Saving Sinners

So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

ACTS 16:31

Confessing the Christ of Christmas as Lord also saves sinners. Acts 16:31 is one of the most powerful and crystal-clear verses in all the New Testament. The jailer at Philippi didn’t want a theological treatise. He was trembling. It was the middle of the night. His life was on the line. All he wanted to know was how to be saved. Paul cut through all the jargon to give him the essence of the gospel. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.”

We can’t all be preachers like Paul, but we can all be reachers. We can all be testifiers. As we are rubbing elbows with so many people this Christmas season, wouldn’t it be wonderful if every believer would share the “good tidings of great joy” with at least one other person? When believers are bold in their witness for Christ, history can be changed. The apostle Paul is the best example of that. He not only shook things up in Philippi, but he and his fellow servants also turned the whole Roman world on its head.

 Do you remember the revolution in the country of Romania when the Iron Curtain of communism fell? As the truth came out, we learned that what happened in Romania was not really a political revolution. It was a spiritual revival. It started with a pastor who had been told he couldn’t freely preach the message of Jesus. One day this pastor got on his knees, and God told him to be bold. He called a few other believers around him, and they agreed that whether they lived or died, they were going to stand for God. The Communist soldiers came to this pastor’s house to arrest him. But he stood there, unflinching, and his church members came and stood between the soldiers and their pastor. Then more and more people came, until there were thousands shouting, “There is a God! There is a God!” And a brutal Communist regime eventually fell. 

Let’s not be intimidated into silence! Let’s be bold in making the glad Christmas confession, “Jesus Christ is Lord.”

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers