Sermons on Biblical Characters

by Clovis Gillham Chappell

And you too must realize that, otherwise it will do you no good to realize the fact that you are a sinner. It is not enough to know yourself lost. You must also believe that you may be saved. It is not enough to realize that you are weak: you must believe that is possible for you to be strong. You must believe that even a fluctuating Simon can be made into a rock. You must believe in the power of God to remake men, otherwise for you the question is only a question of black despair.

This question implies, in the fourth place, a willingness to be saved. "What must I do to be saved?" This man is not asking this question to gather material for a future argument. He is no speculator. He is no trifler. He is not even asking it because he is intellectually curious. He is not simply asking that he may know the conditions of salvation. He is asking with the earnest purpose in his heart to meet those conditions.

This question implies, in the fifth place, that while salvation is a possibility for you, you must do something in order to obtain it. "What must I do to be saved?" What sort of an answer would you expect to a question like that? What did the apostle say? Did he say, "Do nothing. Let the matter alone. Forget it. Drift?" That is what many of us are doing. No, sir, he said nothing of the kind. He told this man to do something. And this man knew, as you and I know, that if we are ever saved we have got to do something in order to get saved.

I say every one of us knows that, and yet too few of us act as if it were really true. We seem to think that salvation is something that we are going to stumble upon by accident. We seem to think it is something that we are going to receive with absolutely no effort on our own part. We act as if we thought it might be slipped into our pockets while we sleep or dropped into our coffins when we die. Ask the question intelligently, heart,—"What must I do to be saved?" Then you will realize that you must do something.

This question implies, in the first place, that the conditions of salvation are not optional, that it is not up to you and it is not up to me to decide just what we will do in order to be saved. You can accept salvation or you can refuse it. You can meet the conditions or you can refuse to meet them. But one thing you cannot do. You cannot decide upon the terms upon which you will surrender. If you are saved at all you must surrender unconditionally.

So the question is, "What must I do to be saved?" It is not, What is the expedient thing or what is the respectable thing or what is the popular thing to do in order to find salvation? The conditions are not of your choosing and they are not of mine. God has made them and you and I dare not change them. Therefore, if you are ever saved there is not something simply that you ought to do, but there is something that you absolutely must do.

Last of all, this question implies that salvation is an individual matter. "What must I do?" It is not a question of what must God do. He has made full provision for the salvation of the whole world. It is not what must the Church do. It is not what must the preacher do. It is not what must this man that is beside me and this man that is behind me or in front of me do. The question comes to my own heart—"What must I do?"

"What must I do to be saved?" You must do something, but there are many things that we are doing that will not save us. If you expect to be saved, in the first place, do not depend on your own goodness. "All your righteousnesses are but as filthy rags." Do not count on your own decency. No man was ever saved that way. I challenge you to find one single one. I was holding a meeting some years ago and I met a young fellow who told me he was good enough without Jesus Christ. Of course he was not saved. A man who says that virtually tells Christ that He has misunderstood his case altogether and that Calvary was a wasted tragedy so far as he himself is personally concerned.

Neither will you be saved trusting in the other man's badness. I know what some of you are saying to yourselves as I preach. You are telling yourselves one of the oldest lies that was ever told. You are saying, "I would be a Christian but there are so many hypocrites in the Church." How many men give that as a reason, but it is no man's reason. And I never knew one man to be saved by it. Believe me, the shortcomings and the sins of my brother are mighty poor things to depend on for my own personal salvation.

Again, you will not be saved by seeking an easy way. You will never win by catering to your own pride and cowardice. I was conducting a revival in a Texas city some years ago. At the close of one of the services a young lady came forward to shake hands with the preacher. As she did so she said, "I am going to become a Christian." I congratulated her upon her decision, but she answered, "Oh, I do not mean right now. I mean I am going to be very soon."