BELIEF, BAPTISM, BLESSING – Charles Spurgeon
BELIEF
“And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.” Acts 16:33, 34.
THE gospel, attended by the Spirit of God, is always victorious, but it is very pleasant to make notes of its victories. The gospel came to Lydia, a devout woman, who was one given to prayer and who worshipped God, although she did not know the Lord Jesus Christ. She was a woman of tender heart and she was soon won. The Lord gently knocked at the door of her heart and it was opened. She heard Paul’s plain preaching, she received the truth, was baptized, and became the cornerstone of the church at Philippi.
“Well,” says one, “that is an instance of what the gospel does with delicate, tender, gentle natures.” Now, here is an old soldier. He has been in the wars—he has earned distinction and has been appointed to the office of jailor at Philippi, an office of some importance under the Roman Emperor. He is a man who knows the sight of blood—he is of a coarse, though apparently honest, disposition. He keeps prisoners, and that is not an office that brings much gentleness with it—and he is under very stern law. He carries out strict discipline in the prison. He is as hard as a bit of the lower millstone. What will the gospel do with him?
Brethren, it triumphed as much in the jailor at Philippi as it did in the lady from Thyatira. And while it won its way into the heart of the dealer in purple, it also worked its way into the heart of the dealer in crimson who had often shed precious blood. The victory over the rough Philippian jailor was as illustrious as the victory over the gentle and devout Lydia.
I want especially to call your attention to this point—the Philippian jailor stands before us as one who was converted, baptized, and who brought forth useful fruit all in the compass of an hour or so. “Straightway,” says my text. It also says, “The same hour of the night.” This man was brought from darkness into the marvelous light all of a sudden. He was so distinctly brought that he avowed his conversion, then and there, and went on to prove its reality right then in his own house by entertaining the men whom, a few hours before, he had thrust into the inner prison and whose feet he had made fast in the stocks.
In a great many cases, conversion may be said to be a slow work. I do not think that it really is so, but it appears to be so. There is the early training, there is the awakening of conscience, there is the seeking to find Christ, the struggling, the little light, the dim hope, the faith like a grain of mustard seed, and by-and-by a little confidence—afterwards faith more clear and then, after a long time comes the public avowal of the joy and peace received through believing.
We have a great many people round us who are very slow. Why it is, I do not know, for this is not a slow age. People are fast enough about the things of this world. We cannot travel fast enough. Everything must be done at express speed. But in the things of God, there are numbers of persons who are as slow as snails. I have often wondered how the snail got into the ark—he must have started very early to get in. I am thankful that he did get in, however, as certainly as the hare or the gazelle. And many of our crawling friends, I trust, will be found in heaven, and will be really saved, although they are a long while in coming to Christ.
It takes a long time to get some of them even a small distance on the road towards a comfortable assurance of salvation. I have no doubt that the work of grace is very gradual in some people. It is like the sunrise in this country. I am sure that you cannot tell on foggy mornings when the sun rises. I have sometimes questioned whether he ever does rise in England—I have seen very little of him for the last few days. I believe that the sun has been seen in England—I take it as a matter of trust that that ruddy wafer that I saw the other day really was the sun—although it is a great contrast to the king of day who rules in the sunny South.
Who can tell when he begins to shine upon the earth? There is a little gray light, by-and-by a little more, and a little more, and at last you can say that the sun has fairly risen. So it is with some Christians. There is a tiny gleam of light and then a little more light, and then a further ray of light—but it is only after a considerable time that you can say that the full light has really come into their souls. Yet, mark you, there is a moment when the sun’s disc first appears above the horizon. There is a moment when the circle of the sun is really first visible, just an instant, the smallest portion of time and in conversion, there must be a time in which death has gone and life has come—and that must be as sharp a division as the razor’s edge could make.
There really cannot be anything between life and death. The man is either dead or alive—and there must be some point at which he ceases to be dead and becomes living. A man cannot be somewhere between condemnation and justification—there is no land in between. The man is either condemned on account of sin or he is justified through the righteousness of Christ. He cannot be between those two states so that, after all, in its essence, salvation must be an instantaneous thing. It may be, it will be, surrounded by a good deal that seems to lead up to it and makes it appear to be gradual. But in reality, if you get to the root of the matter, there is a turning point, well-defined and sharp, and if not clear to you, it is clear to the Great Worker who has worked in the heart that is changed from death to life and from condemnation through sin to justification through Jesus Christ.
BAPTISM
I. In this Philippian jailor’s case, everything is sharp, clear, and distinct. In considering it, I will first call your attention to the fact that HERE IS A PERSON CONVERTED AT ONCE. This man’s conversion was worked at once. There was no previous thought. There is nothing that I can imagine in his previous life that led up to it. He had not been plied with sermons, instructions, invitations, entreaties. Probably, up to that night he had never even heard the name of Jesus Christ—and what he did hear was that these two men, who had come to Philippi preaching Christ, were to be treated with severity and kept safely. Therefore, he thrust them into the inner dungeon and made their feet fast in the stocks. All his previous education was un-Christian, if not anti-Christian. All his former life, whatever may have been his Roman virtues, was quite clear of anything like Christian virtue. He knew nothing about that.
Nothing could be a greater contrast than the ethics of Rome and the teachings of Christ. This jailor was a good Roman, but he was nothing of a Christian when he thrust the apostles into prison. And yet, before the sun again rose, there was not a better Christian anywhere than that man was. He had passed from death unto life. He was resting on the Christian foundation. He was the possessor of Christian graces.
Hear this, you who have never thought of Christ—and let any man who came in here tonight a total stranger to true religion, pray that the same may be the case with him—that before the midnight bell shall toll he, too, may find the Savior.
What do you think impressed this man? I think, in part, it may have been the behavior of Paul and Silas. They had no curses on their lips when he made their feet fast in the stocks. They used no vulgar language when he thrust them into the innermost cell. They let fall words, I do not doubt, the like of which he had never heard. And their patience, their cheerfulness, their dauntless courage, their holy joy must all have struck him. They belonged to a different order of prisoners from any he had ever seen before. The jail at Philippi had never held the like of these before and the jailor could not make them out. He fell asleep that night with many thoughts of a new character.
Who were these men? Who was this Jesus of whom they spoke? Then, in the middle of the night, a singular miracle was worked. The prison is shaken by an earthquake. The keeper rises. The prisoners must have gone, for the doors are open. He had not carelessly left them unbolted—he had fastened them before he went to bed—but they are all open and the prisoners are without chains. They will get away and he will have to suffer for it. He puts the sword to his own breast—he is about to kill himself, when just at that moment he hears a loud voice crying—“Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.” What a surprise for him! What a revulsion of feeling those words caused! “We are all here.” He thinks to himself, “Truly there is a God. It must be the God of Paul and Silas who has worked this miracle.”
He begins to tremble. He has lived without knowing this God. He has ill-treated the messengers of this God. He brings them out. He respectfully addresses them, “Sirs,” he earnestly cries to them, “What must I do to be saved?”
The idea of being lost has come over him. It is not that he is afraid to die, for he was about to put himself to death—but he is afraid of what is to follow after death. He is a lost man and therefore he asks, “What must I do to be saved?” Now it is that he is plainly told the way of salvation. It was put with great brevity, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and your house.” Probably he did not understand it when he heard it and so, “They spoke unto him the word of the Lord and to all that were in his house.” His wife, his children, his servants, whoever made up his household, all gathered round the two preachers—and they explained the way of salvation, salvation by faith in Christ, salvation by the atoning sacrifice of Christ, salvation by faith in the precious blood of Christ.
Paul and Silas doubtless told the company that whoever believed in Jesus should not perish, but have everlasting life. The jailor believed it, believed every word of it, and he was therefore saved and saved at once.
BLESSING
If you have never heard the gospel before and you hear it tonight and believe in Christ, you will be saved at once. If you have been a total stranger to all good things, yet if you now receive the blessed tidings of mercy through the Son of God, pardon through His shed blood, you shall go out of this house justified, saved—saved in an instant—saved by the simple act of faith.
It is a happy circumstance that the gospel is so simple. There are certain preachers who seem as if they must mystify it, like the preacher who said, “Brethren, I have read you a chapter and now I will confound it.” No doubt there are many who are always making out the gospel to be a very difficult thing to understand—philosophical, deep and so on—but it was meant for the common people, it was given not merely for the elite, the learned, the instructed, but, “The poor have the gospel preached to them,” and the gospel is suitable to be preached to the poor.
This is the gospel, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and your house.” Trust Christ—and if you do, you shall be saved.