Believe on the Lord Jesus

Introduction: A Simple Signpost to the Celestial City

0:00 As Pastor Jeff has already indicated, we will, God helping us, consider another text in the Word of God under the general heading of a simple signpost to the Celestial City. For those who may be with us for the first time in this brief series, the terminology Celestial City is taken from John Bunyan's immortal work, The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come. And those of you familiar with that marvelous account of the progress of a man from the city of destruction until his final, final arrival in the presence of God in that which the Bible calls Heaven, will know that Bunyan uses the term Celestial City as a synonym for Heaven. And in this brief series of messages, I'm attempting to open up in your hearing some of those texts in the Word of God in which the whole message of the Gospel is brought into a very sharp, full,

1:19 focus in a very short compass and to press home to the hearts of men and women and boys and girls in this place the claims of Christ and the marvelous provisions of the Gospel. Thus far, we've looked at three of these simple signposts, John 14, 6, Acts 13, 38, and 39, and then Luke 5. And verse 32, tonight we take up the fourth, that which is found in Acts chapter 16, and in the passage read in your hearing, we know that it was the response of Paul and Silas to the question of the Philippian jailer, and verse 31 tells us they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt. Shalt, or you will be saved.

Circumstances Producing the Signpost: Manifestations of Divine Grace

2:24 Now, as we seek to pay close attention to this simple signpost to the Celestial City, I want you to notice with me, first of all, the circumstances which produced this signpost. The words, Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved, are words which are, true, spoken at any time, in any place, in any set of circumstances, to any sinner, except sinners already in hell, and those abandoned by God. However, these words were not spoken in a vacuum. The Apostle Paul did not get up one morning, stick a megaphone out of his window, and begin to cry at the top of his voice. The Apostle Paul did not get up one morning, stick a megaphone out of his window, and begin to cry at the top of his voice. The Apostle Paul did not get up one morning, stick a megaphone out of his voice.

3:20 The Apostle Paul did not get up one morning, stick a megaphone out of his voice. The Apostle Paul did not get up one morning, stick a megaphone out of his voice. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Now, there may be times when he did that, for all we know.

3:30 He may have made a megaphone of horse hide or camel hide and proclaimed out of many a window in many a city. The Bible gives us no account. But in this particular passage, the Bible does give us some of the circumstances which produced this signpost. But in this particular passage, the Bible does give us some of the circumstances which produced this signpost.

3:52 And those circumstances are significant. And they help us to understand more precisely and accurately the intention of the Word of the living God through Paul and Silas when they declared to this needy man, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, or believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. And I want you to consider those circumstances with me very briefly under three headings. First of all, there were the manifestations of divine grace at the city of Philippi.

4:34 Pastor Jeff read in your hearing the account of the conversion of Lydia and her household. That account is given to us in verses 14 and 15. The grace of God. The grace of God.

4:48 The grace of God. The grace of God. The grace of God. The grace of God had come to Philippi, first of all, in terms of God himself opening the heart of Lydia so that she attended to the message preached by Paul.

5:03 And obviously, he preached that message to her household as well. And we had a household conversion as the first fruits of the apostles' labors there in Philippi. And then in the next paragraph, there was a manifestation of divine grace in the deliverance of this demon-possessed girl. She had a spirit of divination.

5:30 She was possessed of an evil spirit. And the people who owned her used her for gain. And when she came into the presence of Paul and his companions, day after day, she would cry out, These men are servants. These men are servants of the Most High God who proclaim unto you the way of salvation.

5:57 So day after day, there was this proclamation coming out of her mouth identifying Paul and his companions not as a bunch of money-hungry religious itinerant charlatans going from city to city to fleece people under the guise of healing them. If only they'd give them seed money. No, this demon-possessed woman properly identified these men as bond-sleighs of the Most High God whose business was not to fleece the people, not to build up their own gospel enterprise, but simply to proclaim the way of salvation. And we read that when the apostle Paul said, And we read that when the apostle Paul said, And we read that when the apostle Paul said, And we read that when the apostle Paul said, When the apostle Paul troubled in his spirit on one of those days, said to that spirit, I charge you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her, that in that very hour she was released from the power of this demon. And obviously news of such an event like this would have made its way throughout many parts of this Roman colony named Philippi. But then further, the manifestation of divine grace,

7:21 not only in the conversion of Lydia and her household, and the deliverance of this demon-possessed girl, but in the response of Paul and Silas to their unjust beating and incarceration. We read in verse 19 that the masters who owned this girl, seeing that their means of gaining money from her was gone, seeing that their means of gaining money from her was gone, seeing that their means of gaining money from her was gone, seeing that their means of gaining money from her was gone, laid hold of Paul and Silas, dragged them into the marketplace, and then laid false accusations against them. They said that they are Jews who are exceedingly troubling our city, setting forth customs which it is not lawful for us to receive or to observe, being Romans. Now, as I've studied that passage, it seems to me this doesn't even have a semblance of relationship with God. Now, as I've studied that passage, it seems to me this doesn't even have a semblance of relationship with God. It seems to me this doesn't even have a semblance of relationship with God.

8:19 It's a pure fabricated lie. It's a pure fabricated lie. And they bring it forth as an accusation, and the multitude rises up against them. The magistrates tear their clothing and command them to be beaten with rods.

8:34 The magistrates tear their clothing and command them to be beaten with rods. Here they are, no just trial, no basis for the accusation, but a multitude is stirred up by these false accusations, they are beaten with rods, and after many stripes are laid upon them, they are cast into prison. The jailer is charged to keep them safely, and even he does not treat them with civility. Verse 24 says, having received such a charge, cast them into the inner prison.

9:08 He didn't lead them in. He did not graciously seek to minister to them, but obviously treated them brusquely and roughly, cast them into the inner prison, and here they are, no doubt, bruised and contusions all over their bodies, perhaps even bleeding, and to add to the indignity, he makes their feet fast in the stocks. And yet, in that very situation, being the recipients of this unjust and unconscionable treatment, what are Paul and Silas doing? But about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying, but about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying, but about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying, but about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying, but about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying, and singing hymns unto God.

9:52 They were not sitting there, consulting as to how they would plot against these who had falsely accused them, how they would issue their complaint to the authorities, but recognizing the sovereign hand of God and counting it a privilege to suffer for the sake of Christ, they are manifesting the grace of God that enables disciples, that enables disciples, to take the words of Jesus literally to rejoice and to be exceedingly glad when we are persecuted for His name's sake. Now, we don't know if the jailer had heard about the conversion of Lydia and her household, and what would have been the very seed-bed of the church at Philippi in that converted household. We do not know if he knew about the conversion, We do not know if he knew about the conversion, We do not know if he knew about the conversion, We do not know if he knew about the conversion, He did not know about the conversion, and he did not know about the conversion. this woman who had the spirit of divination. But we do know that when Paul and Silas are thrown into prison, he is obviously aware that they have been beaten. He himself becomes

11:04 a perpetrator of ungracious, unkind treatment upon them and cannot help but see this manifestation of the grace of God in the way they responded. No doubt many other criminals had been put in stocks and cast in prison by this jailer and had done so amidst their curses and amidst their foul recriminations against the jailer in the Roman government and against whoever was responsible for their incarceration. But these men were utterly and radically different from any other prisoners. he had ever handled before.

Circumstances Producing the Signpost: Display of Divine Power

11:45 But then the circumstances that produce this signpost are not only circumstances in which we have the manifestation of divine grace at Philippi, but secondly, in which we have a display of divine power in the jail itself. A display of divine power in the jail itself. For we read in verse 26, somewhere around midnight, as Paul and Silas are singing hymns to God, the prisoners are listening. The jailer apparently is sound asleep, for we read in verse 27, and the jailer being roused out of sleep.

12:30 In between, we read, suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations, not just the roof or the walls, but the very foundations of the prison house were shaken. All the doors fly open and everyone's bands are loosed. And from the context, it seems clear that the stocks which held Paul and Silas, their locks dropped off or were so wrenched by the earthquake under the providential hand of God that the metal was twisted out of the wood because there's no indication that they are in the stocks, subsequent to the earthquake, or that the jailer looses them from the stocks. And all of the other prisoners, by whatever bands they were held in the prison, we read that they were loosed. Here was a display of divine power in the earthquake and the attendant circumstances. But coupled with that display of divine power in the physical realm was this display of divine power in the moral realm.

13:45 For in verse 28 we read, Paul cried to this jailer who was about to kill himself knowing that by Roman law had any of the prisoners under his charge escaped, he would have been slain. And rather than undergo the indignity and the cruelty of being slain by others, he's about to plunge his own sword into his own breast. And he's about to plunge his own sword into his own breast. And Paul says, do yourself no harm for we are all here.

14:20 Now what in the world would have restrained all of those other prisoners? They're being restrained by bonds and bands within the inner prison. The earthquake so shakes the foundations that all of their shackles and manacles fall off. They are free to leave.

14:41 The doors, we read, are all open. And when criminals, bad enough to be incarcerated and held securely, maximum security with additional bands, see their bands off and doors open and don't move, that is a moral miracle. It was God restraining them from doing what comes naturally to criminals who may plot for days and months and years, how to escape from such a place. Now they could walk out and yet Paul says, we are all here.

Circumstances Producing the Signpost: Declaration of Felt Need by the Jailer

15:23 So there was not only then the manifestations of divine grace at Philippi, the display of divine power in the jail, but there is thirdly in the circumstances that produce this signpost, the declaration of felt need by the Lord. By the jailer. The declaration of felt need by the jailer. Verse 29.

15:51 And the jailer called for lights and sprang in and trembling for fear fell down before Paul and Silas and brought them out and said, using a term of great respect, sirs, literally lords, what must, what I do to be saved. Here was a declaration of the felt need by the jailer. He had come into a very close brush with death itself. The point of his own sword had been within a half inch of his own heart.

16:35 He had seen and felt the mighty power of God. This God, whom he would have to meet in a very short time, at the hand of the Roman authorities, if the prisoners were found escaped. This God, whom he was not prepared to meet. This God, who had shaken the jail house.

16:56 This God, who had restrained the prisoners. This God, who enabled innocent, godly men with the glow of the joy of Christ upon their bruised faces to be seen in the stocks before him. And perhaps, before he fell asleep, hearing their hymns and their prayers, he comes to an acute awareness of felt need. For the scripture tells us that he sprang in and trembling.

17:27 For here, here's a man who can see human beings bloody and bruised and cast them into prison, swap their feet in stocks and walk away and spit out of the corner of his mouth and go to sleep. That's a hardened man. Men like that don't tremble easily. Men like that don't become leafy in their trembling over slight issues.

17:59 But here, under a sense of felt need, and the text says, trembling for fear, fell down before the servants of God. He who a short time before had cast them into prison, made their feet fast in the stocks, now falls down before them, takes the posture of a man in desperate need, and he cries out unto them, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Now, where did he get the idea that these men could help him with respect to the issue of being saved? Well, I think there is reason to believe from the Holy Spirit, including what we find in verse 17,

18:49 that he had received some account of this whole incident of this demon-possessed girl, and of how day after day she followed behind Paul and Silas, crying out, These men are servants of the Most High who proclaim to you the way of salvation. And who knows how many times he may have heard the report. And who knows what his initial responses might have been. Way of salvation, smalvation, who cares?

19:27 I've got drink and broads and bodies to bully.

19:35 Salvation nonsense. I want to live life where it's really at.

19:41 Talk to me about a way of salvation. Talk to me about a way of pleasure. Talk to me about a way of sensual delight. And a way of pleasantly indulging.

19:55 You've got my ear.

20:02 Now that man is found trembling, falling down before the servant. What must I do to get into that way of salvation? What must I do about that day that they will pull me to be saved?

The Specific Directives of the Signpost: Duty Commanded and Object Identified

21:04 Now those which produce to the Celeste, and having looked at the specific directives, when they come to life and to salmately to the Celeste,

21:43 well, notice two things very clear in the text. Number one, the central duty commanded. That's the first. The central duty commanded.

21:56 And second,

22:00 identified.

22:04 And it on this side. Look at the.

22:52 What did it mean to that jailer?

23:00 It would have meant to him nothing less than that he then and there put all that he must from death to him in John 6. What must we that we may work? They were not done with him. Verse. They spoke the word of the Lord unto him.

24:21 He said,

24:26 and turned to God and do work. Verse 21. He said, he testifies. Repent.

24:41 There was in this period to set before what it would mean for him as a reverent, how it to non-rule of the Lord Jesus. But God has more conviction. You must wait for awareness.

26:29 But the exclusion.

26:33 Look at the passage.

26:35 What did they tell him to believe in or more literally at P upon upon what was he? To wait of his soul would say object of our faith should be ourselves. Mr. J the goddess, but love the sun.

27:16 Everything's all right. You're a noble. You're of great worth to the way you are and just believe identified. Believe the Lord to be say they took him into the house.

28:45 And according to Romans one, heaven team, Paul have opened up that gospel, that one in and they would have expressed was the thick life. We're. Of the law of the one by whom be constituted right. They would have expressed the tuitionary death.

29:41 They would have proclaimed his trial and the whole end to which the Lord, therefore I young man, young woman, boy, girl, man, or woman. When you are anxious,

30:20 remember, she will do all to direct you away from that and Christ and the cross heaven and hell before you an older man or woman.

31:26 But you know, you know that the circle and the truth and the people whose line even is with the gods of the jailer is your question leaving on the Lord Jesus.

The Specific Directives of the Signpost: The Blessed Result Promised

32:28 Well, if God is here and you need to believe on the Lord Jesus, oh yes, but then the Bible said on the Lord Jesus, but then the Bible you to believe on the Lord Jesus, my friend, listen to all of those duty commanded the exclusive identified. But now, now look at the blessed result.

33:45 The blessed result promised they said, be on the Lord Jesus and you whose power who should have been bitter and full of acrimony and a spirit of revenge.

34:32 And yet you're praising the God who's allowed you to be unjustly beaten up and thrown into prison and cruelly treated at my hands saved from the posh a to jail inmates. I don't want to meet a cop like that. In my sins. I don't want to meet a cop like that in all the nakedness and the fileness and filthiness of my unclean soul.

35:04 I don't want to meet a cop like that. And they say, that's the duty commanded. The ex be saying, maybe perhaps eventually be, but be leaving the penalty of all the sins. As you threw us into the man, you will be saved from the reigning power of sin for whom the sun sets. Free is free. Indeed,

36:14 the God who can shake a jail and make the bond can take the chains in that bind your heart and bind you to habits and patterns that have marked you for years. He opens the prison, how he saves mating influence of sin. Those that he said we are disinherited. According to Galatians,

37:24 the gift of when we get glorified bodies, all the richness of the biblical words, we are saved. May we never get so sophisticated that we are embarrassed to say, I'm saved. I'm saved. Mr. James, you must rest. Even a marvel.

The Immediate Fruit of Belief: The Jailer's Household

38:38 I deliberately did not quote the remainder of the verse earlier, but I quote it now. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that he had been there. But whether that's so or not, we do know verse 32, that they spoke the word of the Lord unto him with all their heart. And here was baptism flowing upon the house, which was the fruit of household.

39:15 And here was baptism flowing upon the house, which was the fruit of household in the wee hours of morning. And do you think that they would have told a trembling jailer, here's your way to heaven, and then told a different way to him and to his, to the remaining members of his household, not on your life. They said, Mr. Jailer man, however, the circle of any member of your house may differ from yours.

39:38 You may have young men and women in your household. You may have boys in your household. You may have servants in your house. They're moral.

39:50 They're conduct. What has come out of their mouths is a part of you, but this are fallings. And no matter how, Mr. Jailer man, it may seem as though your sins are such that the grace of Christ would be exhausted forgiving those sins.

40:27 And the power of Christ somehow depleted in breaking your chain, infinite oceans in Christ, for all believing will be saved in all wonder of what that means. And then the text tells us, the word of the Lord unto him, they didn't go into his household and say, now that we got him interested, we got to psych him into a decision. We've got to manipulate him into a profession of faith. No, they just preach the word of the Lord to him.

41:12 They laid out more of the truth of the gospel. They fleshed out what it meant to believe on the Lord. He desires and he took them the same and washed. And was baptized he and all his immediately.

41:40 And he brought them up into his house and set food for them and rejoiced greatly with all having believed in God. Now, isn't it interesting? We would expect the text to read like this. They spake word of the Lord unto him with all that were in his house and professed Jesus and was baptized.

42:07 Rather than say Luke records the faith already being manifested, he manifested in good works. And he took them into the same house and washed their stripes. He who had said even been involved in inflicting some of them now takes the place of a nurse to them. You see, the Lord is giving us in a beautifully descriptive way the fruit of his faith.

42:49 Because Jesus said in as much as you do it unto the least of these, my little ones, you do it unto me. And because faith in Christ immediately produces an attachment of love to Christ and love to Christ will be manifested in a treatment of graciousness to the people of Christ, the Holy Ghost records his faith as it is at work, not in abstraction. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes and was baptized as a believing, morally transformed sinner. He and all his household believing with them and then he brings them up into his house, sets food before them and rejoices greatly with all his house having obeyed that command to believe upon the Lord Jesus when it says having believed in God that must be taken in the context of belief in God as revealed in Christ and in the gospel revealed as they had brought him before him in the preaching of the word of God. And so tonight, dear people, children, young people, adults, we stand before another of these simple signposts.

Conclusion: A Call to Believe and Cease from Unbelief

44:17 Who but God could this night record the thousands, perhaps millions, for whom Acts 16.31 has been the instrument in the hand of the Holy Spirit to bring them out of death into life. The instrument in the hand of the Spirit to bring them out of unbelief and into faith. When they saw in these words these things that form the very heart of God's message of grace and salvation.

44:51 Believe! Christ! Saved! You will never be saved until you believe.

45:00 And your believing is worthless unless it is into or upon the Lord Jesus. But believing upon Him you are saved. But you say, Pastor, I've heard that from the time. I can remember anything.

45:16 Well, all the more reason why you ought to obey it. That's no reason not to obey it. All the more reason to obey it. But you say, I won't.

45:25 The weight of your soul upon Christ. Say in the words of the hymn writer, Hangs my helpless soul on Thee. Thou, O Christ, art all I want. And believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, this promise is to you in the Gospel.

45:58 You will be saved. Not you may be. You will be. Believing.

46:05 You will be saved. I'm not ready to believe. I know my Bible well enough to know I can't believe without God's...

46:16 Listen, my friend. Don't treat unbelief like it was some kind of a sickness for which you were to be pitied. Unbelief is damning wickedness. The Scripture says, The wrath of God abides on him who does not believe.

46:37 Unbelief is a wicked sin. Why? Almighty God in the Gospel commands you to believe upon Him. What but wicked defiance of God would keep you from believing?

46:57 What but wicked doubts of the virtue and the ability of Christ would keep you from believing? What but a wicked secret love of some darling sin that you know Christ will wrench from you if you believe upon Him? What but such things would keep you from Christ? And your unbelief is your wickedness for which God blames you and for which He'll damn you.

47:26 It is not something for which you're to be pitied, but to be blamed. Cease from your unbelief. And this hour, this moment in this place, as Christ stands before you in the Gospel, in all the plenitude of His heart of pity to sinners, in all the plenitude of His power to break whatever chains you forged, in all the power and virtue of His blood to cleanse from the deepest stain of any sin, boys, girls, men and women, I beg you in His name, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in the confidence that you will be saved. Let us pray. Our Father, we pray that Your Holy Spirit will take Your own Holy Word and make it effectual even now to bring boys and girls and men and women to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ that they may know the fulfillment of that sure word of promise that believing they shall be saved.

48:51 Seal this word to their hearts, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.