Who Needs to be Saved?

This is a derivative study. It did not come from a single source and is a compilation of several ideas presented by other people. The Lord has been presenting several instances of people who needed to be saved as I have been in church, in discussions, and in Bible study. Our Pastor this week put the cherry on the sundae, so to speak, with his sermon.

His sermon this week pointed out that there are no “religious types,” meaning that regardless of a person’s background, temperament, and behavior, they need Jesus. And, conversely, no one is excluded. It was centered in Acts 16. Some people are spiritually interested, like Lydia. (Acts 16:13-15) A group of women had left the city of Philippi and were gathered for some type of devotional at the river bank. Paul preached the Gospel to them.

Next, (Acts 16:16-18) Paul encountered a demon possessed girl, who was spiritually captive. She was unable to recognize her need, but Paul delivered her from the demon possession and gave her a better alternative, the Holy Spirit.

And true to the old axiom, “no good deed goes unpunished,” Paul and Silas were “ushered” into prison, where they met a spiritually indifferent jailer. (Acts 16:19-34) In fact, he may have been actively antagonistic. He was probably involved in the beating administered to them, “just because they were there.” Paul and Silas countered the oppression and wrongful imprisonment, not by a lawsuit, but by prayer and singing. God responded by a miracle, consisting of an earthquake, releasing every chain and shackle, and bringing a now-interested jailer to hear the Gospel. He, like the first two “types,” responded in belief, along with his family.

And that brings us to the question that has been highlighted in my thinking and study over the past couple of months: Who needs to be saved?

There are three distinct classes of people that are often the object of the inquiry: Do they need to be saved? The groups are devout Jews, devout believers in God, and those who could care less. We might find a hybrid of the first two, those non-Jews who are sincerely seeking to know God, who follow Judaism.

Let’s start with the disinterested. As mentioned in the Pastor’s sermon, there are people who do not care at all about spiritual things. Some are captive to an outside force, while others are actively hostile. This category would include the slave girl and the jailer. Neither of them was seeking God or even thinking about Him. Yet, the Lord intervened in their lives to free them from captivity, captivity to sin.

We can cite numerous skeptics who actively attempted to discredit the Bible, and in their search became believers. Lee Strobel is a prominent one who we can list and to whom we can refer any questioners. The trail of converted antagonists throughout history is testimony to the power of the Gospel to change lives. It changes lives that are desperate to know the truth.

On the other end of the spectrum, what about devout Jews? They are actively seeking to please God. Saul of Tarsus is perhaps the quintessential example of this group coupled with those actively opposing the Gospel. He was seeking to follow God, as he understood that concept, and attempting to exterminate those who would lead people away from that belief. He, and they were and are now following the Mosaic instructions and directions, to the best extent that they are able.

Won’t that count with God on Judgment Day? Surely He will recognize and credit them for their faithfulness, devotion, and obedience to the Law. Thankfully, we do not have to puzzle out this question for ourselves. We could cite John 14:6 as a “catch-all” answer,
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

But the Lord, through His Word, gave us specific illustrations and directions of this. Recall that Paul, on his missionary journeys, and in his general practice, preached first to the Jews, where ever he went. (Acts 13:5, 14, 43; 14:1; 17:1, 10, 17; 18:4, 19; 19:8) That, by the sheer weight of numbers illustrates the fact that Paul believed that the Jews needed to hear and respond to the message of the Gospel. Jesus died for our sins, according to the Scripture. He was buried. And He rose again, the third day, according to the Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:3, 4)

Clearly, Paul did not conceive or believe that devout Jews were exempt from the need to hear and respond to the Gospel. He tirelessly, relentlessly, took the message to Jews, where ever he went. He articulated that in Romans 1:16. The Gospel applies to the Jew first, and then to the Gentiles. He repeated that again in Romans 2:9 and 10. But that means that the Jews must accept Jesus. The message went to them FIRST, but it went to them.

What about a devout seeker for God? Won’t He give them some leeway, particularly if they have no access to the Bible? Look again to the Source. Recall Lydia in Acts 16. She was part of a “seeking” group who left the city to find a place to pray and seek God. And, God sent His man to deliver the message for which they sought. In fact, in Acts 16:9 we are told of a vision given to Paul to guide him to Greece (Macedonia) and the first person he encountered was Lydia.

God had supernaturally directed Paul to this encounter with the three specific classes we saw in chapter 16. Before that, in Acts 10, Peter is supernaturally led to Cornelius, a Roman centurion. Look at verse 2 of chapter 10 specifically: Cornilius was...
2 a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually. 
Those sound like pretty good credentials for getting into heaven. He was devout, feared God, led his household to follow, gave charity to the Jews, and prayed continually. (He sounds better than a lot of church members: a lot of us, me.) And what about Cornelius?

The Lord sent a vision to Peter, just to convince him to accept the assignment to preach to this Gentile. And Cornelius was a hated, Roman soldier, a representative of the oppressors of the Jews. Remember Herod was a Roman surrogate who killed, some count thousands of Jewish baby boys when Jesus was born. His namesake was persecuting the church, even to the extent of executing James, the leader of the church, and attempting repeat that act with Peter. Needless to say, Peter would have had several valid reasons to defer when “offered” the opportunity to witness to Cornelius.

But God sent him. And Peter went. In insurance, we have a term for a really easy sale. The client is willing and even anxious to buy whatever product you are offering. We call that a “lay down.”  Peter had the ultimate lay down. He did not even get to his “invitation.” In v. 43 Peter had finished recounting the story of Jesus and said, “...that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.”

And before he could even get to the “invitation to buy,” well, read it for yourself.
While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message.
His audience was sitting (or standing) there asking themselves, “How do we get this? How do we get this?” And as soon as Peter said, “everyone who believes on Him,” the crowd, as one, thought to themselves, “I believe!” (Does that bring a tear to your eyes? What happened next will.)

The Holy Spirit baptized them: the new believers in Jesus. When they, and anyone else who believes in Jesus accepts Him, they are immediately baptized by the Holy Spirit. That is how we know that they were saved. The outward manifestation is not so evident every time, (flames of fire on head and speaking unlearned languages), but the inner work is identical. They had just as much need for salvation as the slave girl, or the jailer, or Saul of Tarsus. And Jesus was just as willing and ready to save them when they asked.

Finally, what about a seeker, following the Jewish laws? Acts again gives us the answer in chapter 8. V. 26. A little background here. Philip had left Jerusalem during Saul’s persecution of the church and was in Samaria, the area between Judah and Galilee, north of Jerusalem. His preaching had produced a wave of belief, and when supported by Peter and John, a full scale revival broke out. What a place to plant a church, right? Well, in the middle of his astounding success...
...an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, “Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.) 

“South” is probably a two to three day trip down past Jerusalem, to below the Dead Sea, almost to the border of Egypt. And who should appear, but...
an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure.
And what are his “qualifications” to participate in this study?
...he had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and he was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah. 

This is another devout seeker. He had come farther than Philip had. Ethiopia was past Egypt, several hundred miles to the south. A Google look at the map lists 1500 miles. And surely this guy, who was a seeker and had spent so much time and treasure to get to Jerusalem must have some merit with God. He did. He merited a personal visit from God’s man.
29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.”
And God’s man explained the Gospel–from Isaiah. (Any of us Bible “scholars” want to take on that task? Can you lead someone to Jesus from the Old Testament only. Better study a little, Jim.) And the eunuch believed.

To conclude, we have examined every type of “seeker,” even those who did not know that they were seeking. And what have we discovered? Everyone needed to hear the message preached to them. And invariably God sent someone.

Whew! That takes a load off my mind. God will take care of reaching the lost. Peter, Philip, Paul and others carried the message across town, across the land of Israel, across the known world. Some, like our three examples will be aided by supernatural intervention, but significantly, God will send someone. Peter saw a vision. Paul saw a vision, two actually. Philip saw a vision. Peter and Phillip were already believers and needed direction. Saul saw two visions: one to come to belief and then one to go to Macedonia. Ananias, in Acts 9, brought the message to Saul, after seeing a vision himself. The proclamation of the message was always through a person.

That is how it is today. Someone is always sent by the Lord. Maybe your name, like mine, does not start with a “P,” but that someone is you and me. We could say our name is “Preacher.”

They need to hear. We need to go and tell. What are you waiting for?