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What Must I Do to Be Saved?

"What must I do to be saved?" It's the most important of all questions. It's a question that has implications both here and now, and on into eternity. A million years after you die, the answer to this question will still matter.

But you know, as important as this question is, wrong answers are given to it on a daily basis. You could ask five different people this question and you might get five different answers. Now, if we were talking about a less important subject that would be alright.

But dear friend, there is no room for error on the question of our present discussion. Because the difference between a wrong answer and a right answer is the difference between heaven and hell. And so, what I want to do is to go to the Bible for the answer. That's what we have to do. It's the only source where I can find the right answer to this question.

I might pick up the telephone and call a local denomination and ask their preacher, "What must I do to be saved?"

And the answer he may give me is, "Say the 'sinner's prayer'."

Friend, would you be surprised to learn that this "sinner's prayer" is not found anywhere in the pages of the Bible? And, would you be further surprised if I told you that of all of the conversion accounts in the Bible, not one person was ever saved by prayer.

There is no record of a prayer like that in the Bible. And, if I'm going to be saved today, it is going to have to be the same way that they were in the Bible. Because you see, God's plan that saves people has not changed.

And so, the question is, "What did God require people to do in New Testament times in order to be saved from their sins?"

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Now, sometimes we summarize those steps this way. We say that a person must:

• Hear — Rom 10:14
• Believe — Mark 16:15–16
• Repent — Acts 17:30
• Confess — Rom 10:9
• Be Baptized — Acts 22:16

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The journey of salvation begins when you must have heard the gospel, believed the gospel, repent of your sins, confess your faith in Jesus Christ and got baptized.