What do you think you should do to attain salvation?

Dear friends, I warn you tonight. Do you ask, What must I do to be saved? I say again that there is nothing for you to do — it has all been done — but believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; that is, take Him at His word, rest on His finished work, His sin-cleansing blood. You may be sure He will be true to what He says. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."

When the question, "What must I do to be saved?" rang from the agonised lips of the prison warder at Philippi, the inspired answer did not bid him pray, or strive, or make vows, or anything of that sort. He was told to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. Nothing that he could do could secure God's salvation. The doing had all been done by Christ. All that is left for the sinner is the appropriation of the results of His mighty work by simple faith.

Yes, here is the question, "What must I do to be saved?" The divine answer is wrapped up in the following words which dropped from the lips of two of Christ's very highest and most gifted ambassadors. "Repent and be converted," said Peter to the Jew. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved and thy house," said Paul to the Gentile. And again, the latter of these two blessed messengers, in summing up his own ministry, thus defines the whole matter, "Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ."

I was very much struck lately with a passage in the eleventh of Romans: "Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more of grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work" (Rom. 11:5-6). How then am I saved? By pure sovereign grace. So wrote the apostle Paul to the Ephesians: "By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast" (Eph. 2:8-9). It is the blessed, precious, sovereign grace that has come to all of us in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. What we need, as sinners, is salvation. That salvation the grace of God has brought to us. If grace then has brought salvation, what have I now to do? I have to avail myself of that which God brings to me in the Person, and through the work, of the Lord Jesus Christ, — in plain language, I have to accept, by faith, the eternal salvation which grace brings to me.

Not by our efforts, or striving, or religiousness, or church membership can we be saved, but only and altogether through the atoning death of Christ. So the message comes, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must he saved” (Acts 4:12). Many more passages could be quoted, but let these suffice.

Does any one now ask, What have I to do to be saved? Romans 10 furnishes a very simple answer: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believes to righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made to salvation" (vers. 9, 10). Are you going to believe God's Word tonight, and confess His Son? Will you yield your heart now to this precious loving Saviour? You could not do better than imitate this jailer. The jailer heard the gospel, "Believe … and be saved." He believed, and he was saved. Manifestly he believed with his heart, and confessed with his mouth, for we read: "He took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes, and was baptized, he and all his, straightway." He did not wait till the morning.

This, then, is the answer to your question: if you want to be saved, you must believe on God's Son. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." Mark you! it is Christ, you must know. It is the Person of Christ who is the object of belief, the object of faith. Christ, personally, is the object of the soul's faith, and the one who believes in Him gets the benefit of all the work He has done. I do not agree at all with an old woman, in Arran, who said to a friend of mine, who was pressing the gospel on her, "You make far o'er muckle o' that word, believe, believe." That let out a great deal. You cannot make too much of believing. If Christ has not hitherto been the object of your faith, may God give you now to believe on His blessed Son, and you will get what the jailor got. "Thou shalt be saved," is God's assurance to the believing soul.

"'Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he has sent' (John 6:29). To believe in the Son of God is all that you or I have to do to get saved."

no mere perfunctory performance, no lifeless, listless obedience to the prophet’s command, he obeyed with all his heart; in short, it was “the obedience of faith.” In like manner, if YOU want salvation, you must with all your soul acknowledge that you are a poor, undone sinner, without a single hope in yourself, and take Christ as your own personal Saviour; and, in receiving Him, you will receive all—salvation, pardon, cleansing, justification, the indwelling of the Spirit, eternal life.

Be persuaded to turn at this moment towards God in repentance, and in simple faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:34).