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 other 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 Ghost. "We must be saved."
Reader, you must be saved, you must not perish. There is salvation in the crucified One. 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 is His love. Now the Holy Ghost is beseeching, entreating, and pleading with the poor sinner. He cannot, will not be put off.
"We must be saved"; it is the importunity of divine affection which must have its object saved. It is not "we ought," or "we may," or "we should be saved." No, it is more emphatically expressed. If unsaved, will you trifle with this matter when God is thus in earnest?
All is earnestness around. Satan is earnest in luring you to destruction, sure and eternal. God, and His Son and the Holy Ghost are in earnest about you. Will you be careless about your never-dying soul— about your eternal destiny? Heaven, hell, and salvation are terribly real.
You have been told of the necessity of being born again; of the necessity of the Son of Man being lifted up on the cross. Now you are entreated to ponder over the necessity of being saved, now.