Introduction

The words of our text you may find in Acts 16, the last part of verse 30 and the first part of 31 or the whole of 31. These words: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.”

I will not take time, beloved, this afternoon to elaborate upon the context of these words of my text. They are very well known. As you know, Paul and Silas at this time have labored in Philippi and preached the gospel there. And while they so labored, a certain damsel followed them and called after them, “These men show unto us the way of salvation.” And, finally, Paul, getting wearied of this damsel and her calling the apostles, cast out that spirit of divination which she possessed. And the result was that her masters, who became rich through the damsel, became enraged at the apostles because of their financial loss and put them into prison after having scourged them. And we read in the context, as I read to you, that at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises to the Lord. And at the same time, there was an earthquake, and that earthquake in connection with what followed, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, had the effect of the calling of the conversion of the jailor. It is on that calling of the jailor that I wish to speak to you especially in this afternoon hour. And I call your attention, first, to the question as to how that jailor was called; in the second place, unto what he was called; and thirdly, with what fruit he was called.

How the Jailor Was Called

This text, beloved, like many other texts, of course, has been distorted and misinterpreted so as to become almost a simple human story instead of what it really is—the astounding wonder of the grace of God. Oh, it’s so easy to read scripture and to speak about scripture as if it were a common storybook or a common book of doctrine. Scripture, however, is nothing of the kind. Always the scriptures are the record of the revelation of the God of our salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord. And so also these words must be understood in the light of the wonder of the grace of God.

These words have been used, indeed, in my own experience in the ministry to emphasize that we must believe. People have so often told me that, even in my first congregation, and I had only two. Even in my first congregation, people often came to me and said, “Yeah, dominie, yeah, dominie, you could talk about sovereign grace and talk about election and reprobation, but.” And notice that but. Whenever people come with that but, beloved, be careful. “Yeah, dominie, we believe very well in sovereign grace and we believe in election and we believe in reprobation but, but we must believe.” And although, of course, there is truth in that statement, you must believe, when those people, people of that kind, that want to contrast, that want to make a contrast or a distinction or rather a contradiction between we must believe and election, on the other hand; I usually express myself very strongly, beloved, in saying, “No, that isn’t so. You must not believe. You must not believe. We must not believe. We must not believe.” And they are astounded, usually, or they are astounded because usually they think I’m all off when I talk that way. And yet the fact is, beloved, that they are off, not I. That’s a fact.

Listen. We must believe? Oh, that’s true. But is that the gospel? Is that the gospel, we must believe? We must believe? If that were the gospel, beloved, the gospel could never be realized. I say once more, to be sure, we must believe; but there is no hope in that statement, and there is no salvation in that statement because if you only say that we must believe, which means, of course, that nobody has the right not to believe and nobody has the right to be an unbeliever. That we are obliged before God to believe, yes, yes, yes. There’s no hope in that. That’s not the gospel.

“Believe,” my text says. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” I said last Thursday, beloved, as you probably remember some of you, it does not help one bit whether I say that to you. Even though it is mentioned in the words of my text, it does not help one bit. It has no effect when I say that to you. “Believe, believe.” It has no effect even though I twist myself into all kinds of shapes, as many do in our country. Even if I do not say, “Believe,” they must believe; but even if I say, “Oh, please believe! Please believe and be saved! Please believe because otherwise you go to everlasting damnation,” it doesn’t make any difference. It has no effect on any one of you, not when I say it. But when Christ says that, beloved, Christ—not I but Christ, as he does here, as he did here through Paul and through the apostles—when Christ says that, then, indeed, you do not answer, “Oh, I must believe.” But then the fruit, the inevitable fruit, the sure fruit, is that you say, “I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

That is my text throughout here. This is not a story, beloved, that anyone can tell or that anyone can read and probably copy and can repeat. This is evidently very plainly, emphatically, the revelation of the wonder of God’s grace whereby he, he saves a sinner from sin and death and causes him to enter into the everlasting glory and blessedness of his covenant. A wonder. A wonder it is. A wonder it is throughout.

And to make that plain to you, let us consider four elements in the question, how was that jailor called?

Usually, people like to say instead of the calling of the jailor, the conversion of the jailor. It’s all right, but it’s better to speak of the calling because it was the calling, beloved, that is emphasized in the words of my text. And there are four elements in that calling of the jailor. First of all, there was the earthquake. Secondly, there was the despair of the jailor. He lay on the brink of hell. He wanted to commit suicide. Thirdly, there was the outcry of the jailor, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Then fourthly, there was the answer, the preaching of Paul and Silas, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”

These four elements all belong to the calling of the jailor. And, mark you, all these four elements were not of men but were of Christ. It was Christ that caused the earthquake. It was Christ that caused the jailor’s waking out of his sleep to lie on the brink of hell. And it was Christ that called him back through the words of the apostles, “Do thyself no harm.” It was Christ that caused the jailor to cry out, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” That’s Christ. And it was Christ that caused him to be called by the gospel, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” It’s all of Christ from beginning to end.

Now, let us note, first of all, there’s the earthquake. What’s an earthquake? What’s an earthquake in scripture? An earthquake, beloved, is, in general in the word of God, a wonder. An earthquake is a wonder, and this earthquake surely was a wonder. Don’t overlook that. This earthquake was a wonder; it was not a common earthquake. In the first place, it was not common because of the place and the time. This was an earthquake that caused exactly the foundations of the prison to shake. I think it was even very doubtful whether the earthquake was felt in the rest of the city. It was right at the bottom of the prison. But even if that is not the case, the earthquake was also very striking and strange because the prison was not destroyed. The prison wasn’t destroyed. What happened was that the prison doors were opened. Strange earthquake. The doors of the prison were opened. Not only that, but besides what happened by the earthquake was that the bands of the prisoners were loosed. The shackles and the blocks on their feet were loosed, and the prisoners were free. That’s all that happened by the earthquake.

A wonder it was, and a wonder, beloved, a wonder in general, a wonder in the scriptures, is that work of God’s grace whereby he raises and lifts the sin-cursed world out of sin and death and corruption into his everlasting glorious covenant and kingdom. That’s the wonder. Remember this because it’s important. It’s important to remember, beloved. Any individual wonder in the Bible is always a part of that marvelous work of God’s grace whereby he lifts the world of sin out of sin and death and destruction and corruption into the everlasting and glorious kingdom and covenant of God.

That is the wonder. You can take any individual wonder in scripture, and it’s always that. Take, for instance, the wonders which Christ performed. He healed the sick. He made the blind to see. He made the deaf to hear. He made the lame to walk. He raised the dead. He cleansed the lepers. All wonders and all those wonders, every individual wonder is a manifestation of the wonder whereby God lifts the sin-cursed world into the glory of his everlasting covenant and kingdom.

For that reason we must know one more thing. For that same reason a wonder is always a sign. A wonder as such is really not effective. Not as such. You must always understand that the wonder is meant to be a sign. You know, it doesn’t help any to open the eyes of the blind. That doesn’t help any. The man that had his eyes opened was going to die and become blind again. It doesn’t help any to open the ears of the deaf. Not as such. That man would die and become stone deaf again. It doesn’t help any to raise Lazarus from the dead and cause him to go back. It didn’t help any. That wasn’t even a blessing. I wouldn’t like if I died once, I wouldn’t like to be raised from the dead back into this world. I wouldn’t like that. I wouldn’t even like my children if they should happen to die to come back. Lazarus had to die again. It didn’t help any. It wasn’t permanent.

But those wonders which Christ performed, beloved, were signs. That you must remember. When Christ opened the eyes of the blind, it was a sign that he opened his eyes spiritually. And when your eyes are opened spiritually, your eyes are opened forever. They never become blind again. When Christ opened the ears of the deaf, it meant that was a sign, a sign that his ears were opened spiritually. And when your ears are opened spiritually, it means that you will never be deaf again. When Lazarus was raised from the dead, beloved, it meant that it was a sign that Lazarus would be raised spiritually even in his body. And if a man is raised through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, he shall never die again. “I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me shall never die.”

It’s a sign, so it was also with the earthquake. Don’t you forget that. This was an earthquake. And an earthquake, beloved, is a sign of that wonderwork of God whereby he causes the power of his grace to pierce through the present world, to break through, to let the kingdom of God break through the present world. The earthquake means that the form of this world passes away to make room for the kingdom of God. That’s the earthquake.

If you asked, therefore, “Why, why the earthquake here? Why the earthquake here?” It wasn’t because the Lord wanted to free the prisoners, Paul and Silas. That was not the reason. They stayed in prison. Even after the earthquake, they still stayed in prison. It wasn’t, although that may have been one of the effects, it wasn’t because the church in Philippi must be vindicated or the apostles must be vindicated after they had been jailed and scourged, that the cause of Christ was vindicated to a certain extent. That was not the main purpose, however. The main fact was, beloved, that there was one elect there in the jail of Philippi. One elect. One elect and his house. And for that one elect, that that one elect might be called and might be called in such a way that it would be forever a revelation of the power of grace to you and to me. That’s why the earthquake was there.

The earthquake, beloved, therefore was a sign, let me say, a sign of the earthquake that took place in the heart and soul of the jailor. That was the real earthquake. The real earthquake was not the quake in the ground, but the real earthquake was the quake in the heart and soul of the jailor. There was a tremendous earthquake in that soul, a tremendous earthquake in that heart of the jailor. That’s evident from all that you read here, beloved. Everything. The earthquake in the heart and soul of the jailor was caused by the Spirit and word of Jesus Christ. It was caused by the fact that by the Spirit and word of Jesus Christ the jailor was regenerated and called unto salvation.

Now look, the jailor was sound asleep. He was sound asleep before the earthquake, and Christ woke him up, woke him up by the earthquake. And when Christ woke him up by the earthquake, and Christ woke him, beloved; when Christ woke him up in such a way that the earthquake was caused in his own soul, the earthquake of regeneration and calling piercing through his heart and mind and soul; when Christ so called him and woke him up, and Christ said to him, Christ said to him (that’s why there was an earthquake in his soul), “Awake, thou that sleepest and arise from the dead,” that was the real earthquake, and that was the real cause of the earthquake.

Because Christ said to him, “Awake, thou that sleepest and arise from the dead,” the first effect was that the jailor, waking out of his natural sleep, found himself on the brink of hell. That was the first effect. He wanted to commit suicide. And when a man commits suicide, beloved, it means that he’s on the brink of hell. That was true of the jailor. That’s true of you and me. Whenever Christ calls, not when I call. When I call, it’s nothing to you. My call has no effect. When I say, “Awake, thou that sleepest and arise from the dead,” it makes no difference to you whether you’re elect or reprobate. It makes no difference. But when Christ calls, when Christ brings this spiritual earthquake into your heart, that earthquake has the same effect as it had on the jailor.

Oh, I know that you don’t have that experience as vividly as the jailor had it here. You were born in the church. Probably, you never found yourselves vividly and strikingly on the brink of hell. Probably, you never had an experience of despair as the jailor had. That’s very well possible, very well possible. It’s very well possible that you never had, in fact, it’s almost impossible, I would say, that you and I have a certain conversion like the conversion of the jailor, or that you and I are so certainly called as the jailor was called. That’s hardly ever possible in the church of Jesus Christ. Hardly ever. But that makes no difference. Whether that comes suddenly or whether that comes gradually, whether you are called from your very infancy on or whether you are called when you come to years of discretion in a sudden sense, sudden way, it makes no difference. The fact remains the same. When you are called by Christ, the first experience is that you find yourselves outside of Christ on the brink of hell. No question about that.

You must experience that. You do experience that. Outside of Jesus Christ, you have no hope. When Christ does not call you, when Christ does not call you through that spiritual earthquake through his regenerating grace and Spirit and word, then, of course, you cannot realize this. But as soon as Christ calls you, one of the inevitable effects and one of the inevitable signs of being called by Christ is exactly this: that without Christ you find yourself without hope.

That’s true today. Oh, yeah.

Unto What the Jailor Was Called

Don’t you think that was a tremendous wonder that, in the second place, the jailor called and gave that cry of despair, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” How in the world do you think that that jailor ever came to ask that question? “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” He didn’t hear the gospel, never before. It’s not very likely that he ever heard Paul speak even or preach. Not very likely, not before then. It’s possible that he heard that the damsel cried, that damsel in which the spirit of soothsaying cried, “These men are the servants of the most high God, which show us the way of salvation.” That’s possible, but even that was not the gospel. Yet, it is not so that, as some have it, the jailor meant, “How can I get out of this predicament?” The word salvation, beloved, and the word to save always means the same thing in scripture, as is the common definition of salvation, which is not so bad: to save is to deliver from the greatest evil and to make us partakers of the highest good. That’s salvation.

What’s the greatest evil? Sin. Death. Fear. Fear of death. You know, really all fear is fear of death. You analyze your fear. You have all kinds of fear and all kinds of anxiety and all kinds of anguish of soul. You analyze your fear, and you find that principally all fear is fear of death. You’re afraid of death. Every one of you is afraid of death. If there were no death, there would be no fear. One of the four freedoms of which President Roosevelt boasted was the freedom from fear. But, beloved, there is no freedom from fear except freedom from death. And death is the cause of fear, not because, simply, death is the loss of all things. If death were a natural process, as animals die and plants die, so man must die; if that were death, we would not be afraid of death. But death is the cause of fear because we understand and we know and we feel that death is the expression of the wrath of God. That’s why we’re afraid of death. And salvation, to save, is to deliver us from the greatest evil—sin, guilt, death, the wrath of God, damnation—and to make us partakers of the highest good, the favor of God and eternal life.

That’s what the jailor meant.

I don’t know why the jailor ever got to say this. He certainly couldn’t have said it of himself. Christ said that through him. When Christ said, “Awake, thou that sleepest and arise from the dead,” the result was that he cried out, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And that same Christ preached to him, “This you must do: believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” That means, beloved, you must do nothing! Believe! Believe! Nothing! Do nothing but believe, believe, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.

What is that? What is that wonder of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? What is that?

First of all, you must remember that all faith is faith in God. All faith is faith in God. Faith can never be faith in man. Faith must always be faith in God.

In the second place, you cannot even believe in God as God. You can believe that God is, maybe. The devils also believe, and they tremble. You can never believe in God. God is a God of wrath. To believe in God means to trust in him; to rely on him; to believe that he loves you, that he saves you, that he gives you eternal life, that he makes you the objects of his favor. That’s to believe in God. And for that reason, beloved, you cannot believe in God except through faith in Jesus Christ. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”

Christ is God. He is God. And because he’s the Son of God come into human flesh, and he came into human flesh because he was ordained to be the revelation of the God of our salvation. Other gods—there are none in whom we can trust. The only God in whom we can trust is the God that has revealed himself in Jesus Christ our Lord. Otherwise, there is no revelation of the God in whom we can trust. Christ, born in Bethlehem, suffered, sojourned, having spoken to us the word of life, died on the cross, rose from the dead, exalted in the highest heaven. That Christ is the object of our faith.

“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”

And why? What is that relation, beloved? You no doubt have heard that this morning, but what is that relation between that Christ and our salvation? And what is that relation between that faith and our salvation?

Is it so that our faith is the cause of our salvation? Is faith in Christ the ground, or cause, of our salvation? You say no, of course. Is it so, perhaps, that faith is something which we must perform in order to receive salvation? When you read here, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved,” may I translate that in this way: “Believe and on condition that you believe, you shall be saved”? Is faith a condition of salvation at all? God forbid, beloved. Faith is no condition. Faith is not something which we must do in order to be saved.

Faith is, in the first place, the means whereby we have a living contact with Jesus Christ, the God of our salvation. Living contact. As the Heidelberg Catechism has it, beloved, we are engrafted into Christ.

I can give you another illustration. Faith is, what I would say, the connection of this light bulb with the electric plant. You can have a light bulb here, but if there is no electricity in town, that doesn’t help you one bit. You can never have light in the church as long as there is no electric plant in town or electricity in town. But there can be a light bulb here in the church and an electric plant; and if you have no wire to connect this light bulb with the plant, you still have no light. One more. You can have a light bulb here and a plant and a wire connected with it; but if you have no switch, you still have no light. That’s faith. Very crude illustration, I know. But that is a true illustration of what faith is, beloved.

There is Christ, Jesus Christ—Jesus Christ, the God of our salvation, born in Bethlehem, died on the cross, arose from the dead, ascended into the heavens, full of grace and truth—Christ. And here is my soul in darkness. If I am not connected with that Christ, my soul is in darkness, just as this church is in darkness when it is not connected with the electric power plant.

Faith is a condition? Must I preach to you, “You must believe. You can be saved on condition of your faith”? Then it’s hopeless because you can never string the wire from your heart to Christ. You can never string the wire of faith from your heart to the Christ that is full of grace and truth. In Christ is all our salvation. It’s all in him. In Christ is our righteousness. In Christ is the forgiveness of sins. In Christ is wisdom, truth. In Christ is eternal life. It’s all in Christ. In my soul is death, nothing but death. I must be connected with him; but if I must string the wire of my heart and my soul to connect myself with Christ, it’s hopeless.

Oh no, beloved, Christ strings the wire. Faith is that gift of God through Christ whereby he connects my soul and my heart with the living Christ—my righteousness, my light, my life, my wisdom, my all, my salvation.

That’s faith.

But perhaps you say, “Yes, but, but. Although Christ must, indeed, string the wire and connect my soul with his salvation, I must, nevertheless, turn on the switch.”

Is that it? Even then, beloved, I would never do it. It’s not so that Christ connects my soul with him and that now I have the power to turn the switch. Oh no. The turning of the switch is the work of the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel.

That’s what happened here in the jailor’s soul. The earthquake in his soul, leading him to despair, causing him to cry out, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” causing the gospel to come to him, Christ causing the gospel to come to him, “Believe, believe in me, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house.” That moment when Christ turned, when Christ spoke that word of salvation to him, at that moment he was saved, and Christ through his Spirit turned on the switch. So it is with us, beloved.

Faith? Oh, you can analyze faith. It’s not necessary to do that this afternoon. Faith you can analyze, as has been done, as knowledge—knowledge, spiritual knowledge—and confidence. That spiritual knowledge whereby I taste Christ and taste all his benefits and taste all his grace, as well as that confidence whereby I rely on the God of my salvation through Jesus Christ my Lord, all that is implied in faith.

But the fact is, beloved, if you want a simple illustration of faith, remember faith is that spiritual power whereby God engrafts us with all our soul and mind and heart in Christ, so that we are connected with him and draw our all from him forevermore. That’s salvation.

“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And then, and then, people say nowadays, beloved, “But we must have the activity of faith.”

I don’t know how it is here, here in the West, I mean. But in the East in my church, I think elsewhere too, they like to speak of the activity of faith. “You must do something, nevertheless. You mustn’t be so passive.” That’s what they say. “The activity of faith. We are responsible creatures.” Responsible, yeah. Responsible. “And our Protestant Reformed preaching has gone too passive, don’t you know? Too passive. And so it’s all right to speak of faith as the gift of God, but let’s forget that because what we really need to emphasize is our responsibility as Christians and the activity of faith. We must do something now.”

What must we do? Oh, I don’t know. They don’t know either, I think.

You know, it’s very strange, but it’s my experience, and not so strange either. But it’s my experience that those who jabber so much about responsibility don’t know their own responsibility. That’s my experience. In fact, it’s sad to say, but it’s always been my experience; and it’s my experience now again, beloved, in the history which we are making that people that depart from the truth also depart from Christian ethics. The two are inseparable. People who depart from the truth of election and reprobation also depart in their own moral life. And although they speak much of love, love, love—we must love one another; we must love the brethren—they reveal the most corrupt hatred that you ever see in the church. That’s my experience. That’s my experience. Oh, you can talk about love, but please don’t ever talk to me about love apart from the truth because my experience is that there is no more corruption than that love. I must have nothing of it. That’s a fact.

It’s all right, beloved, that we speak of the activity of faith. But, remember, the first activity of faith is the activity whereby through the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ we lay hold on him. That’s the activity of faith, first of all. The activity of faith does not, first of all, mean that we do great things in the world or great things in the church, or that we witness for Christ, and that we save souls, and the life, and the like. That is never the activity of faith in its first manifestation. The activity of faith in its first manifestation is that we cling to Christ. That’s active faith. And by that active faith, we receive out of him all our salvation. That first of all.

The Fruit to Which the Jailor Was Called

And then, oh yeah, if you have that faith and you have that active faith, then I don’t even have to talk about responsibility anymore. It is not even necessary. I don’t even have to talk to you anymore about being active. Oh no. Then this is spontaneous, beloved.

Do you know what the fruit is? The fruit of the calling of the jailor? The fruit of the calling of the jailor was twofold. He rejoiced, we read here. He rejoiced. He rejoiced, believing in God with all his heart. Rejoiced. That’s the first fruit. Rejoiced with thanksgiving. Rejoiced to the glory of God. Rejoiced in God. Rejoiced in nothing else. Rejoiced in glorious glory, not self, not in himself, in Jesus Christ and the God of his salvation. He rejoiced in God. He rejoiced in God with all his heart and with all his house. That first of all. And when that is the activity of your faith, then this is also inevitable: that you bear fruit unto love. Then you love. Then you love. Then you love in the truth. That’s inevitable.

Then I do not have to say to you, “Love one another.” Oh, I may be able to admonish you because we are not perfect. Oh no. There is but a small beginning of the new obedience in our heart, a small beginning. And it is, indeed, true that you must be reminded of the word of God in Jesus Christ our Lord that we love one another, but we love nevertheless. It’s not necessary to emphasize the responsibility of man. We are called by Christ unto this salvation, which he has wrought in him, because then we read that the jailor loved the brethren. He loved them. Oh yes, he loved them. He loved them. He washed their wounds. He set meat before them. He treated them. He cared for them. He loved the brethren, and there is no question of it. No question of it. It’s inevitable that when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with the faith which he has wrought, that the activity of faith is sure—rejoicing in God with all our heart as the God of our salvation and loving one another and loving the brethren and loving God above all.

That, beloved, is the wonder of grace revealed in the calling of the jailor.

How about you? How about it?

I do not say that you have the experience as the jailor had in such a flashing, sudden experience of conversion. But nevertheless, beloved, if Christ calls you, three things are sure: you find yourself lost; you find your salvation in him only and by his grace only; and you bear the fruit in love, inevitable, and walk in sanctification of life.

Amen.