What is the supreme question of the ages?
If there were one question, the answer to which would make you a complete person, and bring you rewards staggering in proportion and blessings beyond your fondest expectation and comprehension -- you would be interested wouldn't you? Of course you would. Everyone who is truly interested in life and success will sit up and take notice of such a proposal.
There is such a question, the answer to which will bring the inquirer the ultimate in blessings. The greatest question ever asked is "What Must I Do To Be Saved?"
Upon the day of Pentecost, the apostle Peter preached Christ to a great multitude whom he charged with crucifying and slaying the blessed Lord (Acts 2:23). "Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do?" The answer to this all important question was quickly forthcoming: "And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38).
This same question is repeated in the sixteenth chapter of Acts, verse thirty. The question was aked by a startled jailer who had seen wonderful sights and had been shaken by unfamiliar terrors. He cried out to Paul and Silas, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" Reading further into the chapter we learn where Paul and Silas answered the question by saying, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house." Following this statement, "they spake the word of the Lord unto him, and all that were in his house, and he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his immediately."
The Greatest Question implies a (1) difference in being saved and lost, (2) consciousness of being lost, (3) possibility of being saved, (4) willingness to be saved, (5) something that the unsaved individual must do.
The word "must" denotes any sort of necessity -- necessity brought on by circumstances -- necessity in reference to what is required to attain some end -- a necessity of laws, commands, duties, equity -- necessity established by the counsel of God. The central idea in this word is "necessity." It is not synonymous with such words as expedient, should, or advisable. It means absolutely essential. If the word of God reveals a principle or action to be a "must" then it is irrevocable and cannot be altered. Some things are "must" from the very nature of the case and are readily seen. Others are necessary because the counsel and decree of God have established them. When God reveals an action to us, which must be done, we will be held accountable for doing it, whether we see the purpose of it or not. Bickering amounts to a lack of trust.
Now, what must you do to be saved? You must do what those in New Testament times did. Having heard and believed the word (Eph. 1:13) you are to "repent and be baptized for (unto) the remission of your sins" (Acts 2:38). These acts are essential to salvation.
If you have not complied with the essentials contained in the answer to the question, "What must I do to be saved?", you are lost!
~In Gospel Power, Anderson, Alabama, 2/28/99.