Guided Into Truth

Transcript

JR 25
09/10/23
Guided into Truth
Acts 8:25-40
Jesse Randolph


Well as you heard announced this morning, today is a special day for our church. The air is getting a little bit cooler, a little more crisp, the rain is starting to come and Fall Kick-Off is happening. This means many of our ministries and programs are getting kicked off, ending their summer hiatus and getting rolling for the coming year. Now in conversations I was having with the guys on our pastoral staff earlier in the summer about the different ideas for Fall Kick-Off—themes to go with, emphases to put out there—we had a bunch of different ideas. And I won't share with you the ideas that ended up on the cutting room floor, but I will restate our theme for Fall Kick-Off this year is Guided into Truth, which I think is a theme that really encapsulates what we are to be all about as followers of Jesus Christ. Right? I mean, when you think about it for those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ in the room this morning, we have been guided into truth in the ultimate sense in that someone, somewhere, at some point in time shared the Gospel with us. They shared the good news message of Jesus Christ dying and Jesus Christ rising and Jesus Christ saving sinners like you and me so that our sins could be forgiven and our hope of eternal life secure. And then we responded to that Gospel with repentance and faith, turning from the sin that once had its claws in us to put our trust, now, in Christ's finished work on the cross. So we have been guided into truth in that sense. Now we are also called to guide others into truth, and if we are faithful to Christ and obedient to His great commission for His followers, we guide others into truth. That's what we do, that's what we are marked by. We do so around our dinner tables as we teach our children about Christ. And we do so at our family gatherings as we openly recognize that all that we have—the roofs over our heads, the air in our lungs, the food on our tables, the experiences that we get to share together—they are all because of Christ. We do so at church whether we hold a formal teaching post or not, we give instruction and encouragement and exhortation from God's Word, pointing other people, people around us to Christ. And then for a select few, we guide others into truth by sharing the Gospel message with the lost. For some that means doing so through door-to-door evangelism. For some that means at the Holmes Lake prayer tower. For others this happens more organically in the day-to-day evangelism that you have spoken of more recently where people are more adept at moving their conversations from more mundane topics—the weather and Husker football and the like—to the Gospel and getting to the hope that is found in Jesus Christ.

Well, today's message is going to have one aim, and the bull's eye that I have been praying that this message would hit is to press in on this notion that evangelism is the territory or the realm of only that select few in the church. I'm going to throw the flag on the thought process that goes, John Carey is the deacon of evangelism and therefore John Carey and his team, those are the evangelists of the church. I'm going to challenge those of you, whether through fear or laziness or let's just get real here, a lack of concern and love for those who are truly lost, or abandoning your responsibility to do what Christ has commanded you and me both to do, which is to share the Gospel with the lost. I'm going to exhort you this morning to stop warming the bench and to get in the game.

So last week we looked at prayer, you might recall, from Colossians, this morning we're looking at evangelism. I figured I could complete the trio of all topics that people like to hear about, giving may be next Sunday. No. But I'm going to say what needs to be said about being more evangelistically minded, individually and as members of this body of believers, to be more faithful in sharing the Gospel. Not from a place of personal preference or desire, because that really doesn't matter here. I'm going to speak to you through a text of Scripture, one that is very familiar to many of us and a text that is so rich in terms of the description it provides and the picture it paints of what it means to be guided into truth, and what it looks like to guide another into truth.

Turn with me if you would in your Bibles to Acts 8, we're going to hit pause on our series in Colossians this week so that we as a church body in keeping with our Fall Kick-Off theme this week can zero in on this text where we encounter someone who was guided into truth and also see someone who is guiding another into truth. We're going to look at Acts 8:25-40 this morning, I'm going to try to take the whole bite. We'll see how I do. This morning's sermon has five points, they're all alliterated. We're going to see The Context first in verse 25 and leading up to verse 25, we're going to see The Command in verse 26, we'll see The Contact in verses 27-30, The Conversion in verses 31-35 and then The Consequences in verses 36-40.

Now since today's passage or today's sermon is one of these one-off sermons, before we just drop ourselves into this passage it would be important and good if we establish some of the context. So as we look at The Context here first, point #1, let's look at some of the background here. The book of Acts was, humanly speaking, written by Luke, the same Luke who gave us the Gospel of Luke. And what both the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts reveal to us very clearly is that Luke was a very detailed and meticulous historian. We see that over in the Gospel of Luke, the very beginning verses of Luke, Luke 1:3 where he says this to Theophilus, who is the immediate recipient of the Gospel. He says, “It seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order.” So we see how meticulous already Luke was. And then here in the book of Acts which is really part two of Luke's writing, the sequel as it were to the Gospel of Luke, he continues on in giving this very precise and detailed historical account of the early church. In fact let's go ahead and take a few moments to do a real high level flyover of the first seven chapters of Acts, leading up to our text for today.

In fact go with me over to Acts 1 and you can do the flyover with me. In Acts 1 we see that the resurrected Christ appeared to His apostles, and according to Acts 1:3 He did this over a period of forty days and spoke of the things concerning the kingdom of God. And then over the course of those forty days and at the conclusion of those forty days the Lord said to His apostles over in Acts 1:8 that they “will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth.” File that statement away in your minds, by the way, we're going to come back to it a couple of times this morning. Then in Acts 1:9 we see Luke recording the ascension of our Lord to the right hand of the Father, where He is seated today. It says, “After He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on and a cloud received Him out of their sight.” Then in Acts 2 Luke gives an account of the Day of Pentecost, one of the traditional Jewish feast days, what was Pentecost, and this is the day on which the Holy Spirit, as Christ had earlier promised would happen, was sent and fell on that assembly there in Jerusalem. This is the day on which the Apostle Peter gave one of the most powerful sermons ever preached, and according to Acts 2:41 about 3,000 souls came to Christ, were converted through that preaching of Peter. Acts 3 we're told more about the ministry, now, of both Peter and John, still in Jerusalem. We see that Peter heals a lame beggar in this chapter and then Peter also delivers a second sermon from the portico of Solomon. And in this sermon, this second sermon Peter gives in Acts 3:15, he calls out the Jews of the day, as it says here in verse 15, for “having put to death the Prince of Life, the One whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses.” Then in Acts 4 we see the arrest of Peter and John recorded and then we see their interactions with Annas and Caiphas and other Jewish high priests, and it is in front of those high priests that Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, Acts 4:12, says this. “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” Then over in Acts 5 Luke gives the account of the second arrest of Peter and John and the other apostles. We see that they were flogged and eventually released and after they were flogged and after they were released, Acts 5:41 says “They went on their way from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name.” Then the very next verse, Acts 5:42 says while they were still there in Jerusalem, “every day in the temple and from house to house they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.” In Acts 6 Luke tells us, verse 7, that “the Word of God kept on spreading and a number of disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem.” And then the very next verse, Acts 6:8, we are introduced to Stephen who “full of grace and power was performing great wonders and signs among the people.” And in the remainder of Acts 6 we see that Stephen was then brought up for trial, essentially, before the Jewish leaders on charges of blasphemy. Then in Acts 7 Luke gives us this very detailed account of the bold testimony and defense that Stephen gave, which included his turning the tables and indicting the very people who were trying to indict him for having murdered their Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that doesn't go very well for Stephen because we see in Acts 7:54, it says, “When they had heard this,” meaning Stephen's testimony and indictment of them, “they were cut to the quick. And they began gnashing their teeth at him.” And then the rest of Acts 7 records Stephen's ultimate death by stoning. Acts 8 now begins with these words in verse 1, “Saul,” the one who would later become known as Paul, “was in hearty agreement with putting him,” meaning Stephen, “to death.” And then look at the very next words. “And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.” And what does that remind you of? What we saw back in Acts 1:8 where Christ Himself said to His followers that you shall be My witnesses from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and then to the remotest part of the earth.

Now take a look at Acts 8:4. We're going to work our way closer and closer to our text because Acts 8:4 here really sets up the immediate context of where we will be today. It says, “Therefore, those who had been scattered,” out of Jerusalem it means, “went about preaching the Word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and began proclaiming Christ to them. The crowds with one accord were giving attention to what was said by Philip as they heard and saw the signs which he was performing. For in the case of many who had unclean spirits, they were coming out of them shouting with a loud voice and many who had been paralyzed and lame were healed. So there was much rejoicing in that city.” Of course there was rejoicing. There was rejoicing because what was happening here was a period of true spiritual awakening. You might even say, to borrow a term that is way overused and overhyped in our day, that revival was breaking out. Now note what was at the center of this period of spiritual awakening or revival if we want to use that term. It's in verse 4. It's the preaching of the Word. The preaching of the Word was central to whatever spiritual awakening was happening here in Samaria. And whenever there is true revival or true spiritual reformation or true spiritual awakening the preaching of the Word is always prominent. It's not about feelings or emotions or loud rock music. And note the where that this revival had broken out. Samaria, a region that was made up of people of mixed blood. These were known derisively, the people here, as half-breeds. The Samaritans were descendants of Jews who had intermarried with non-Jews and developed their own culture and really religious practices. But we know that they hung on to at least some aspects of old Judaism. We see that in Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well in John 4, the Samaritan woman. Though a Samaritan and though considered distinct from the Jews, this Samaritan woman says to Jesus in John 4:25, “I know that Messiah is coming,” she says, “He who is called Christ. And when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” So that's the where of this revival, Samaria.

And now note the who, who is at the center of this revival. It is Philip. Philip. Not Philip the apostle, this is not one of the twelve. Rather, this is a different Philip, a Philip who would later become known as Philip the evangelist. This was the Philip who is one of the seven who is called to distribute food to the widows in Acts 6:5 so that the apostles could devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. This Philip was a rather unheralded man. He was given these rather unheralded roles but as we are going to soon see he was used by the Lord mightily in causing His Gospel to be spread from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and now eventually to the ends of the earth.

And that catches us up, 15 minutes later. The table is now set for our text today. Acts 8:25 really serves as the front porch or the preface to all that happens in the remainder of this text. Let's look at what it says. God's Word reads, “So when they had solemnly testified and spoken the Word of the Lord, they started back to Jerusalem and were preaching the Gospel to many villages of the Samaritans.” Now the “they” that is being referred to here when it says, “they had solemnly testified,” that's referring to Peter and John. Though Philip is singled out earlier in Acts 8 as the one who is proclaiming Christ there in Samaria, we are told earlier in Acts 8, in fact go with me over to Acts 8:14 that Peter and John in the midst of this spiritual awakening were called in as apostolic reinforcements to help Philip out. Look at Acts 8:14, it says, “Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, they sent them Peter and John who came down,” meaning down from Jerusalem, “and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit.” So as we go back to verse 25, these apostolic reinforcements, Peter and John, now they are getting ready to head back up to Jerusalem. It tells us they had actually started back to Jerusalem. But preachers and evangelists they were, Peter and John didn't waste any part of their trip. As they were heading back to Jerusalem, it says, they were still preaching the Gospel to many villages of the Samaritans. In other words Peter and John weren't in Samaria as tourists, they were there as soul winners and they were taking advantage of every moment and every opportunity to proclaim Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So Peter and John here head back to Jerusalem, they are on their way back to Jerusalem, this beachhead for Gospel proclamation is established here in Samaria, and now we have Philip all by himself there in Samaria. And he is there to keep plowing and keep sharing and keep spreading the Gospel. And we can just say this up front now. Philip had seen success in Samaria. From his earliest days of proclaiming Christ in this region, we see from Acts 8:8 that there was rejoicing in this city as many came to Christ as they heard the Word described and proclaimed. Not only was there rejoicing though, we see that the big guns were sent to Samaria, Peter and John came down to help Philip out to expand and to develop the ministry. So up to this point every step of Philip's ministry in Samaria indicated that he was doing a good and a faithful job and that the Lord was blessing his work.

This is the point at which any minister might be tempted to park it in neutral and coast, to think that he has arrived, to think that he is above certain tasks and responsibilities or even requests. Not Philip. Philip was no such minister. Take a look at verse 26. It says, “But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” Now if you are taking notes here this morning, our second point, we've seen The Context, our second point is The Command, here in verse 26. The command, you'll note, comes from an angel of the Lord. Now we're not given any indication here who this angel was, we're not even told if this angel appeared visibly to Philip. All we have is what the text tells us which is that this angel of the Lord spoke to Philip. And note what the angel commanded Philip to do. It says, “Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” Get up, command #1, like there is no time to rest, there is no time to sit. Philip, you have not cashed in your early retirement here. And then he tells him to go south. He was to leave the place where many were now being blessed through his ministry there in Samaria and he was to go further south to where God wanted him to go. And this is a consistent testimony of what God does throughout the Scriptures, is it not? This is what God told Abraham to do, to leave Ur of the Chaldees. This is what God had the Israelites do, leaving Egypt for the promised land. This is what God had Mary and Joseph do, leaving Egypt many centuries later. It's just what He does. And in Philip's case God directed him through this angelic vision southward, out of Samaria, down to this road. And note that as God directed Philip to do so, it was not so that he could take on a bigger ministry or raise his profile or trade on the name that he had established for himself in Samaria and use it elsewhere. No, God called Philip out of Samaria as He directed him through this angelic statement, and I want you to note this here because it plays into where we are going to go later. He called him out of Samaria to preach to one man, to minister to one man. An Ethiopian man, a man, Acts 1:8, for “the remotest part of the earth,” who we are going to meet in a little bit.

First, though, I want us to work through more of this angel's command here in verse 26. He says, “Go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” And then Luke gives us this parenthetical information, this is a desert road. And there was in fact a road in this region, and it was in fact a desert road and it was actually known as the desert road that ran in this northeast to southwest direction from Jerusalem down to Gaza. And the significance of this road is that it would connect the traveler to the main road just south of Gaza, and that main road in turn would take you down to Egypt and all the way down into the heart of Africa. The desert road, in other words, was like our Highway 77 or our Highway 2 that connects us to the interstate so we can get to wherever we need to go.

Now as for Gaza itself, it had a very long and storied history. In fact there were historically two Gazas, there was ancient Gaza and then there was the modern Gaza which was the Gaza of Philip's day. Ancient Gaza was recorded all the way back in Genesis 10, the Table of Nations. Genesis 10:19 refers to Gaza as being sort of the frontier city of the old Canaanites. It also became an enclave for the Philistines in the days of King David. Ancient Gaza was besieged by Alexander the Great in the 330s B.C. and eventually was toppled by the Roman Empire around 93 B.C. The new Gaza, the Gaza of Philip's day was built to the south of the original Gaza around 57 B.C., and this desert road that this angel is speaking of here to Philip originated in Jerusalem and then again bisected Gaza and then led travelers down to Egypt and to Africa.

So it was a much traveled road, a very important road in the ancient world, and God here through the angel of the Lord is commanding Philip to get on that road. His time in Samaria is over, notwithstanding whatever success, whatever ministry success he has experienced there. And note that the command here comes with no promise of what is ahead for Philip. It comes with no suggestion, not even a hint of what lies ahead of him on that road. God simply through this angel told Philip to go. And we know that God is the God who doesn't change, He is the same yesterday, today and forever. And He can never be subject to the charge that He is ever vague or ambiguous with His commands. Right? He told Abram to go in Genesis 12. He told Jonah to go to Nineveh. He tells Philip here to go. He tells us, Matthew 28:19 to do what? “Go and make disciples.”

And look at Philip's response here to this simple command to go. Look at the first few words of verse 27. “So he got up and went.” Now let those words just sink in for a little bit. I'm notorious for not being a marker and an underliner in my Bible, but if there is a line to underline or mark in your Bible, that's a great one to underline and mark. “He got up and went.” Right. These words are so simple, they are so profound, they are so convicting. He simply got up and went. How often do we expose the exact opposite attitude of what Philip is demonstrating here. Reconcile with that family member who offended me? No, I'm going to wait until they come to me. Pray for the salvation of that hostile co-worker? No, someone else can do that. Pray about joining that church plant out in Scottsbluff? Gross, that's not for me. That's the attitude that we demonstrate if we're not careful. And not only is it the attitude that we can demonstrate that is hostile to this way of thinking, we can actually act in a way that is inconsistent with what is being described here. We can be like Jonah, running in the exact opposite direction of where God tells us to go. Go to Nineveh? No thanks, I'd rather go to Tarshish. Live with my wife in an understanding way? No, you just don't understand how difficult she is. That's impossible. Or pursue a Spirit-filled life of holiness and godliness as a reasonable response to the salvation I've been given? No, I'd rather go on with porn and adultery and lying and stealing and drunkenness. I'm one of those kinds of Christians even though 1 Corinthians 6 says those will not inherit the kingdom of God. Philip here showed no such resistance, he showed no such hesitancy he showed no such obstinacy. No, the message here from the Lord was clear, the command here for Philip was uncontested and he demonstrated unquestioned obedience to God by getting on that road from Jerusalem to Gaza. He left civilization for the desert road and he left this place of spiritual blessing there in Samaria to this unknown future. It's all baked into what is said here, “He got up and went.” There is no wrestling or wrangling with the Lord here. He's not saying, you know, Lord, this is not the greatest time for me to leave. There is no attempting to reason with the Lord here. He's not saying Lord, don't You see how this ministry is being blessed? There is no attempting to negotiate with the Lord. Just let me stay six more months in Samaria and then, Lord, I'll let You know how I feel about really going. No, there was none of that begrudging behavior. “He got up,” it says, “and he went.”

Then look at what comes next in verse 27. “And there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure and he had come to Jerusalem to worship.” That brings us to our third point this morning, The Contact. So Philip is on the road, the very desert road that the angel of the Lord had told him to get on, and now this scene shifts from Philip to this new figure, this Ethiopian eunuch. Now in ancient times Ethiopia referred to this territory that was far larger than the national Ethiopia of today. The Ethiopia of Philip's day made up really all of what constitutes, like if you can picture a map of Africa, the continent of Africa right now, the entire southern stem of Africa would have been the Ethiopia of Philip's day. It was vast in its scope and its size. And this figure that we're introduced to here in verse 27 is described as not only being from Ethiopia but he is an Ethiopian eunuch, meaning he has been emasculated. All of his male organs have been removed. And that's not just a random fact here, there is a reason for this, which comes next. Because he was a court official to Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. In other words this man was assigned to work in a royal harem. The room of the household of the first family of the Ethiopians that he was assigned to was made up entirely of women. And so as was customary in this time and in this culture, he had been castrated. And you can jot down Esther 2:3 as a cross reference here where we see a castrated ruler of a royal harem. It's what they did back then.

Now Candace here was not the given name of this queen of the Ethiopians, rather Candace was her title, like Pharaoh or Caesar. This was actually the title that all queens of Ethiopia were given. And this queen actually had a heightened degree of power and authority in Ethiopia, and the reason for that was her son, the royal son, was considered to be divine offspring of the sun, like the celestial being that gives us warmth and light. These were sun worshipers and the thought was that the actual ruler of Ethiopia was a descendant of the sun and he was too busy being a god to worry himself with governing Ethiopia. That authority fell to his mother, the queen mother, Candace. She dealt with the menial affairs of the state. That was what was happening here. So the point being Candace, queen, was actually the ruler of Ethiopia. And now this Ethiopian eunuch is described as an official in her court, a very powerful woman.

Now, it gets even more specific as it says here that he was in charge of all her treasure. So he's not just an official, he's not just the dog catcher, he is administer of finance he is a secretary of the treasury, he is controlling the queen's purse strings, he is way up there. And then look at the end of verse 27 where we are given this fascinating detail about this man from Ethiopia which is that “he had come to Jerusalem to worship.” So to orient ourselves here he is heading south on this same dirt road that Philip is now on and what is really fascinating is where he is coming from. He is coming from Jerusalem, apparently now headed back south home to Ethiopia. It says here “he had come to Jerusalem to worship.” Now according to the Law, the Mosaic Law, according to the practices of this day a man like him could not have been a full-on convert to Judaism. He could not be what was known as a proselyte, not only because he was physically incapable of meeting one requirement, namely being circumcised for obvious reasons, but Deuteronomy 23:1 expressly says this, “No one who is emasculated or has his male organ cut off shall enter the assembly of the LORD.” So he is disqualified. He can't be a proselyte, cannot convert fully to Judaism. More likely then is that he was what was then known as a God-fearer. Not a proselyte but a God-fearer. This would be somebody who could not access the temple, Deuteronomy 23, but someone who could still sit in one of the far flung synagogues and hear teaching through the Jewish Scriptures. He could still at least do that. And he could still at least become familiarized with the moral standards of Judaism and seek somehow to live a life in accordance with those standards and be a true seeker in the best sense of the term. And again as he encountered Philip here, this eunuch, this Ethiopian eunuch was returning from a pilgrimage to the holy city, to Jerusalem.

Now back in Ethiopia, he was missing some very important parts and equipment, I'll give you that, but this man had prestige, he had power, he had honor, he had wealth, he had everything that he could have needed or wanted but there evidently was something gnawing in him and something going on with him that he saw a need to get up to Jerusalem and seek for some sort of truth. And what would he have found in Jerusalem? Well he would have found ritual, he would have found ceremony, he would have found tradition. I mean it might have scratched certain itches, but it didn't get him ultimately to the truth. And what we do know that what he came back with was a copy of the scroll of Isaiah. Look at verse 28, it says, “And he was returning again from Jerusalem and sitting in his chariot and was reading the prophet Isaiah.” So he is sitting there in his chariot, meaning he has been carried along on this journey back and forth, to and from Jerusalem. I did a lot of research on this part of the passage this week, probably too much research and I land on the position that this chariot was likely one of those old school walking chariots. Picture the two very long poles and then the four guys posted, hoisting him over their shoulder, walking a thousand miles to get this guy to Jerusalem and back. And that's what I think the kind of chariot this was. So whatever it was, with wheels or with poles, this was obviously a very wealthy man, a man of privilege. Sufficiently wealthy not only to be carried along in a chariot, but to have a copy of a scroll of Isaiah. Those weren't easy to come by in those days. There was no Logos or Google or any other way to just easily pull down Isaiah.

Now look at verse 29, it says, “Then the Spirit said to Philip, 'Go up and join this chariot.'” So first, back in verse 26, it's the angel of the Lord who speaks to Philip and tells him to get on that road to Gaza. Now in verse 29 it's the Holy Spirit who is speaking directly to Philip and directing him about his next steps. And I just want to have us park our thoughts here for just a little bit because for those of us who have read this account before we know where the story ends. We praise God for where the story ends. The story ends with this man from Ethiopia trusting in Jesus Christ and getting saved. Here's what I want us to note, though, because we're not there yet, that though salvation comes to this Ethiopian eunuch a bit later in this account, the Holy Spirit was already involved in the process much earlier. The Holy Spirit was already drawing him. The Holy Spirit had already prompted him to go to Jerusalem and the Holy Spirit had prompted him to purchase a copy, of all things, the scroll of Isaiah. And the Holy Spirit had prompted his eyes to land upon, of all places, Isaiah 53. And then the Holy Spirit here speaks directly, audibly to Philip and says go to that man who is reading Isaiah 53 and minister to him in ways that we are about to see. And what this sequence of events and circumstances shows us here today is that salvation, as Jonah 2:9 puts it, is truly of the Lord. Salvation is totally and completely and always has been completely in the hands of the Lord. Salvation is initiated by God, willed by God, brought forth by God, given by God and seen through by God. None of us deserve salvation, none of us could ever merit or earn our salvation. Before God, a holy God, we are spiritually blind and spiritually dead. That's the testimony of Scripture. Ephesians 2:1, “But you were dead in your trespasses and sins.” And apart from the choice of the Father and the salvation purchased by the Son and the quickening by the Holy Spirit, the reality is we would remain in that Ephesians 2:1 state of spiritual deadness and spiritual blindness. But here the Spirit evidently had already been working in the heart of this Ethiopian eunuch, drawing him to Himself. And here as we see in verse 29, we see the Spirit now working directly on Philip, directing him audibly to overtake this chariot. And as we saw back in verse 26, when Philip immediately obeyed the angel of the Lord's command to get on that road to Gaza, here when the Spirit prompts Philip to get up and join this eunuch in the chariot, his obedience, his compliance is immediate. Look at verse 30, “Philip ran up.” He didn't drag his feet, he didn't pause, he didn't hesitate. He didn't say, wait a second, Spirit, I've a few questions for You. No, what we see here right away is immediate obedience. No delay in compliance.

And as we continue on in verse 30 note what Philip encountered. It says, “He ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said, 'Do you understand what you are reading?'” Philip, it says, heard him reading. So the eunuch clearly was reading aloud. He wasn't reading this internally or in his mind. This was new material to him, it was unfamiliar material to him so you can kind of picture him spelling out the words and sounding out the words audibly the way that we might do when we have a letter in our hands that we are trying to make out or when we see a plaque on a wall that we can't quite make out. We tend to, when it is not familiar, read it out loud and sound it out the way toddler does with their alphabet. Right? So what he was doing here was not unusual—sounding it out, reading it out loud.

And then in the next part of verse 30 we have this first verbal interaction between Philip and the eunuch. Philip asks him, “Do you understand what you are reading?” So the picture here is the chariot is moving at this, I think, walking pace. Philip hears the eunuch reading Isaiah 53 inside the chariot and then without skipping a beat or delaying he catches up with the eunuch and the chariot, goes right up to him. And he doesn't ask him where he is from, he doesn't ask him about where he is coming from or where he is going, he's not asking him about any complaints he has about the uneven nature of the road that they are on, he's not asking him about the weather. He knows he has a fish on the line, he knows that this fish on the line is reading from Isaiah 53, a Messianic prophecy, he knows that this man inside that chariot is searching for truth and he knows that the Spirit has already audibly commanded him to guide this man into truth. So he cuts right to the chase and asks him, “Do you understand what you are reading?” Now Philip knew what he was reading, he knew what this text pointed to. Better stated, he knew who this text pointed to and he wanted to help him by pointing him to Jesus Christ.

And that's exactly what we see in the next several verses. Our fourth point this morning, by the way, is The Conversion. Look at how the eunuch replies to Philip's question here in verse 31. It says, “And he said well how could I unless someone guides me?” And there we have it. This Ethiopian eunuch, this God-fearer fresh off his pilgrimage to Jerusalem and with his eyes fixed squarely on the words of Isaiah 53 is looking for someone to guide him into the truth. Now admittedly what we have recorded for us here in Acts 8 reflects an entirely different era of biblical history. We have the angel of the Lord speaking audibly to Philip, we have the Spirit of the Lord speaking audibly to Philip. Those things don't happen anymore, and if you want some dialog on that if you come from a different background I'd be happy to chat with you in the south lobby about those statements I just made. But what we also have here and what is notable is that this Ethiopian eunuch is a truth seeker which in our day, if we want to be really honest, that's sort of an oddity, isn't it? That there would be a truth seeker out there? I mean, we do not live in a time in which people like this are just openly seeking the truth. No, we live in a time which is known for its ramped up efforts to suppress the truth. We live in a time in which states like California are now passing legislation to take away custodial rights from parents who don't affirm the made-up new gender identities of their minor children. We live in a time in which God's Word, the Bible, is openly branded as hate speech. And to make matters worse we live in a completely dumbed down period of history in which people aren't reading widely, they aren't thinking critically, they aren't processing information effectively and sadly they can't care to be bothered about their own ignorance and their desperate need for truth. Their foolish hearts truly are darkened. And so while they suppress the truth, it's the truth that they need. Though they spit the medicine out like the toddler turning his head back and forth who just won't take it, it's the medicine they need. And as followers of Jesus Christ like Philip or like you and me, we are called to be dispensers of that truth. The eunuch here was ready for truth. He was inviting this encounter with Philip. He was ready to take the medicine, which is why he asks the question there in verse 31, “How could I unless someone guides me?” And he also shows his readiness to take his medicine in inviting Philip, at the end of verse 31 there, to come up and sit with him, to sit in the chariot.

And now we come to verses 32-33. Earlier Luke is telling us that the eunuch was reading from Isaiah, but here in verses 32-33 we are given the exact reference for what this eunuch was reading there in the chariot. It says, “Now the passage of Scripture which he was reading was this.” And this is a quote, by the way, of Isaiah 53:7-8. “He was led as a sheep to slaughter and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He does not open His mouth. In humiliation His judgment was taken away; who will relate His generation? For His life is removed from the earth.” And so now we are starting to see, as surely Philip was starting to see, the very reason that the Lord had sent him on this journey south, the meeting, the reading, the precise passage that was being read, the questions that the eunuch was asking, it was all clearly providential and all clearly purposed by God. But Philip's work, as we see, was not done yet because as we see in verse 34 what the eunuch was reading here from Isaiah 53:7-8 was perplexing to him. He wasn't, by the way, wrestling with real complicated matters of interpretation. He wasn't trying to parse verbs or look for any hidden meanings of the text. Rather, he was interested, the eunuch was, in having one question answered for him about this text. Who was Isaiah referring to? Who was this He? That's the question he asks Philip in verse 34, “Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else?” He was puzzled about who this text was referring to, which is understandable because during this time there was debate going on over who this was about. Was it Israel the nation? Was it Israel the remnant? Or was it the personal servant of Yahweh? The eunuch was sure, you can see it from the grammar here of verse 34, that Isaiah's prophecy concerned an individual. It comes through at the end of verse 34 where he asks if the author of Isaiah was speaking of himself or of someone else, someone else meaning a person. This is a personal reference. So his question is who, who is this? Who is this person?

Now I don't know about you but I have admittedly thrown up some evangelistic air balls in my past where it has just been teed up for me, I'm totally mixing metaphors here (air balls, teed up), and I've had a chance to share Jesus, to share Christ with someone (I'm going to mix metaphors a third time now), and I totally whiffed it, I just totally swing and miss. Philip here did not miss, he knocked it out of the park. Look at verse 35, it says, “Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him.” That's such a compelling and convicting passage of Scripture. Right there, verse 35. We've already seen that Philip obeyed the command of the angel of the Lord to get on the road to Gaza in the first place. And then we've seen Philip immediately obey the command of the Spirit of the Lord to run up to the chariot and sit with this eunuch. And now, verse 35, we see him obeying the command of Christ Himself to make a disciple by sharing Jesus Christ with him.

Now note a few things here about verse 35. First it says, “Philip opened his mouth.” So he didn't cop out of his evangelistic responsibilities by saying something like I just preach the Gospel with my life. He didn't use the lame old ‘preach the Gospel and if necessary use words’ phrase. No, he recognized that the Gospel is the good news message of forgiveness of sins and salvation and eternal life to all who believe upon the name of Jesus Christ. He recognized that as a good news message, that news needed to go out and it needed to go out through his mouth. It needed to be proclaimed verbally. Second, note that Philip here operated beginning from the Scripture, it says. So this Ethiopian eunuch is grappling with a specific segment of Scripture, that section of Isaiah 53, and Philip here is ready. He is equipped to engage with the eunuch on the basis of what is before him, namely the Word of God. And he is not caught flat-footed, is he. He knows exactly where to go and how to make the appeal to him. He is that I Peter 3:15 guy who is always ready to make a statement, make a defense even to everyone for the hope that is within him. And then note, third, he “preached Jesus to him.” He didn't preach a message of self-improvement or three ways to fulfill your life or seven ways to financial independence or a prosperity gospel or the social gospel. He preached Jesus to him, which tying it back to the Scripture that this eunuch held in his lap meant explaining that Jesus was the ultimate sheep that was led to the slaughter, that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world so that sinners like Philip and this eunuch and like you and like me can have our sins forgiven and have eternal life. There is such beauty and simplicity in these words from Luke, that “he preached Jesus to him.”

Now as we've seen already a few times this morning, Philip was exemplary in how he would obey immediately—the angel of the Lord, the Spirit of the Lord and then Christ's command to make disciples. He obeyed all those commands immediately. Well as we get to verse 36 we see immediate obedience once again. But this time it's not Philip who obeys, it's the eunuch. And our fifth point here this morning is this, The Consequences. So apparently Philip's preaching was effective. The Spirit moved in the heart of this eunuch and he believed in the very name of the Jesus who Philip was preaching to him and note, there is no recorded here recitation of the sinner's prayer, there is no record of the eunuch asking Jesus into his heart or writing the date of his conversion on the inside of his Bible or at the top of his Isaiah 53 scroll. There is none of that. No, but clearly this man had somewhere on this bumpy desert road believed in the Jesus whom Philip preached. And it is also clear that somewhere along the way as they continued on in this chariot ride together that Philip had explained to the eunuch what believers in Jesus are to do once they have been saved and once they have trusted in Christ and once they have been justified as they go into the waters of baptism as an outward sign, as an external representation of what has happened internally through their faith in Christ. I say it is clear that Philip did that because of what we have here in verse 36. It says, “As they went along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, 'Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?'” Don't you just love that zeal of this new convert, this new follower of Christ? Whatever command Christ had given His followers, he was ready to do it. If Jesus Christ as his new commander, as his new captain had commanded his followers to do anything, he was going to do it. It just happened to be here, baptism.

What a far cry from the one foot in, one foot out, milk toast sort of Christianity that plagues evangelicalism in our day. And I have to say I am shocked, like genuinely shocked by the number of true believers who refuse, and I use that word intentionally, refuse to do what this eunuch did here, which is to be baptized following a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. They'll point back to getting sprinkled as an infant back in the old Catholic church or the old Presbyterian church from which they came, they'll point and say I'm just so afraid of crowds and being in front of people and it's just not for me, they'll cite fear of man, essentially. And when those cards don't play very well they'll point out that baptism isn't a matter of salvation, so why are you being so harsh, Jesse? Baptism doesn't save, it's faith in Christ that saves and I'm going to go to heaven whether I get baptized or not. That's true. Baptism is not a matter of salvation, we are not the Roman Catholic Church, but it is equally true that baptism is a matter of obedience. And why in the world wouldn't you be obedient to the One whose blood has washed your sins away? Why wouldn't you be like this Ethiopian eunuch being quick to do all that the Lord has commanded you to do. This new convert here saw water and wanted to be baptized. Look at the exclamation points—“Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?” We're scheduling a baptism service next month, by the way, now that I've stepped on a few toes in the room. But in the meantime I really do want you to really think through that question and ask that question and pray through that question in your own heart. What prevents you from being baptized, if you haven't been baptized already, if you have truly put your faith already in Jesus Christ? It's a matter of obedience.

Now in verse 37 we see these words, “And Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may,’” meaning be baptized. “And he answered and said, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’” Now you'll see if you have an NAS translation like the one in front of me, that verse 37 there, those words are in brackets. And those words are in brackets because there is no evidence of those words having appeared in the earliest Greek manuscripts of this text. Those words instead appear much later in the history of New Testament transmission and you'll see it in the KJV and the NKJV, but you won't see it in the translations that rely on the earliest, most reliable manuscripts. Now, it's not that what is said here in verse 37 is inconsistent with what the rest of Scripture says. “You go and make disciples, baptizing them.” Right? You baptize those who have already been made disciples, meaning those who have already put their trust in Jesus Christ. But we don't get that concept from this text that I don't believe was in the original manuscripts or the original autographs, you get it from other places. So point being, this verse 37 is simply not supported by the earliest manuscripts and so I'm not going to preach it. I will encourage you, though, to go to our Summer in the Systematics series from this past summer where you will see all sorts of topics we covered about translations and textual criticism and even the NKJV and KJV translations, if you want to have fun with that topic.

On to verse 38, it says, “And he ordered the chariot to stop and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him.” So front and center here in verse 38 is the immediacy of the eunuch's obedience. What we have here is that perhaps in a matter of hours, maybe even minutes, we don't really know, he has gone from professing faith in Christ to now being baptized in obedience to Christ. And the significance of this event is really in Romans 6, that picture that water baptism gives. It's this external expression, this external testimony to what has already happened internally as a person has been placed into Christ by trusting in His finished work on the cross. And I can't help but note, and I know some of you are seeing this already coming off the page in verse 38, the means of baptism here. It is clear that there is a total immersion in water that is happening here. “They both,” it says, “went down into the water,” under the water. Every hair on that eunuch's head was immersed, submerged. This is not, in other words, describing sprinkling, this is describing dunking, placing someone fully into water, representing their full placement into Christ. I won't get into modes and means of baptism now because we are almost out of time.

The point, though, is that this whole account is just remarkable. Philip is redirected from Samaria down to this road to Gaza, he meets this Ethiopian eunuch, the eunuch ends up getting saved and then the eunuch goes down into the waters of baptism as an act of obedience to Christ. And as we keep reading, verses 39-40, we almost anticipate, we almost expect that Philip and this eunuch are now going to have this long-lasting, happily ever after joint Gospel partnership as they keep going down to Ethiopia together. Philip is going to go take his Samaritan success and bring it down to Ethiopia. But that's not what happens. Look at verse 39, “When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; and the eunuch no longer saw him but went on his way, rejoicing.” Talk about a major plot twist. You know, what is being described here is this miraculous sudden removal of Philip. He apparently had done the work that the Lord had assigned him to do on this road to Gaza and now the Lord takes him, snatches him away. It's the same verb, “harpazo,” that we get the word Rapture from in I Thessalonians 4, the idea that the church will one day be snatched away to meet the Lord in the air. But look at the eunuch's response to Philip being snatched away. Was he crying? Was he sad? Was he mourning? No, it says, “he went on his way, rejoicing.” He already knew enough to know that his hope and his joy were not found in Philip, the man who led him to the Lord, his hope and his joy rather were in Christ, the very One who had saved him. And then church history records that that rejoicing then carried forward from this eunuch all the way down into Ethiopia and he is credited with kind of being the starter, the match that lit the Gospel expansion into that part of the world as it went to the ends of the earth.

And what about Philip? What became of Philip? Well, Luke tells us in verse 40, “But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he kept preaching the Gospel to all the cities until he came to Caesarea.” And that city Azotus is the first century name for the old Philistine city of Ashdod, a city that was 20 miles north of Gaza. So the Spirit whisks Philip away here and from there, it says, he proceeds to Caesarea. He goes north to Caesarea. And we know, I won't take you there right now, from Acts 21 that Luke and his team would eventually travel up to Caesarea years later and find Philip, this Philip, still there.

So why have we gone on this very fast jet tour through the account of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch? Here's why. As I mentioned at the start and as Aaron mentioned during announcements, a new year of ministry is officially starting today, September 10, 2023 at Indian Hills Community Church. And it's my prayer for our church, this church, and it's my charge to this church that in the coming year we will really, truly be a church that is committed to guiding others into truth. Remember, I tried to highlight this for you in the text itself, that Philip was sent on this desert road, he was sent to this desert road to preach to one man, to this Ethiopian eunuch, this singular person, this one individual after having all this success preaching to others up in Samaria. Bring that over to our generation as we look ahead to a year of guiding others into the truth, the truth about Jesus Christ, the truth about the Gospel through our day-to-day evangelism efforts that you've heard mentioned from the front here. Here is the challenge I want to lay down before everybody here. Who is that one person in your life, a person that you are perhaps already having regular interactions with, that you can be praying for more fervently to get saved and who you are committed to eventually sharing the Gospel with this year. Who is it? Is it the lady at the dry cleaners? Or the parent on your kid's basketball team? Or one of your own children? Or a sibling? Or a parent? Is it your dentist, or your hair stylist, or a postal worker, or a co-worker, or a classmate? Who is your one? Who is the one that you are committed to sharing with? Who is the one that you are saying, I will preach Jesus to this person, like Philip did to the eunuch, this year?

I'm going to be very transparent with you, I'm going to give you mine. Here is my one. His name is Brian. Brian cuts my hair and believe it or not, he doesn't give me a discount, based on the number of hairs that are left on my head. I was hoping he would give the balding discount, maybe I can weave that into the conversation. But Brian knows I am a pastor, he knows I am serious about my faith and Brian has heard me, if I'm just being honest, he has heard me tiptoe around the Gospel as he has held a razor up to my neck before. But I haven't taken it to that point of calling on him to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. So Brian is my one, and I ask that you pray for Brian, I ask that you pray for me that I'd share with Brian, and I ask that you would check in with me to see how it is going. Am I doing what I said I'm asking you all to do in sharing with one person this year? And I want you to do the same thing amongst each other. I want to have you all committing to praying for each other and sharing with each other how that is going. I want people from that side of the auditorium to that side of the auditorium to know who the one is of the other people, be praying for that person and to be sharing words of encouragement to keep after it in the year ahead. And we're giving you all sorts of tools to do this. You have the T-shirts now that say What is Truth. What a great way to start that conversation. We have Gospel tracts, we have teaching and training that happens throughout the church to make you more evangelistically minded. So what I would love to hear is happening in this church in this year to come is that the ladies in Titus Tuesday are checking in with each other on Tuesday morning about how it is going with their one. And in home Bible studies the same things is happening. And it's happening in the Alpha Omega ministry, and it's happening in the high school ministry, and it's happening in the south lobby on Sunday mornings as people are updating each other, encouraging each other and spurring each other on to be like Philip here in opening their mouth and preaching Jesus to others. Amen?

Let's pray. Lord, thank You, for Your goodness and grace in our lives. Thank You for setting apart for Yourself a people by saving them, by giving them hope and giving them eternal life and forgiving their sin. Thank You that we in this room, if we have trusted in Christ, are such privileged people. Our hope is secure, our hope is sure, we have eternity to come with You. But God help us to be people who don't hoard that information, store up that information and never share it. Help us, instead, to be people like Philip who were eager to follow Your prompting, eager to do what You have commanded us to do, which is to share the Gospel as we make disciples. God, I pray that we would be a people who, like Philip, would preach Jesus to others, to realize that we are put on this planet not just to sit in a place like this and store up information but to get out and to go be lights for the Gospel and witnesses for Jesus Christ and ambassadors for His sake. God, I pray that You would stir up in our hearts a passion to see more and more souls in this community saved, as You bring Your purposes to pass. We love You, we thank You for this day. In Jesus' name, amen.