What must I do

Is the message being complicated?

Remember the jailer who came in the opened prison cell, “What must I do to be saved?”

Paul said, “Believe...”

Peter would said, “Repent and be baptized...”

The Lord Jesus said, “You must be born again.”

What might you say?

 

Christ said "Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden..."

The word "come" is one of expressiveness, an appeal that is not without both authority and demand. It is not some encouragement such as a grandmother or father might, with arms stretched out in welcome, encourage the toddler to come to them. Rather, it is a word of command, as one of authority might say to a soldier, a trainer might say to the trainee, the king might say to the ministers.

However in the use in Matthew 11:28, it is a matter of condition and response.

Christ is saying those that come will be given. That a gift is promised associated with that word come.

Spurgeon heard that preacher on a cold wintery day say, "Look unto me..." (Isaiah 45:22) and from the depths of his heart he did look.

There is that same authority and same majesty found in such a word as "come" that can be associated with "look."

For one does not come, one does not look, and one is not labeled among the believers outside of that authority of the Christ.

 

Imo, there were two outstanding evangelists of the early 1900's.

Both would charge the platform as if laying siege to very gates of hell. As they preached, without the assistance of great sound systems, the thousands could hear their voice proclaim the Scriptures. As the Scriptures were fervently presented, the Holy Spirit would work to bring those who were to believe to the knowledge of Christ, and often the impact was felt even throughout whole communities.

But then I recall beginning toward the middle of the 1900's a certain settled opposition to the gospel began. At first it wasn't much, but it grew each year until what was once the protracted meetings of the evangelists that would last for weeks became a three day and then not at all.

Where once men would gather and work through themes and studies of the Bible, now only a trickle of the elderly attended.

Where once the mere fact that a preacher of the Scriptures was present would temper the language, folks grew bolder in that which was ungodly.

Where once virtue and propriety were hallmarks of character, scorn and ridicule were met with laughter of agreement.

There is no cry coming from the lost, "What must I do to be saved."

The typical church offers no true refuge, no true standard of excellence, no true shunning of evil, but embrace the world and worldly in some bid to entice folks to join.

Is there not a person who is willing to stand and proclaim?

Is there not a person who from the tenderest age could be a Timothy, standing to answer the question, "What must I do to be saved?"

Which person on the BB will hear the fervent preaching of a righteous man, hear the earnest contention for the faith in the teaching, and see that Christ reflected in the very living and life of those who would worship?

The message has been lost to modernism and shallow emotionalism of worship, and no longer is it of such a standard that the unsaved cry out, "What must I do to be saved!"

Oh, that God will again pour out upon the believers that which would drive a wedge so deep into the evil that those whom God will redeem will from the desperation of their own making cry, "What must I do to be saved."

For where there is no contrast, nothing to establish what is Godly from what is offered as godly, there is no need to cry out, "What must I do to be saved."