How startling must have been the words of Peter spoken to the Jewish Council. Probably there were more priests in that Council having direct authority from God Himself than in any meeting ever convened; and yet Peter, after preaching “Christ crucified,” whom God raised up from the dead, closed his address with these memorable words: “Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.” What! Do priests need to be saved? Peter, “full of the Holy Ghost,” says, “We must be saved.” Mark the urgency, the importunity of the Holy Spirit. “We must be saved.”
O, my reader, you must be saved, you must not perish. There is salvation in the crucified. O, in this Man raised up from the dead by God, there is deliverance from the wrath to come. O, sinner, eternal judgment is before you! The lake of fire must be your eternal abode – the devil and his angels your company in eternal misery – if you live and die without Christ – without salvation! God gave His Son – such His love. Now the Holy Spirit is beseeching, entreating, and pleading with the poor sinner. He cannot, will not be put off. “We must be saved;” it is the pleading of divine love. “We must be saved,” it is the importunity of divine affection which must have its object saved. It is not “we ought,” “we may,” “we should be saved.” No, it is more emphatically expressed. O, my reader, will you trifle with this matter when God is thus in earnest? All is earnestness around. Satan is in earnest in luring thee on to destruction, sure and eternal. God, His Son, the Holy Spirit, are in earnest about thee. Wilt thou be careless about thy never-dying soul – about thine eternal destiny? Heaven, hell, and salvation are terribly real.
My reader, you have been told in these pages of the necessity of being born again; of the necessity of the Son of Man being lifted up. Now you are entreated to ponder over the necessity of being saved.