The Unlikely Conversion Of An Ethiopian Tourist - [Acts 8:26-40]

Bethlehem Bible Church iconBethlehem Bible Church

1 view

0 comments

00:01
Please take a Bible and open it to Acts chapter 8, Acts chapter 8, as we continue working our way through this book written by Dr.
00:13
Luke. You know, I view my time in the pulpit often as,
00:18
I don't know, confessional. I have stumbled onto this
00:28
YouTube channel here lately. It's okay.
00:33
It's called Mormon Stories, and you know, and some of you go, oh, not that again, no.
00:41
It's about people who have left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints or the Mormon Church.
00:47
And I thought, oh, this will be interesting, this will be encouraging to me in particular because I'll watch people, you know, step out of this cult of Mormonism and into Christianity.
00:59
What a disappointment. I mean, I got to hear, you know, the struggles that bishops go through before they leave the
01:07
Church. I've heard like, and by the way, I think Mormonism is absolutely, if you're a woman here today, the worst religion ever invented, you know, with regard to women because I just can't figure it out.
01:22
Women after women just talking about how their wedding day was just awful.
01:28
Why? Because it was in a Mormon temple and they go through all these rituals and they don't get to where, you know, like one lady said, she said,
01:37
I had to change out of my wedding dress because what they did was they picked out a piece of computer paper and they held it up against my dress and they said, that's not wide enough.
01:51
And so she had to go put on, and I'm just imagine buying a wedding dress and nope, that's not good enough. Got to go wear, you know, wear something else.
01:59
But people talking about how, you know, the burden of all the laws and regulations of the
02:06
Mormon Church and I, it's sad to listen to their stories, you know, some people saying, you know,
02:15
I ran afoul of the church authorities, why? Because I had more than two piercings, because I drank coffee, because, you know, and all these little regulations and rules, but every case
02:32
I've listened to so far has been like this. I left behind those rules and I adopted my own,
02:41
I decide what's right in my own eyes. They wouldn't say that exactly, but that's the essence of it. So they don't become believers, they just, they're deconstructing their
02:50
Mormon faith essentially. And I want more for them.
02:56
Leaving Mormonism didn't save me, right? The Holy Spirit convicted me of sin and showing me
03:04
Christ through the scriptures. That's what saved me. And that's exactly what we're going to see today.
03:11
Somebody leaving a system of works, of self -righteousness, a false system, and taking refuge in the
03:22
Lord Jesus Christ. I'm going to begin reading our text today, Acts chapter 8, verse 26, 26.
03:38
Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.
03:47
This is a desert place. And he arose and went. And there was an
03:54
Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the
03:59
Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning seated in his chariot.
04:11
And he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot.
04:19
So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, do you understand what you are reading?
04:28
And he said, how can I, unless someone guides me? And he invited
04:34
Philip to come up and sit with him. And he sat with him and the prophet said, now the passage of scripture that he was reading was this, like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth.
04:49
In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation?
04:56
For his life is taken away from the earth. And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom
05:03
I ask you, does the prophet say this about himself or about someone else?
05:12
Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus.
05:21
And as they were going along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, see, here is water.
05:31
What prevents me from being baptized? And he commanded the chariot to stop and they both went down into the water,
05:39
Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the
05:47
Lord carried Philip away and the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing.
05:54
But Philip found himself at Azotus and as he passed through, he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.
06:09
Now, the last time we were in Acts, some time ago,
06:22
Philip, the evangelist, one of the seven prototypes of deacons, one of the men set aside by the church in Jerusalem and approved of by the apostles, went to Samaria and by the power of the
06:38
Holy Spirit, he was enabled to perform, we read in Acts 8 verse 13, signs and great miracles such that many were believing his message, the gospel of Jesus Christ.
06:53
His sermons became such a draw throughout that area that he actually eclipsed kind of the big star of the day,
07:02
Simon the magician, Simon the great, Simon the performer, as it were,
07:11
Simon Magus, the King James calls him. Many were captivated by Philip, including
07:24
Simon, who started following Philip around. Many came to know
07:29
Christ that way and when the apostles finally came and they heard what was going on up there in Samaria and they went to check out the reports and when they go up there, the
07:39
Samaritans received the gift of the Holy Spirit. As Simon Magus saw this and he wanted that power, he said,
07:48
I need to have that, I need to add that basically to my bag of tricks.
07:57
He saw the Holy Spirit as nothing more than an incantation, a new spell, some kind of new potion, and he wanted to buy it.
08:06
He said to the apostles, you know, basically, here, how much silver is it going to cost me? Remember what
08:12
Peter said, may your silver perish with you, you know, thanks for the offering.
08:19
No, he rebukes him in such a way as to make it plain that Simon himself was not saved.
08:29
And then at the end of that text, the apostles of Philip returned to Jerusalem, but they preached the gospel to many
08:34
Samaritan villages along the way. This is God extending the power of the gospel to Samaria, which was a place that was not well thought of, because the people were not well thought of.
08:47
They were sort of half Jewish, half Gentile, and their religion was a mix also.
08:54
So the fact that the gospel goes there says something to the Jews in Jerusalem about the power of the gospel.
09:03
And this is, even as we read earlier today, this is in fulfillment of the words of Jesus when he said in Acts 1 .8,
09:12
you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria.
09:19
Today we're going to see that extended even further. This morning,
09:25
I have five points that help highlight this section, highlighting the sovereignty of the
09:30
Holy Spirit, who is going to convert this Ethiopian eunuch, the
09:39
Holy Spirit who is truly God. I have five designation points, not design points, but designation points, to encourage us to think rightly about the
09:51
Holy Spirit and evangelism. There are lessons here for us concerning evangelism.
09:59
What's interesting here is, in every previous evangelism situation in Acts, it's been mass evangelism.
10:06
Preach a sermon and wait to watch the Holy Spirit give the results. Give them the gospel and trust the
10:14
Holy Spirit. This is the first time we see kind of one -on -one evangelism and a one -on -one conversion.
10:23
There are going to be three of them in a row, but Philip versus, versus the
10:32
Ethiopian eunuch. Yes, that's the match today, Philip versus. Our first designated point is the designated place.
10:42
The designated place. Look at verse 26 again. Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.
10:54
This is a desert place. Now even as I read that and as I studied it,
11:01
I thought, you know what? I think this is what most believers are waiting for. An angel of the
11:06
Lord to appear to us and tell us to go do some evangelism. If God would just tell me where to go and who to talk to, then
11:15
I would evangelize. I mean, that's like evangelism myths. Don't do that because you'll never evangelize.
11:26
But we see that an angel of the Lord, maybe the first thing that you think about is, you know, the
11:31
Old Testament we often read of the angel of the Lord. The angel of the
11:37
Lord is pre -incarnate Christ. But now we're in the
11:43
New Testament, and you notice there it doesn't say the angel of the Lord. It says an angel of the Lord.
11:48
This is not Jesus. Some commentators say it's the Holy Spirit, which is reasonable given the context which we'll talk about.
12:00
But we aren't told that an angel appeared to Philip, right?
12:06
He doesn't see an angel, just that he spoke to Philip. Now it would make sense for many reasons for this perhaps to be the
12:17
Holy Spirit. One is we know that Philip was a man who was chosen because he was filled with the
12:23
Spirit. But the essence of this command where it says, rise and go, you know, again, this is like Old Testament language.
12:33
Rise, son of man. You know, usually they would get a vision in the Old Testament, the prophets would while they were lying down or sleeping or, you know, something like that.
12:44
Well, this is kind of... I mean, I almost want it to be translated differently because the idea is prepare yourself, pack a bag and go.
12:56
Throw your stuff in a duffel bag and get on the road. That's the idea. Now, there were two roads that Philip might choose to go to from Jerusalem to Gaza.
13:10
This is the proverbial road less traveled. This is the one that most people would not choose.
13:16
And in part, you know, you see it there at the end of the verse. This is a desert place. Most people don't want to go through the desert.
13:24
So this is like the undesirable road. Let's put it that way. So if you're thinking, okay,
13:34
I want to go do some evangelism. Are you going to go where there are a lot of people or where you know there aren't going to be very many?
13:42
If I'm Philip and I'm thinking... Well, here's what I'd be thinking. Lord, I have a better idea.
13:48
How about I go to the other road because there are going to be more people there? But that's not what happens.
13:59
Our second designated point, the designated prospect. The designated prospect. Verse 27, and he,
14:08
Philip, rose and went. Doesn't object, doesn't say anything. Just puts his stuff in his bag and goes.
14:14
He knows where he's going. It's a desert place. He knows that and he prepares appropriately and goes.
14:23
And then the text says, and there was an Ethiopian. I mean,
14:31
I think we could safely say that when Philip goes into this area, it's not like there's a row of people there and he has to pick out the
14:40
Ethiopian. There's one person there. There was an
14:46
Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure.
14:52
He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning seated in his chariot.
15:00
Luke gives us a lot of information about whom Philip sees.
15:06
So let's take a few minutes to get to know him a bit. He's Ethiopian.
15:14
Now you think, well, okay, I know where that is, sort of. But its borders, because I was looking at some maps yesterday, its borders have moved.
15:25
Many borders change over time, and this is no exception. This is just, it's in modern
15:33
Sudan. It's just a little bit south of, or it's directly south of Egypt. And I thought this part was interesting.
15:41
It said, it's beyond Roman jurisdiction. In other words, the Roman Empire didn't go down this far.
15:48
And it's approximately 1 ,000 miles from the shores of the
15:55
Mediterranean Sea. So from the Jewish mindset, this is like the end of the world.
16:01
I mean, this is pretty much as far as anybody can even imagine. If you met an Ethiopian, that would be a rarity.
16:10
Ethiopia wasn't a place that you would go to, but it might be somebody, you might meet somebody from Ethiopia. But this is distant.
16:19
Also notice that he is designated as a eunuch, meaning a neutered male. Why would they do that?
16:26
A variety of reasons. I think the most profound one is that this way, if this guy was going to betray you, try to take the kingdom over and set up his own kingdom, well, guess what?
16:41
What's the most important thing if you're going to set up a kingdom? Heirs. You've got to set up a dynasty.
16:48
Well, he's not going to have any. So he could be trusted more highly than other men could.
17:00
He was essentially the secretary of the treasury for Candace.
17:07
Now that term, we read that and we think, oh, the queen's name was Candace. Well, no. It's either the queen or the queen mother.
17:15
It's a title. It's like pharaoh or king, not her name.
17:26
But our text tells us he had traveled to Jerusalem to worship. Traveled to Jerusalem to worship.
17:34
Gone up to the temple to worship, and now he's on his way back. Now when he went to the temple, there would be restrictions on him because he's a eunuch.
17:47
Because he's not ethnically Jewish. And we have no reason to think, there's nothing in the text that would tell us that he's a full -blown proselyte.
17:59
Now I did read there were apparently some Jews who had settled down in Ethiopia and held meetings down there, and apparently that's how some
18:08
Ethiopians came to be, I guess, acolytes, Jewish acolytes. They had some affinity for the
18:16
Jewish religion. And it seems likely, as we read through this, just think about this, that this man, sorry to use this word, was a seeker.
18:30
You say, why are you sorry to use that word? Because nobody seeks after God. We know that from Romans 3. But there was some sense that he was looking for spiritual fulfillment.
18:40
And he went to the temple and came back down. And he's on his way back to Ethiopia when
18:48
Philip comes up on him. Now when we read the term chariot,
18:53
I don't know about you, but I've watched too many Hollywood movies. I'm thinking like Ben -Hur, right? He's got a team of horses and he's, yeah, yeah, and he's got blades on the side of his chariot, all that kind of stuff.
19:05
Probably not. In fact, one man said, you know, it's probably like a wagon dragged around by a donkey.
19:11
And I'm like, that's a little bit of a letdown. But here's the main point.
19:19
The main point is that this thing would not have been blazing along. You know, he's not driving a
19:24
Ferrari. He's not doing 120 back to Ethiopia. He's cruising at a slow speed.
19:31
And we'll get into why we know that here in about two seconds. Well, I'll just kind of preview for you.
19:39
Just imagine this. Have you ever tried reading while you're driving?
19:46
I hope you're going to say no, because you should not be doing that. I've seen people do that, believe me, reading the newspaper while they're driving.
19:58
But even while you're in the passenger seat, if you're reading, what happens? And that's in modern cars on modern roads, allegedly.
20:15
How about you're in some, you know, bucket of bolts and wood and you're out there in the middle of nowhere with a, you know, a desert road, just bump, bump, bump, bump.
20:29
And you want to read. How fast are you going to be going? Not very fast.
20:38
Because of his position and everything else, by the way, he would have a driver. So now you could picture a driver driving a car.
20:45
Maybe more like an uncovered stagecoach or maybe some kind of covered, you know, but that would be closer to reality.
20:53
But keeping in mind the quality of roads there, which were probably Massachusetts quality, and the fact that his vehicle would have no shock absorbers and he's trying to read, you could bet he's not going too fast.
21:10
Most commentators think it was probably somewhere around walking speed or a little bit faster. He's on this lightly traveled road.
21:22
Now, you just think, OK, what does that have to do with anything? Well, if you're the Ethiopian and you want to read, you're going to take the road less traveled because you don't want some
21:35
New Englander coming up on you and honking his horn and trying to go past you and all that stuff, right? So, not that I would ever do that.
21:47
So that's kind of the picture. That's who we're dealing with here.
21:53
And when Philip hears these words, these familiar words, he's listening to this man reading in what language?
22:02
In Greek. Philip speaks Greek. And this man is reading the
22:09
Septuagint translation of the Old Testament or the Greek version of the
22:16
Old Testament. So, isn't
22:22
Philip lucky that this guy speaks the same language he does? What a break. And again, when the
22:33
Holy Spirit says, join the chariot, I mean, what do we want to think? We want to think it's like some 30 mile an hour thing and he's got to know he can just kind of run over there.
22:45
I mean, there's probably some distance and he has to speed up a little bit because the text does say run, but he's able to catch it.
22:53
So, we come to verse 30 and what I've called here the earnest question.
22:59
We're still on the designated preacher and we have an earnest question from this
23:11
Ethiopian. So, Philip, verse 30, ran to him and heard him reading
23:16
Isaiah the prophet and asked, what are you reading?
23:22
So, the question comes from Philip. Do you understand what you're reading? Philip obeys the
23:29
Holy Spirit, goes and runs and catches him. Now, he knows that this man is powerful.
23:34
I don't know how he identifies everything about him, but I suspect there would be some kind of warning because the queen of Ethiopia would be nobody to trifle with and this is kind of one of her main people here.
23:53
So, you don't want to mess with him and he sees him and recognizes that and he's likely walking right next to the chariot and he asked this question.
24:07
And I thought, you know, if you see somebody carrying a Bible around in public, would it be a good thing to do, if you could, to kind of say, excuse me, what do you go to church or what are you reading in Scripture when you read it or do you read it at all?
24:27
You know, I wouldn't say, have you ever read that thing? But, you know, to engage with them, right?
24:34
Philip has an advantage because he can hear the man reading. So, he opens up his conversation with him in a very evangelistic manner with a sincere question.
24:47
It's a good move. Now, the eunuch could have responded in many ways, if you think about it.
24:53
None of your business, of course I know what I'm doing. You know, what do you think I am, an idiot?
25:00
Get lost? Who are you to ask me such a question? And these days, quite honestly, that's what you should be prepared for, right?
25:14
Somebody to say, well, of course I know what I'm doing. But he gets really an answer that's just so humble.
25:24
I call it the eager reply. And he, the Ethiopian eunuch says, how can
25:30
I, in other words, how can I know what I'm reading unless someone guides me? And he invited
25:35
Philip to come up and sit with him. Not arrogant, not full of himself, not assuming he knows.
25:47
Have you ever heard the saying, you know, don't answer a question with a question?
25:55
But that's exactly what he did here, and it was fine. Do you know what you're, you know, do you understand what you're reading?
26:01
How can I, unless somebody helps me? That's a question, unless somebody guides me. The Ethiopian is very, very humble.
26:13
We want to say we understand it, but we know this. The Bible isn't like any other book.
26:19
I mean, people will tell you, unbelievers will tell you all the time, of course I understand the Bible. Okay, ask him three or four questions, like, you know, was there ever a time when
26:32
Jesus did not exist? Or, how old's the earth? You're going to get some pretty cracker answers.
26:45
But people who know scripture, people who've studied it, will tell you that there's a consistent, coherent theme that runs throughout it.
26:56
And this theme is not easily discovered by merely reading one little section. You've got to know it.
27:02
It takes years of study or good teaching, and Philip had both. Now, is it wrong, or is it bad, to ask for help in understanding scripture from somebody you believe might know more than you?
27:15
Of course not. I mean, this whole little passage,
27:21
I hate to draw too many lessons out of a narrative, but it does kind of go against this whole, all
27:28
I need is the Bible, the Holy Spirit, and me.
27:34
Sometimes we need somebody to explain things to us, and that's fine. Our third designated point, or our fourth designated point, is the designated prophecy, the designated prophecy.
27:48
And I would have called it scripture, except, you know, A, it is a prophecy, and B, I've been using
27:54
P's throughout, so that wouldn't work. Verses 32 and 33. Now, the passage of scripture that he was reading was this.
28:04
Like a sheep that was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth.
28:13
In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who could describe this generation?
28:18
For his life is taken away from the earth. I mean, does the
28:25
Old Testament speak of Jesus? Yes, emphatically yes, this is it, right?
28:33
It does. And as we've mentioned before, that's all the apostles and their disciples, like Philip, had for years.
28:43
And they were very expensive copies. Even after the New Testament books were written, they took time to copy and then distribute.
28:51
They were very expensive. It wasn't like today, where you could just hit print and get multiple copies.
29:00
This passage is Isaiah 53, verses seven and eight. The Septuagint, the
29:07
Greek translation, varies a bit from the Hebrew text, but the gist is the same. varies a bit from the
29:13
Hebrew text, Scholar Simon Kistemacher summarizes the servant song in Isaiah this way, and by the way, this is from Isaiah 53, but today when
29:25
Scott read, Elder Scott read Isaiah 42, that's another one of the servant songs, which focuses on the
29:31
Lord Jesus. But here's how Kistemacher summarizes Isaiah 53, the servant is despised and rejected by men.
29:47
The servant dies for the sins of the world. The servant is buried with the wicked.
29:53
The servant declares many people righteous. Could you, you individually, preach the gospel with such truths?
30:08
I think the answer is yes, has to be yes. You could go straight to the gospel with Isaiah 53.
30:18
How could Jesus suffer for others, even dying for their sins?
30:25
How could he do that? I can't do that. I can't suffer for the sins of others. How could he do that?
30:34
Because he's God. He can die for the sins of others.
30:39
His death has limitless value. You say, but God can't die.
30:49
God is eternal. There's no beginning and no end. Yes, we had to be born of a virgin,
30:57
Isaiah 7, 14. So you could just stay in the Old Testament so that he is also truly man, truly
31:05
God and truly man. Only because he's born of a virgin, he doesn't have the sin nature that we inherit from Adam.
31:14
Now, what about the resurrection? Can't preach the gospel about the resurrection. Well, let me just read
31:20
Isaiah 53, verse 10, the first part of it. "'Yet it was the will of the
31:27
Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, when he dies for sin, listen, he shall see his offspring.'"
31:41
How could he see his offspring? Because he's been raised from the dead. How does the servant declare many righteous?
31:57
How does he see his offspring after his death? Because again, he's raised from the dead.
32:02
He's resurrected. The grave could not hold him, the psalmist says in Psalm 16, verse 10.
32:11
He could not, his body could not undergo corruption. So he's raised on the third day.
32:17
Again, Old Testament, Old Testament, Old Testament. We know that Jesus was unjustly tried.
32:24
He was unjustly convicted. He was beaten, tortured and executed, even though he did no wrong.
32:32
But as Isaiah says, he didn't defend himself. Peter says the same thing later.
32:39
And again, we come to an earnest question in our text, verse 34. Only this time it is from the eunuch.
32:46
And the eunuch said to Philip, "'About whom,' keeping in mind what he's reading,
32:52
Isaiah 53, verse seven and eight. "'About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this? About himself or about someone else?'
33:03
Now he's just read two verses from Isaiah 53 and he wants to know who Isaiah is writing about.
33:08
Is it himself? In other words, Isaiah, or is he pointing to somebody else?
33:15
I'm not going to read all of Isaiah 53, but as I said, this can't be about a mere mortal.
33:27
And if we think about the Ethiopian spiritual condition, if he went to the temple, and I think he did, on some form of spiritual pilgrimage, in other words, to make himself feel more spiritual, more right with God, to get closer to God, doesn't really seem like he got there.
33:48
Because if he was elated at visiting the temple, it doesn't show up. In fact, he's driving rather slowly, riding rather slowly back to Ethiopia and reading scripture.
34:03
Could be speculation that he asked people there questions.
34:10
Maybe he didn't get the answers. He certainly, if he was evangelized in Jerusalem, we have no record of it.
34:19
But this man is certainly not going back to Ethiopia in some sort of spiritual triumph.
34:24
He's not, you know, praising the Lord all the way back down to Ethiopia. He's unsure what to believe.
34:32
And so he asked that question. Who's this all about? Who's Isaiah writing about?
34:38
And then we have the eager answer in verse 35.
34:45
Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus.
34:56
You know, Isaiah 53 still bothers the conscience of Jews. I remember being in seminary and hearing that there are copies of the
35:08
Old Testament that have Isaiah 53 removed. And I thought, you know, just an academic exercise.
35:16
I go, well, that's interesting, you know, just kind of like, whatever. Didn't really mean anything to me.
35:22
Then I was working in the jail, doing my real job. And we were on lockdown, which means somebody was fighting somewhere or there was something bad going on and no inmates are moving around.
35:36
But there were always exceptions to that because if there were no inmates moving around, that meant no work got done because, you know, what could deputies do?
35:45
So here comes this trustee walking up to me. He says,
35:51
Senior Cooley, that's my title. He says, Senior, he says, can
35:56
I give this Old Testament to another Jew who lives in that dorm?
36:04
And I said, well, first, I gotta ask you a question. I said, does that have
36:10
Isaiah 53 in it? And he said, absolutely, sure it does.
36:17
And I said, well, let's look. So he hands it to me and I flip and it goes from Isaiah 52 to Isaiah 54.
36:28
And he says, how'd you know that? And I said, you know, random factoid, just kind of stuck in my head.
36:40
He goes, well, why isn't it there? I said, because it talks about Jesus and there's no other earthly explanation for it.
36:57
Months pass, I'm working in a different building, working overtime again. Some guy comes up to me and he says, you remember me,
37:05
Senior Cooley? I said, not at all. I mean, come on, I see hundreds, unless I interact with you on a daily basis, because I was seeing hundreds, if not thousands of inmates a week or whatever.
37:20
And he says, well, I'm the guy who wanted to give the, and you said da -da -da -da -da, and he goes, since then
37:25
I've been going to a Christian Bible study and he goes, God saved me.
37:31
And I was like, random factoid.
37:43
But look at what Philip does. He started with the very verse, the question comes in, what about this verse?
37:50
What about these verses? Who's Isaiah talking about? He starts right there, right at the point of what this person wants to know, and he gives them the gospel, tells them the good news about Jesus.
38:03
And I think there's a principle there too, if you're asked a legitimate question, not something dopey, like, where does
38:10
God come from? But who's Isaiah writing about? Start right there.
38:18
And don't stop until you preach the entirety of the gospel. I mean,
38:23
I think, and I'm talking about this in Sunday school too, we often treat the gospel like it's a precious commodity, like it's limited, like somehow if we break the glass, we're not gonna be able to squeeze it all back in, only use in case of an emergency.
38:42
What does the Bible say? The Bible says the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. The gospel and the gospel alone reveals the true status of the hearer.
38:54
It convicts people of sin, it saves sinners.
39:00
And by the way, what does it do for believers? It encourages you, and it aboldens you.
39:09
We ought not to fear preaching the gospel. I mean,
39:14
God's not running short on grace. Okay, so we've seen the designated place, the designated prospect, the designated preacher, and the designated prophecy, and finally, the designated pool, the designated pool.
39:37
Look at verse 36, and as they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, see, here is water, what prevents me from being baptized?
39:52
Now, first I have to address the mysterious missing verse, which is verse 37, because I'm looking at my text here in my
40:04
Bible, and it goes, I don't know about yours, but it just goes 36, 37, and 38, and you know what was really fun, is on my computer, it goes, it has the text from 36, and then it actually puts the superscript there for 37, and then it goes on to 38, and I'm just like, so what'd you put the 37 there for?
40:24
Just like, just in case, you wouldn't know. 37 in the
40:30
New American Standard says this, and Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, because he says, and as they were going along, what prevents me from being baptized?
40:41
And Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, you may, and he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the
40:47
Son of God. Now, you think, what's wrong with that verse? Nothing, really.
40:56
There's a problem, though. It doesn't appear in a Greek text until about 1 ,000 years later.
41:03
There's the problem, it's not in the original text. I think if I recall correctly, it shows up in a
41:09
Latin text in about the fourth century or something like that, but it's not in the original text, which is why
41:17
I'm not going to preach it. Now, we don't know every word that Philip spoke.
41:23
I mean, for example, Luke gives us a summary statement, right? He begins in that verse, and then he told him the good news about Jesus.
41:32
So it's reasonable to conclude that after Philip gets through preaching the gospel, either the
41:40
Ethiopian says, I believe, what must I now do? Well, be baptized. Or, you know,
41:49
Philip could have said, you need to repent and believe and be baptized. But in any case, somehow they got around to baptism.
41:57
So they're cruising down the road. The eunuch sees the water and says, you know, there's water, what prevents me from being baptized?
42:07
I think it's interesting what he doesn't say. He doesn't say, you know what? I've got a little water in my wineskin.
42:12
Why don't we do a little sprinkle? Sorry, sorry. Look at verse 38, the sign and the seal of the new covenant, verse 38.
42:28
And he commanded, the Ethiopian did, the chariot to stop. In other words, I see that water, stop.
42:35
And they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.
42:43
Philip baptized the eunuch. Now, just briefly,
42:48
I just want to say a couple of things about baptism. In many churches today, I've watched this on video, it drives me crazy.
42:55
Baptism is just treated like an absolute frivolity, just like an extra thing.
43:01
It's like dessert or whatever. You know, who's doing the baptizing? Well, it could be your mom.
43:07
It could be your brother, whomever. You know, it could be your aunt and your mom or whoever.
43:13
Let's just, you know, and we can have 20 baptisms at the same time. No church testimony, no microphone, nothing.
43:26
Because I think they're not taking this seriously enough. Now you say, well, wait a minute, there was no audience here.
43:35
Well, there was Philip, the eunuch, most likely the driver. But Philip was commissioned by the apostles and the
43:45
Holy Spirit. I think, like with the
43:51
Lord's Table, baptism should be treated seriously with solemnity. Why do we do, you know, baptize in front of the church?
44:03
Why do we have these things? Well, it is a tradition, but it's born out of taking baptism seriously.
44:10
Your testimony tells everyone in the church and on believers who attend, who Jesus Christ is and how he saved you.
44:18
And that's a hint, if you want to get baptized, those things need to be in your testimony. Who's Jesus and how did he save you?
44:29
As much as we can, we want to make sure that nothing else is influencing anyone to get baptized.
44:34
I don't care if you're young and you want to please your parents or you think it's cool to get baptized.
44:42
Or if you're older and you're thinking, this woman is not going to marry me if I don't get baptized. None of those reasons are good.
44:49
That's why we have a process that we put people through. Back to the text, because the baptism part is pretty self -evident.
45:01
We notice that Philip departs in verse 39. And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the
45:09
Lord carried Philip away and the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing.
45:14
Now, just a couple of observations here. Some make a lot out of Philip being carried away like he was magically transported.
45:23
And that's possible. After studying, I don't think it's likely.
45:30
The word here that he's carried away means to be forcibly taken, seized.
45:43
It's even with the idea of thieves dragging away some loot. It seems more plausible that Philip was impelled by the spirit to leave.
45:56
I mean, if you think about it this way, if they come up out of the water and all of a sudden, Philip's gone, rather than the eunuch going away rejoicing, he might leave and just go, what just happened?
46:09
Explanation, please, because I don't get it. Why was the
46:19
Ethiopian rejoicing? Because Christianity alone offers the soul what it most needs, which is the remedy for sin.
46:28
I think that Ethiopian longed for some answer. What to do about sin?
46:37
Philip gave them that answer. Philip told them that Jesus Christ died for the sins of all who would ever believe.
46:45
That's what he needed. For Philip, the work of evangelism continued, verse 40, but Philip found himself at Azotus.
46:53
And as he passed through, look what he did. Right back to preaching. He preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.
47:01
This is just what he did. He was a evangelism machine. As I said in the beginning, in the introduction, leaving a false religious system behind is meaningless unless it's accompanied by faith in Christ.
47:17
Now for you, you have Christ. You know
47:23
Christ if you're a believer. You have the Holy Spirit. You are empowered by the Holy Spirit. I'll flip that question around that the
47:32
Ethiopian eunuch asked Philip. He said, there's water, what prevents me from being baptized? You have the
47:40
Holy Spirit. You have the Holy Spirit. What prevents you from evangelizing? In the outline
47:47
I presented today, talking about the place, the prospect, the preacher, the prophecy, maybe minus the pool, but all of those were true about you.
48:02
At some point, God revealed the designated place where you would believe.
48:10
And you were the designated prospect. There was a designated preacher, whether it was on the radio or in person.
48:23
And then there was a designated scripture, prophecy, something that the
48:29
Holy Spirit used to convict you, to cause you to take refuge in Christ, to trust his life, death, and resurrection alone for your salvation.
48:40
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this recording of this evangelism encounter.
48:58
Father, I pray that you would encourage us to think of ways when we are with people to preach the truth, to give them the good news, that you are a
49:11
God who forgives sinners, just like us, just like me. Help us to think more highly of others than we do of ourselves, and not be ashamed, not only of the gospel, but ashamed of being embarrassed.
49:29
Let's be fools for Christ, profligately preaching the truth about Jesus Christ.