Life’s Most Important Question.

 “And brought them to the magistrates saying, these men being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs, which are not lawful for us to receive, being Romans. And the multitudes rose up together against them: and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely: Who having received the charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks” (Acts 16:20-24).

 An ancient road, built by the Romans, extended from Rome on the west to Istanbul on the east. Great parts of that roadway still exist. The city of Philippi, so strategically located, was built right on the thoroughfare that connected the continents. It was named after the father of Alexander the Great. At the time of Paul, it is believed that nearly a half-million residents lived there. No Christian message had ever been brought to those people in the year of A.D. 53. The apostle Paul and his friend Silas became the first missionaries to invade Europe. And they paid a dreadful price; they had been rudely taken, bound to whipping posts, and beaten into unconsciousness.

 Now it was midnight. Deep in the dungeon---dark, chill. Wet---two prisoners are chained against a stonewall. Beneath them is a trough built at a slight angle into which human waste and blood drop. Water trickles from a nearby spring, flushing the trough so that it remains reasonably clean. The two ministers of Christ are regaining their senses, feeling the knifing pain of their fresh untreated wounds, and hearing their blood drop into the water below. They thirst terribly, and there is no way to lie down for rest. Paul turns in the pitch-blackness to where he hears labored breathing. “Silas,” he croaks, “let’s sing!”

 In another room in the prison complex, the warden sleeps fitfully on a provided couch. It was difficult for him to rest for he was not happy with the beating given those two preachers earlier in the evening. What had they done? He reasoned to himself. What harm was there in releasing a poor girl from the demons that had her bound for years. On his last rounds, the jail had been quiet. There was an occasional rattle of a chain as a prisoner turned over and the low consumptive coughs of another. Some young kid in the back cell kept crying in his sleep for his mother. But all was as it should be and the warden retreated to his office and his cot.

 Now, at midnight, he is awakened by a new sound---singing, quite terrible singing. He slips in the corridor, looks into the blackness of the dungeon and realizes the questionable notes are coming from the two preachers. Smiling ruefully, the warden closes the door and returns to his quarters. “How could those men sing?” he wonders. “They were nearly killed last night---and there may be more to come today!” With a shake of his head, he once again lies on his cot and slips into dreamland.

But what happens next is no dream. More like a nightmare! He is pushed off his cot onto the stone floor. The entire building is shaking and pitching. He hears screams, cracks of wood and rock, trees crashing, thunderous sounds that could drive one mad! An earthquake!  Philippi is experiencing a major cataclysm! Then the sobering thought: If any of the prisoners escape, the Romans will hold him liable. He will receive whatever punishment was coming to them. Grabbing his sword, he races to the jail and his worst fears are confirmed. Walls have crumbled. Chains have snapped. Prisoners are walking free. The warden places the point of his sword against the hollow of his throat. One plunge and the Romans can worry about the escaped prisoners themselves. But before he can ram his sword through his neck, he hears someone call out: “Don’t do that! Stop it, warden! Put your sword down!” Paul is right. No one has escaped. What kind of power does this fellow Paul have that he can sing at midnight even though his body is raw meat? That prisoners obey him and stop in their tracks? The warden’s sword rattles free down the steps as he runs to Paul’s feet and falls on his face. His cry---his question---has reverberated through the ages: “Sirs” he cries, “what must I do to be saved?”

 Life’s greatest question! Every human being will ask it---either in this life, or before the Great White Throne Judgment! You will ask it, yes; someday you will seek God for salvation. Perhaps not now, when you are caught up in the world’s frenzy, when the reaction of your friends would frustrate any spiritual drive you may possess. You may pass right through this life and never bow the knee before your Maker; but the day will come when every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that He is Lord.

 As the words tumbled from the jailor’s mouth, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” ---Something grand had already started in his heart. Some kind of dignity, of courtesy, of civility, had been opened. He called his prisoners, “Sirs.” He hadn’t thought of them that way before. Last night he considered these men as those who desecrate the law, vagabonds, ruffians, and fanatics. But now some inner Spirit cautions him and he called them, “Sirs.”  These men are no hypocrites! No, he sees that now. No person could suffer their outrageous beating and sing in the night, without bitterness, without cursing, without rancor. These men possessed something, and he wanted it! “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

 What is the line a witness usually hears first when talking to someone about Christ? Of course: “There are hypocrites in the church!” Why, certainly there are. Who ever said there were not? But that does not stop you in any other endeavor, does it? A doctor was charged with malpractice, he faces civil and perhaps criminal charges. Does everyone in your town stop seeing a doctor, of course not? Will that stop you from seeing a doctor when needed? It would be ridiculous to charge the majority of medical people, simply because a few, here and there, are guilty. Yet that is exactly what some do with Christ and the church. Pointing to a few who obviously are frauds and charlatans, they conclude that everyone is of the same cut of cloth and thereby the gospel is rejected. Be assured your finger pointing at hypocrites is the most ludicrous defense for your sinful life that you can come up with. And besides all that---at the final judgment, God is not going to compare your life with the hypocrites. He will stand you up against Christ, who is the measuring rod.

 The jailor’s question was intensely personal: What must I do to be saved? He was not asking his friends and acquaintances throughout Philippi. He was asking about himself. When a person is born again of God’s Spirit, he, of course, has concern for the souls of others. He wants everyone to be saved. I question, in fact, whether a person is really saved who does not carry a burden for the world. But the work has to begin in you, not your neighbor. You must settle accounts with God for your own life before you begin to intercede for another. For one brief moment, set aside the rest of the world, your neighbors, your family, what about you? Is your sin pardoned? Covered by the blood of Jesus? Is your place in eternity secured? Listen; there is coming an earthquake mightier than that shook Philippi. There is coming a time God’s Word terms “the tribulation” that will be so horrendous that no one can stand. Are you prepared?

 The jailor’s question was the most important one he could ever ask. Perhaps he was anxious to have his salary raised; perhaps he wanted better living quarters in Philippi for himself and his family; Perhaps he would have liked changes made in prison reform; perhaps he was involved in a myriad of other pursuits. But the one issue that concerned him most was his own soul! Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

He would not always be warden, anymore than Pilate would be Judea’s governor. Sir, you will not always own that company. Someone else will sit at your desk, park in your parking spot, draw your paycheck. Someone else will go to your tailor, get the deal from the car salesman. Your present life is nothing more than a vapor, a morning mist on an Ozark trout stream, that will vanish the moment the sun hits it. You are transient, a wanderer, going through this life en route to the main event. No question you will address has more validity than this one, what must I do to be saved?

This question has more urgency than anything concerning your family. Someday your father and mother will be gone, your companions will have entered eternity, and perhaps even your children will precede you in death. Yes, yes, hopefully all has been well in your relationships with those dear ones, but what is your relationship with God? This is the question that decides whether you will live unending ages with God or go into eternal exile, into hell from which no one will ever return. This is the question that determines whether for all the future you will praising or blaspheming, chanting or groaning, living the life that always lives or dying the death that always dies. Can there possibly be any question comparable with that?

What difference could it make now to Napoleon whether he triumphed or surrendered? Whether he was emperor or exile? When he was buried, the mortician had dressed him in his field marshal garb. Did that give him any better chance for the next world than if they merely covered him with a shroud? I tell you, that very soon it will matter nothing in this world whether in this world I drove a Model T, or a Cadillac---or walked, for that matter. It will mean nothing if I was bowed to in this life or maltreated, applauded or booed, welcomed or kicked out. It will mean zero if I gained the whole world---but, in doing so, lost my soul. May I say to you one more thing? No question demands to be asked today, this moment more than this one: What must I do to be saved? Waiting until your deathbed, are you? The odds against you are overwhelming. Look in your Bible and read of the thousands of men and women who all died; how many of them repented successfully in their last hour? Fifty? Thirty? Ten? You can find only a couple, I think. Yes, it is possible that a person may find God in his last hour, but it is so improbable. The odds must be thousands to one! And what kind of way is that to approach God? After you have lived a life in sin and selfishness, trying to repent with your last breaths? The scene is macabre---the nurse holding your last spoon of medicine, the lawyer trying to get you to sign the will, and the bells of eternity tolling the passage of your soul from your body. All the past is rolling upon you now, like the waves of the sea, angels are flying through your death chamber even as devils are plotting to escort you to hell. Oh, no, a person is only a fool who purposes to delay salvation until the final hour.

Paul answered the Philippian jailor: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved!” No, this is not mere mental assent to Christ’s very existence, this is the belief that changes a person’s soul, that causes the whole process of redemption to begin: conversion, justification, sanctification, reconciliation---all of it. This is the belief that puts you into the loving hands of God.

I beg you today, ask God for His salvation! Please don’t delay until tomorrow. Today is the day of salvation, not then. Eternal life is yours for the asking, already paid in full at Calvary. You can have victory through the saving life of Christ.

       A weak, and helpless worm,

       On thy kind arms I fall;

       Be thou my strength and righteousness.

       My Jesus and my all.

                             ---Unknown 

 
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