Three Wise Questions

Articles

Ross Triplett
06/22/19 - Articles

When considering the questions of life, do you take the time to consider your spiritual condition and where it will lead? Are you wise, or foolish? Do you leave your spiritual condition to someone else’s knowledge, or do you really know what you believe to be pleasing to God?

Given the same scenario, what question would you have asked?

(1) On the day Saul of Tarsus encountered the Lord, he said, “What shall I do Lord?” (Acts 22:10). This question is one that should be asked by any individual that has not taken the time to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. When contemplating your spiritual condition, have you actually investigated what the Lord has to say about it, or have you relied on fallible man to tell you?

(2) In the night the Apostle Paul and Silas were left in the charge of the Philippian jailor, the jailor asked the question, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” The scriptures tell us that the Apostle Paul said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house” (Acts 16:31). However, that’s not all that is said: the scriptures expound upon the event, and say, “And they spake the word of the Lord unto him, with all that were in his house.” As the record continues, the scriptures reveal “he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, immediately.”

(3) On the day Philip preached Jesus to the Ethiopian, the Ethiopian said, “What doth hinder me to be baptized?” There’s a necessary inference in this passage. When Philip taught Jesus, he taught baptism: otherwise the question would have had no relevance. But since it did have relevance, then baptism was relevant. Why would that be the case? Namely, baptism is an act of obedience that God places between man and salvation. When Ananias instructed Saul of Tarsus as to what he should do, Ananias said, “And now why tarriest thou? arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16), “and he arose and was baptized” (Acts 9:18). What doth hinder you from being baptized?

Remember the words of the Apostle Peter, who commanded Cornelius that he be baptized (Acts 10:48), saying, concerning “the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ; who is on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him” (1 Peter 3:20-22). Is your conscience clear? ret