HAVE you ever said to yourself, "I must be saved?" Have you said it in awful earnestness? Peter, full of the Holy Ghost, spoke in these words to all before him, "We must be saved!" (Acts 4:12.)
Do the words not thunder through your soul? I know of one whom they so arrested, that it was as if a serpent had reared itself on his path, forbidding him to move another step forward; or as if a gulf had opened at his feet.
If you who read these lines be unsaved, may some lightning-flash from the throne of God fling into your conscience this tremendous truth, "We must be saved! We must be saved !”
The Apostle Peter used these words on a remarkable occasion. He was looking round on a great assembly, amongst whom were angry and haughty judges who were seeking his life; but, filled with pity and intense concern for their souls, his words became more and more earnest, till he wound up all in that startling appeal.
"We must be saved!" rang through the judgment-hall where sat the Jewish Sanhedrim, that same council who, not many weeks before, had pronounced the Lord of Glory guilty of death. “You and I, Caiaphas and Annas! you and I, John and Alexander! you and I, august members of Israel's senate! must be saved." He spoke as one who saw nothing before him but the peril of ruin. He was handling a matter about which there was not, to his mind, one shadow of doubt; and so, with impassioned boldness and vehement earnestness, forgetting his own personal danger as an accused man before their tribunal, he calls upon his judges to realize their condition before God, and confront the solemn truth, "We must be saved!”
Now, let us go forth to our fellow-men in this spirit, reminding them of ETERNAL PERDITION NEAR, and yet of salvation nearer still, if they will accept it. Let us warn them, on divine authority, that the death that overhangs the sinner is the hell of which the Lord Jesus says, "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." (Mark 9:44.) It is the "unquenchable fire" (Matt. 3:12), a fire that God cannot quench without injustice, and dishonor to His truth and holy law. Oh, to be a sinner forever! What is this? To lie down in misery forever! To be under God's wrath forever! For remember, "Everlasting" is written on the prison walls.
But let us go forth to men PROCLAIMING SALVATION. Peter spoke that day as a man who saw his fellow-men within reach of salvation. He had declared that the Savior for sinners had come, and that the Lord Jesus Christ was that Savior. You must be saved, he cried, and saved by Him alone.
There is not a shadow of a hope that, by some other way than by Christ's salvation, sinners may possibly escape the wrath deserved. Peter's words sweep away all cobwebs: " Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby WE MUST BE SAVED.”
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