond to some negative circumstance? You know, the only answer that I have is that what comes out of my mouth and out of my heart in times of trial is not what the trial produced, but it's what the trial revealed. It is showing me what's actually in my heart. These men were filled with the Holy Spirit of God, and when they were squeezed by the most difficult trials, forgive me if this seems disrespectful, but when they were squeezed, spiritual juice came out in the sense of the fruit of the Spirit was poured out of them.

It demonstrated itself through what they said and what they did. So What comes out of us is what was already in us. You know, in fact, this is a most humbling and oftentimes humiliating circumstance when we find how weak we are in the midst of trials. And yet, we see such encouragement here. And I'm not saying these things to beat us down.

I'm saying this to try to draw out of us something that we actually need to examine ourselves in the midst of our trials. And do not blame God for your trials in the negative light, but actually see your trials as opportunities that you can glorify God and show the watching world what God has done for us. You see this sobering reality is not that these things had control over them. The sobering reality is what God was in control of all things. He actually had them there for a purpose.

We're going to see that in this text. They were thinking they were going to a prayer meeting. They thought that they were just simply casting out a demon of a slave girl. But What God was actually doing was bringing them to a place where there was a Philippian jailer who was the elect of God who needed to hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I want us to begin to see from this text that when you face difficult trials and hard circumstances, The temptation there is to look inward and to focus on the difficulty of the circumstance, but I want you to look at the opportunity of the trial that God may be giving you so that you might share the gospel with one of God's elect who need to hear it.

You see, it's a glorious thing when we begin to change just simply our perspective and we begin to see what God's actually doing. Because if you'll note the last part of verse 25 says this, the prisoners were listening to them. What do you think would have been the outcome of this story if in fact Paul and Silas had began to complain, had began to blame God for their circumstances or began to have some sort of pity party with the rest of the prisoners. What would have been the outcome of this Philippian jailer? Would he have run in and said, "'Sir, what must I do to be saved?' Or would he have run in and just said, "'What in the world was that?' Y'all get back in your cells." The questions could have been totally different, but because I believe this was the catalyst that brought about this question.

You see, their trials amplified the power of their prayers and praise and garnered the attention of the entire prison house. It was a glorious sight. Tertullian says, the legs feel not the stocks when the mind is in heaven. He goes on and garnered the attention, or excuse me, he goes on, though the body is held fast, all things lie open in the Spirit. So brothers and sisters, my desire is that all of us would be such as Paul and Silas in the midst of our difficulties, that when though our bodies or our lives are constrained by some trial or some difficulty, that we will actually experience the greatest freedom in all the world knowing that we are the children of God.

That is my hope for us. But not only do I want us to look at this catalyst that brought about this question, I want us to look at the crisis that fomented the question. What is it that that stirred this question up within this man? I've hinted at it obviously already. Verses 26 through 29.

Suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were open and everyone's chains were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. But Paul called with a loud voice, saying, Do yourself no harm, for we are all here. And then he called for a light, ran in and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas." What we see first is that the catalyst of this question was that through the prayers and through the praise of Paul and Silas, God worked an unusual work in their midst.

We've seen this before. It was the foundations of the prison were shaken. It's not the first time that the foundations of a house was shaken or a place was shaken when the people of God began to pray. But in Acts 431 it says, and when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken. And it says, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke the Word of God with boldness.

I'm not saying that we're not praying right unless the building starts shaking. But I am saying this, that God answers prayers. And oftentimes He answers them in such a way, He may not shake the building, But I want you to realize something that God may be shaking people within that building. He may be shaking the very foundations of that person's life and soul so that they would hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters, when we pray, It is so important.

I hope that you've been praying for this service. I've been praying for this service. I've been praying for you in this service and I pray that God would be exalted in this service. You know I do not believe as one of the commentators said that this earthquake was simply a natural occurrence that naturally shook the building and naturally caused the prison doors to open and naturally loosed their chains. Literally he thought that.

That was his commentary on this. Thank you, your brother. That was his commentary, is that all of these things were natural. He said the supernatural part is that they all stayed there and didn't run out. But I want you to realize, I'm not gonna give another second to that kind of thinking.

God calls the foundations of the prisons to shake. God calls the doors to open. God calls the chains to loose. And God calls the jailer to awake, and in more ways than one, as we will see. He woke him up in the middle of the night.

But I want you to consider and take a moment to think about this, the jailer and his assessment of the situation. We have this wonderful benefit of being looking down from a heavenly perspective to see what God is doing, but put yourself for a moment in the jailer's shoes. What was his assessment? The jailer, and let me say this, this man was no Lydia. You remember Lydia.

You know, many Bible scholars believe that this jailer was a veteran Roman soldier, a tough and burly man. Philippi was a major city that had been chartered as a Roman colonial city. Older soldiers often in their retirement when they got too old to be soldiers they would go and work for prisons and things like this and they would use their skills and that because they knew how to control men and and to direct men they knew how to guard things and they were tough. The position of the of the jailer was most suitable for him. He was the one that would fit this and most likely was even selected for this.

And so he was the choice of a Roman official to be that jailer in Philippi. This is the man, quite different than Lydia, who was a woman who was on her way to prayer, who worshiped God and was listening to the proclamation of Paul and Silas. This man had never heard the Gospel. Here this man, all he had ever heard was conversation of soldiers. All he knew was war.

All he knew was the things that were tough and physical. He knew how to deal with people, but he had never been dealt with by God. He scanned the situation in verse 7 and it says this, that seeing the prison doors open, The keeper of the prison awakened and seeing the prison doors opened, supposing the prisoners had fled. He believed. Wait a minute.

Am I getting ahead of myself? He was a believer in one sense in this case, because guess what? All men are believers in one sense. Every man believes in something. And we're getting ready to find out what this man's faith was.

He believed when he saw something. It doesn't say he believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, but I want you to know that this man believed something and he believed something so strongly that he was willing to act upon that belief. Let's look at what he believed in. And at this moment, the man believed when he saw the prison doors opened that death was better than life. He believed that death was better than humiliation.

He believed that death was better than punishment. Therefore, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself. He believed in this so strongly that he was willing to lay down his life for it, or because of it. This man believed in the power and the authority of the Roman government. He believed that the prisoners had fled.

He believed that his life was as good as over. He believed that life had No more meaning than to have hope in this world. But the reality is that he could not see if the prisoners were still there or not. He simply saw the doors opened. He could not see the reality that his life was not about to end, but was actually getting ready to begin.

He thought he was going to die, and what turns out to be the case, he began to have new life formed in him by the Lord Jesus Christ. He could see that the circumstances of that very moment were the gateway. He could not see that the circumstances of that moment were the gateway actually to his salvation. You see this man, he woke up in the middle of the night. He turns to see the prison doors open, he assumes something that is not true, he assumes that all the prisoners have fled, and based upon that assumption he was willing to destroy his own life because of the consequences of it.

And yet what amazes me is that there's so many people that look at the things that they assume upon that they cannot actually see with spiritual eyes. They see only the natural things. They just see that the doors are open. They don't see if there's anyone inside. They don't understand.

They can't see the Lord Jesus Christ before them. They hear things. They see what's going on even amongst us. But they do not have the eyes to see or to understand what is actually going on in reality, God's reality. And they're willing to act upon these things and they act in such a way that when we look at it we think that is utterly foolish to act in such a way.

He was willing to take his own life for what he believed in. Paul and Silas were willing to give their life for what they believed in. You see the natural man only thinks natural things but then God shows up and God makes the normal day the day of salvation. Do you know that so often, and in fact I would say every time a lost man wakes up in the morning he has no thought about his eternal salvation until God breaks through his day. I know when I was lost in sins and trespasses, that morning I had no concept or no thought that God was going to save me that evening.

But He did. This man had no concept of that. He was on the cusp of eternity. Think about it. He had the sword drawn.

He was getting ready to destroy his own life because he feared what man could do to him. He did not realize that he was getting ready to enter an eternity of pain and torment forever. And at that moment, God steps in. God does something so miraculous. He does something so wonderful.

God began not only to shake the very foundation of the prison, but he began to shake the very foundation of his life. And I want you to realize that it happened with all of us. He began to shake the very foundation of what we believed in, and what we trust in, and what we were hoping in. And my desire is that God would shake the very foundations of anyone here this morning, anyone who hears this message, that their foundation would be shaken to the point that they would come running into the room and say, "'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' That they would believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, that God would do a work that only He could do. Only the Holy Spirit of God can do that very foundation shaking.

And that's what God was doing here. Before this dreadful moment of near destruction, just a second before this man was about to enter eternity without a Savior. Paul cried out with a loud voice, Do yourself no harm. Do yourself no harm. Is that not what the call of every preacher is?

Is that not what the call of every Christian is to the lost man? Do yourself no harm. Do not continue in the way in which you're going. That's the call of the preacher. Do yourself no harm.

This is the call of every preacher. Do not go through the wide gate. Do not walk down the broad way. Do yourself no harm. What seems to one man to seem to be the wide way, the broad way, and the broad gate.

They can walk right down and enjoy the other multitudes of thousands going that way. They think they're doing themselves good, but in fact they're doing themselves harm. And the preacher stands there and calls unto them, do yourself no harm. Turn from the wide gate and enter at the narrow gate." You see, this is what is at stake. It's eternity.

Stop what you're about to do. Your life and eternity are at stake. Your eternity hangs in the balance. That's what Paul was calling out. Do yourself no harm.

You who sit here this morning who cannot see but with natural eyes, you are going to do yourself harm if you do not turn from your sins and believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. You're actually going towards destruction. But I'm calling to you, do yourself no harm. Do not continue in this way. You think and see that there's only one path.

That's what this man thought. How more hopeless can you be than to come to the point in which you think the only way forward is to take my own life? He saw no other way. Oh, but there was a way. There was such a better way.

He saw only the way of death, the path that destroyed his life he thought was the way. But I'm here this morning to tell you, just like the Apostle Paul, there's a better way. There's another way than the path of destruction. Proverbs 14.12 says, there's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. Do not go the way of death.

This jailer saw that one way. He thought it was the right way, but it would end up in his eternal destruction. But Paul cried out to him that there's a better way and another way and that narrow way that leads to life. And guess what? Jesus is the way and the truth and the life.

And no man comes to the Father, but by Him there's no other way. He is the way. Do yourself no harm this morning. If you're here this morning and you're at the point of desperation and you have no more hope, I want you to know I'm calling you, you do yourself no harm. There's another way.

And that way is Jesus Christ. He says, He calls out, do yourself no harm. We are all here. The thing that you feared is not true. Guess what?

So often we fear things that are not true. 95 or 99 percent of the things that we fear never happen. And this was the case with this man as well. What the jailer thought to be the case was not the case. What he thought was true was not true.

In more ways than one, he thought that they were gone, but they were there. He thought there was no God, but he was there. You see, He thought that the only way was death, but Paul came to offer him life. And once Paul informed him of the true situation, the jailer was stunned. When he actually understood the reality of the situation, He was stunned.

At this critical moment, he was in a transition from death to life. He stopped the sword, and then what did he do? He called for a light, and he ran in and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. He fell down trembling before them. There's many things here I could symbolize, I guess, and I don't want to take it too far, but boy, it's really interesting here.

He calls for the light. God was actually giving him a light to see what reality was. He called for the light so that he could see into the dark cell of which he could not see, and God was giving him a light that he was getting ready to see, something that he had never seen before, that there is a way in which you can be saved from your sins. God was about to shine a great light into his darkened soul. He was about to bring him to the reality of the situation that was different than what it appeared to be.

He supposed it to be one thing but it was another. You see in reality Paul and Silas were not the ones in prison and bound. They were the ones who were free. In reality it was the jailer who was the one in prison and bound. But guess what?

God was about to set him free. It appears that the jailer was free but he was bound. And it appeared that Paul was bound but he was free. The heaven, The gates of heaven were open to him. So much so that he wanted to pray and sing praises to God and allow everyone to join in to hear all that God was doing in him.

You see, the jailer's condition was about to drastically change. He called for the light, he ran in trembling, quivering, shaking, implying great fear. He's about to see a great light and he's about to understand perfect peace. Oh, it's coming. What a...

I just see this train of coming. It's just so glorious to see what God was doing in the life of this no-named man. You ever felt like that? That you were the no-named man, the no-named woman, the no-named little girl or little boy. That your life didn't really matter.

We don't know his name, but yet God spins this passage and writes this text for us so that we will see that God saves even the no-name men. He's here to save you this morning. We finally come to the question. What is this most important question? You already know the answer, but I want to show you something in this question.

I want to show you the content that unveils the question. You may think I read too much into things, but I'm fascinated with this question. It's the most important question a person could ever ask. Sirs, what must I do to be saved? In verse 30, there it is.

And he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? In verse 30, there it is. And he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? On this marvelous night, God did more with that earthquake than shake the foundations of the prison. He did more than loose the prisoner's bonds.

He did more than open the prison doors. He also shook the very foundations of that jailer's faith. He opened his heart to consider his own soul and he was about to lose the bonds that held him in his own sin. And he was getting ready to be set free by God's grace. By God's grace, he was enabled to receive the things that were about to be spoken by the Apostle Paul.

But in this moment of crisis, this man, this jailer, asked the most important question that he would ever ask. Serves, what must I do to be saved? This is one of the greatest and most humble questions I believe that a person could ask. This question is full of meaning. I just want to walk down through every word of it and give you some implication to this question.

SIRS. This question believes that these men know the way of salvation and can tell them the way of salvation. What? This question declares his ignorance of the way and the means of salvation. I, This question denotes the personal obligation of the individual.

Listen to me, each one of you. You must be saved. It's not a corporate salvation. You must be saved. You must come face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ.

You must ask the question, what must I do to be saved? It's about you and God. Do What must I do? This question acknowledges some action that must be taken. To be.

This declares the hope and the longing of the future state and the possibility of salvation. Saved. This question answers that there is deliverance. There is divine salvation that will deliver you from your sin and bondage to it. This is the greatest question that could have ever been asked.

There is a way to be made whole. Listen, Do not leave here this morning hopeless because I'm telling you, there is a living hope and a living Savior and it is for you so that you can turn from death to life. It's the greatest question that you could ever ask yourself. But don't just ask yourself because if you don't know the answer, You need to ask someone who has the answer. This man asked Paul and Silas, sirs, what must I do to be saved?

He acknowledged his ignorance of it. This question expresses his need for it. It testifies that he was a sinner separated from a holy God. In this question, he communicates that he did not know how to do it. But listen, it also declares that he believes that even a man like himself can be saved.

There's so many people out there who think they're too bad to be saved. You know what? There's people like Lydia who are so close to the kingdom yet not in. They must be saved. And there's people like the Philippian jailer who are so bad and so rough and so brutish they think they can't be saved.

But God was giving this jailer light so that he could actually see not only he didn't know how but he believed that he could be and he believed that these men could tell him how to do it. What must I do? It demanded faith, it demanded action. He took his old faith was to believe that there was no hope and the action was a sword to his chest but now he was coming to the point where he had hope. He asked the question, what must I do to be saved?

And he was getting ready to find out the action. Now lest you think we are going to preach some gospel of works here, there's still an action that must be done and he's getting ready to tell him what that is. You know, he had never sat under the preaching of the gospel. He had never heard the gospel. He didn't understand how to be saved.

He had never attended a prayer meeting. He had never been in a church service like you are this morning. He had never read or heard the Word of God. Surely this man had a good excuse to ask such a question. He had a great excuse.

But what about you? Could you ask this question in sincerity and truth? Could you have sat here all these weeks and months and years and truthfully ask, What must I do to be saved? I think this man had somewhat of an excuse, though it would do him no good on the day of judgment. But all of us sitting in this room, do we have any excuse?

Could we actually ask this question, what must I do to be saved? We have told you week after week, month after month, year after year, how to be saved. And there will be no excuse. You who sit here, it is not possible for you to ask that question. You could not ask this question with a truthful heart.

If you sit here unconverted this morning, you sit here not as one who does not know. You sit here as one who does know but has refused. You have willfully chosen to reject. You think your neutrality means that you're neutral but it's not. Neutrality is a choice that you have made.

You have chosen to say no to the offer of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The issue for you this morning is not your knowledge but rather your refusal of the knowledge you have. You have refused to fully trust the Savior. You have refused to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The fact is you know the answer.

Before I've read it, you know it. You have heard the answer from childhood. Your parents have told you the answer. Your pastors have told you the answers. Your friends have told you the answer.

All the advantages that you have had. You could no doubt articulate even the doctrines of grace to those who may ask you and yet you have never embraced them. You need to ask, you do not need to ask what must I do to be saved but simply you need to act upon the knowledge you have and simply call out to the Lord to save you. You need to embrace the good news that you already know. What excuse would we possibly have on the day of judgment?

This jailer, if he had killed himself, would have at least had the excuse to say I have never heard of Jesus Christ. It would do him no good but he could say it. But what word of excuse could anyone in this room offer before a holy God? Not a single word. But I want you to look at something else that is so glorious.

And that is the consequences of embracing the answer. This is when it gets really good, folks. This is the consequences of embracing the answer. Look at verse 31 with me, and we're going to go right down through to verse 34. So they said, here's their answer, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.

And then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and all who were in the house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and his family, all his family were baptized. And now when he had brought them into the house, he set food before them, and he rejoiced having believed in the God with all his household. What a glorious consequence of embracing the Gospel.

Do you realize what the consequences will be this morning if you who sit here, if you are unconverted and you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, Do you know what the consequences of that will be? It will be a glorious day in this church is what it will be. You will be a person who is taken from death to life. You will be taken from hopelessness to hopefulness. You will be taken from death to life.

You will have an eternity before you of an inheritance that's in heaven for you? Listen, the answer to the most critical question is, believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. You think you don't know? I'm telling you, you believe. Think to be true, implying your trust upon what God has said to you.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You believe to the extent of complete trust. Outside our house, there's an airport right behind us. Some of you have been there on a Sunday afternoon or Saturday and you've seen these people up in this airplane and for some crazy reason they jump out of a perfectly good one. Why?

They fully trust in the parachute. They fully trust in the parachute. They fully trust in the parachute. But if you read the paper a few weeks ago, you realize in a windstorm a parachute doesn't do you a whole lot of good. You might end up 80 feet up high in a tree somewhere.

But not when you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. He will see you through and what he has begun in you he will complete until the day of Christ Jesus. It is so important to note that believing is not simply intellectual assent of facts. The demons believe and tremble.

To this point, this man had about the same belief. They said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and he came in trembling. But believing is more than that. Believing is trusting in and submitting yourself to the Lordship of Jesus Christ that results in consequences. It results in actions.

The actions do not save you, but the saving of you produces actions. And it produces things in you that we see right here in this text with this Philippian jailer. But look at what they tell him to do. Remember, this man was no church sitter. He was no church hopper.

He didn't hear the gospel over and over again. This man had never heard the gospel. And what did they tell him? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Who in the world is that?

That's what this man would have said. Who? I thought Caesar was Lord. Who's Jesus? Christ?

An anointed one? What does that mean? This man had no concept of what they just said. And that's why I believe the text actually says, Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. They had to bring some context to this thing.

What does it mean, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? This isn't an easy believism passage of Scripture. It's actually believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and now let me tell you all about Him. Let me tell you what He did. Let me tell you what he is doing.

Let me tell you what he's about to do to you." But they tell him anyway to believe on the Lord. That means the one who has supreme authority. This man had lived in a Roman government who believed that Caesar had supreme authority. And they were telling him, no, it is Jesus Christ who has supreme authority. Paul was declaring to this man that he should bow the knee to the true authority of Jesus Christ.

That he was a greater authority than Rome or the Caesar. And Paul told him to throw himself at the feet of this authority, the Lord. And that's what I'm telling you this morning. Throw yourself at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus.

Jesus was the name of the God man. It was Joshua in the Old Testament. It literally means Jehovah saves or the Lord is salvation. Who's the Lord? Well the Lord is that supreme one of authority that I just told you about.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You mean Jesus who is the one in which His name means the Lord is salvation? That's who I'm to believe in? Yes, that's who you're to believe in. The Lord Jesus Christ, meaning the Anointed One.

It's the same as in the Old Testament as the Messiah, the One in whom God promised. And then they begin to show Him all of the beauties of Jesus Christ. Notice the promise that they give Him. It is a promise that every one of us can proclaim with boldness. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

And I can stand on the authority of God's Word. What confidence and what certainty. I can declare that statement to you. You will be saved if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Every other religion in the world, I had a whole list of them here I was going to read to you but I knew I wouldn't have time for that.

And I was going to tell you their doctrine of salvation. Some of them are just empty yourself and find nothingness and all of this ridiculous stuff and works and relics and pilgrimages and all this. They didn't say, make your way to Jerusalem and go kiss the thumb of John the Baptist. They didn't say any of those things. They told him to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you would be saved.

It is a faith-based religion. You're believing in the reality of the Son of God and what He has done for you, you will be saved if you believe. And your believing will have eternal consequences, not only in the life after death, but it will have consequences in this life, not only in yours, but in your entire household. And your whole household will be saved. What a promise is that?

With conditions we'll show you those. What does Paul mean by this? What a blessing when a man comes to faith in Jesus Christ that he becomes to his household and to everyone around him. The blessing spreads by the grace of God. Not always to all in the house but the influence is certainly felt by all.

You see, in this case, they were all baptized because the Bible says they all believed. Because they too had their hearts opened. Notice what it says in verse 34, now when he had brought them into the house he set food before them and and he rejoiced having believed in God with all his household. All his household believed too. We know this also from Acts 2.41, then those who gladly received his word were baptized.

Acts 8.12, but when they believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized. In Acts 18.8 it says, then Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household. And many of the Corinthians hearing believed and were baptized. It was a faith-based religion and it's a faith-based baptism. They spoke the Word of the Lord to him into his household so that they would believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see the entirety of their message was not simply believe, it was actually let me tell you all that God says about Jesus Christ. You see, this is the call of the Gospel. But not to limit the Gospel. They spoke the Word to expand his understanding of the Gospel. They wanted him to believe and all of his whole household.

You see, This man, remember, was a Roman soldier. And as I said earlier, he was no Lydia. Lydia was close to the kingdom. This man is far away from the kingdom. He needed to have some context of who Jesus was.

This man had no idea until Paul began to speak to him the word of the Lord, and he explained to him who Jesus was and what he had done. That he died upon the cross for his sins, and he raised to the dead for your justification. That's what Jesus Christ did. But what is the result of all this? It's glorious.

Look at this. He didn't just believe and continue as the Philippian jailer. I don't know that he didn't continue as a jailer, but he wasn't just the Philippian jailer. This man had a name written in heaven. This man had a name that was engraved upon the palm of Jesus Christ.

The result of believing in the Lord Jesus Christ in verse 34 says, And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. And now when they brought them into the house, he set food before them, he rejoiced having believed in God with all his household." Think about what a change this is in this man. He washed their stripes. This Roman soldier jailer became a good Samaritan.

He became a nurse and bound their wounds and washed their stripes. He and his whole family were baptized. He was ready to take his life. But now, he was ready to declare his union with Christ in death, burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He served them food.

You see, the soldier jailer became a servant of Jesus Christ. Compassion was formed in his heart. The one who had fastened their feet in the stocks was now feeding them their sustenance. This is a change. He rejoiced with his household.

He heard Paul and Silas praying and singing and now he joined them in their rejoicing. These are the marks of true conversion. A change has taken place. Having believed in God with all His house, this man obeyed what Paul and Silas told him. He did.

He asked the question. They gave the answer. And he obeyed the answer. He did believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And it radically changed his life and his family's life for eternity.

Do you realize that is what is at stake here? If you're a dad here this morning and you've never believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, do you realize that your conversion will radically change not only your eternity, but very possibly the eternity of your entire family. Young child, you may be sitting here this morning and unconverted, and if you will but believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, it will change your eternity. Listen, young child, It will change possibly the eternity of your future spouse and your children forever. Do you realize that's what the Gospel does?

Do you realize what's at stake? Eternity. Forever. You will be totally transformed by the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul did not demand some work to be done.

He demanded a faith in Jesus Christ, and that faith produced a work in this man. It changed this man. This rough man now became a servant and a nurse to these men. In one sense, he became a deacon to them, and he served them food. This is my prayer for each of you today.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And by God's grace, your whole household. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, oh God, to know all that your spirit is doing in the hearts of your people, all these people here today Lord they they have heard your word proclaimed and I pray that your Spirit Lord would do a mighty work in them. Oh God that you would cause anyone who is here this morning who is dead in their sins and trespasses to be made alive by Jesus Christ.

That they would too be like this Philippian chaler, this no-name man and have their name engraved upon the palm of Jesus Christ. You know their name Lord and I pray oh God that you would be glorified and all that is said and all that is done here this morning and Lord I just confess to you I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.