What Must I Do To Be Saved‪?‬ Hope Baptist Church Podcast

What Must I Do To Be Saved?



Acts 16:25–34



25 And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. 26 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed. 27 And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. 28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. 29 Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, 30 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. 32 And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. 34 And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.



Two weeks ago we spoke of the triumphal entry of the Lord. The day that Jesus presented himself as the King of Israel, the day the people acknowledged that this same Jesus is the one spoken of all through the Old Testament and presented himself on the very day Daniel wrote of 483years earlier.



To the very day that Cyrus, king of Persia made his proclamation in both speech and also in writing;



2 Chronicles 36:23



23 Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? The LORD his God be with him, and let him go up.



Incredibly however, while one day the people rejoiced in Jesus and exalted him as their king and that all should follow him, a few days later he was turned upon, falsely accused before a multitude and sent through no less than three fake, unlawful trials before being presented with false witnesses, until he was unlawfully condemned by the testimony of his own lips.



Remember beloved that accusations must be PROVED by the accusers.



 Accusations are NOT to be defended against, they are TO BE PROVED. 



This happens to each and every one of us from time to time,



You will have people forcing you to defend against an accusation, but the burden of proof is on the accuser. “Innocent until PROVEN guilty” is the correct manner of law, not ‘guilty until PROVEN innocent’. 



Those seeking you to answer an accusation are reversing the lawful burden of proof.



This is what occurred to Jesus. He was asked to defend himself against an accusation, but the burden of proof is ALWAYS on the accuser. 



What happened to Jesus was LAWLESSNESS. This same LAWLESSNESS is repeated often today.



What we witness in the Bible during this time was that the cries of “Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord”, four days later gave way to “Crucify him, Crucify him”.



Not even the Governor Pilot could get an answer as he cried out “Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more saying Let him be crucified.” Mt 27:23



Three days and three nights later the resurrection of Jesus Christ became the single most proven historical event of all history, the denial of which would require the denial of ALL history not video recorded. 



What then came of all of this?



Opportunity for eternal life began to be preached to all the world as a testimony to the truth of Christ for the salvation of the world.



       The world was changed, NOT BY WAR, but by WORD!



The testimony is that Jesus, the Son of God and God the Son, died for the sins of the entire world and eternal life became available to ALL wh