Sunday, May 7, 2023 AM

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for gathering us together today.

Thank you for providing for us so abundantly above and beyond all that we could ask or think, giving us your love and your kindness, giving us your

Son, giving us your Spirit. We thank you. We thank you for gathering us here today to worship you and pray that you would help us to worship you in spirit and in truth.

Lord, we ask that you would look upon our church members, our loved ones who are sick, who are ailing, who are unable to be here today.

Lord, we pray that you would heal them, that you would encourage them, that you would bear them up. Please give us reminders to pray for them and to look in on them and to bless them.

Lord, we pray that you would help us now as we look at your word to see clearly by the light of your

Son, Jesus Christ, that you would that you would warm our hearts to this text, that by your

Holy Spirit, there would be a deep and prevailing amen in our hearts to this word that you have granted to us from heaven.

And we pray for these graces, looking to your Son, Jesus Christ, with whom you are well pleased.

Amen. Well, I invite you to open your

Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 8. Acts chapter 8, and we will be reading from this passage that goes from verse 5 to verse 25 here in a moment.

We'll actually be reading verses 14 through 23 to grasp the essence of the passage.

Acts chapter 8, verses 5 through 25. In 1494, during the infamous reign of the lecherous

Pope Alexander VI, when the Borgias controlled the church by bribes and terror, a monk by the name of Adam of Genoa dared to go to Rome itself and preach against the sin of simony.

Simony is the practice of buying and selling positions and favors of the church from priest to Pope.

These transactions naturally favored a handful of families as positions were assured to sons and nephews and cousins.

So, nepotism and simony went hand in hand. Adam of Genoa preached against this corruption and was very quickly found murdered in his bed with 20 stab wounds.

When in Rome, do as the Borgias tell you or else. Less than 25 years later, the

Reformation would begin with Martin Luther nailing his opposition to such corruption as simony to the door of the

Wittenberg Chapel. Simony is the attempt to build the church, to build the new covenant temple, through the buying and the selling of the

Holy Spirit and His divinely appointed graces and positions. And our passage today shows us the origination of this sin in a man, of course, named

Simon. If you'll stand with me as we read God's Word, we'll begin in verse 14 of Acts chapter 8.

This is the word of the Lord. Now, when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent

Peter and John to them, who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the

Holy Spirit, for as yet he had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the

Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. And when

Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles' hands, the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying,

Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the

Holy Spirit. But Peter said to him, Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money.

You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God.

Repent, therefore, of this, your wickedness, and pray, God, if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you.

For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Ever since Pentecost, we have been watching the divergence, the difference, the contrast of the

Old Covenant and the New Covenant. In fact, when

Peter began preaching to the skeptics, to the scoffers on the day of Pentecost, as they began to mock the early church, saying,

Oh, they're filled with new wine. How little did they know how true that was?

Jesus said the new wine of the New Covenant was not allowed to be mixed with the old wineskin of the

Old Covenant. The two were incompatible. To put new wine into old wineskins would mean that the old wineskins would burst.

And what we have been reading from Acts 2 through Acts 8 is the filling up of the old wineskin of the

Old Covenant Jerusalem, and it is filling up with the new wine of the New Covenant as thousands are coming to Christ.

No longer are they attending the sacrifice of animals. They have the Lamb of God at the right hand of the

Father. And no longer are they attending to the synagogue readings in the way that they used to.

Now, they are rejoicing in their gatherings about Christ as the fulfillment of the

Tanakh, the Torah, the Nevi 'im, the Kethavim, the law, the writings, and the prophets all being fulfilled in Christ.

The signs of the New Covenant are everywhere. There are healings of those who are sick and diseased and blind, even the raising of the dead.

There is the casting out of demons. Clearly, the authority of Jesus Christ is still present upon the earth.

His kingdom is not of this world, but it is definitely in this world. Same as His followers. Same as His followers.

Not of this world, but boy, are we in here. His authority is being made clear.

He is not dead and gone. He is risen from the dead at the right hand of the Father. It is being made evident through the ministry of the apostles and the church.

And so much of the fallout that we see between the Old Covenant and the

New is centered on the temple. When Peter began preaching to his critics and his scoffers, he quotes for them

Joel chapter 2 and declares to them that the arrival of the

New Covenant made so manifest by the Holy Spirit, signals the last days of the

Old Covenant. These things are now passing away. And so he speaks to those in front of him, to this wicked and perverse generation.

He says, flee from them, turn away from them, come out from them, be saved from them, come to Christ.

Now what is the significance of the Holy Spirit coming upon the people of God in this way?

We're going to think about that this morning. And as we have been watching the spread of the church through Acts chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, you know what else we've heard a lot about?

Money, how the believers shared, how the scammers scammed, how money comes up in both positive and negative examples throughout all these chapters.

And now we come to a chapter here where, once again, money becomes central in a negative context.

We're thinking about the same thing both times. We're thinking about how the New Covenant temple gets built.

We see the power of the Holy Spirit, we see the preaching of the gospel, we see all kinds of people believing and coming to faith in Christ.

I mean, even the priests were becoming obedient to the faith, and the lepers and the blind and the people from the surrounding villages, they're coming to faith in Jesus Christ.

It's amazing. The New Covenant is being built and money is involved, but how involved and what is the relationship?

How the New Covenant temple gets built is extremely important. Now Jesus laid down a few principles in His teaching to His apostles, one of which is captured in this title, no man can serve two masters.

Either he will hate the one and love the other or despise the one and cling to the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. You cannot serve

God and money. We are reminded of Paul's statements that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

So what is the relationship between the building of the New Covenant temple and mammon and money?

That's what we need to think about very carefully in this passage. But, before we get to the intentional punchline of this passage in verses 21 through 23, actually verses 20 through 23 is the punchline of the whole story and the point that Luke is making that needs to be known by his patron

Theophilus and all who would read this gospel. Before we get there, are we really looking at the construction of the

New Covenant temple? Is that what is going on here? That's what we're going to focus on this morning.

So we'll talk more about simony as the Lord wills, as opportunity arises. I want us to begin by thinking in verses 5 through 17 as the

Holy Spirit's ministry is being magnified, as the Holy Spirit's power and ministry is being put on display.

Let's think about what is actually going on here. In the previous four verses, we hear about the death of Stephen.

We see that there was a scattering of the members of the church by the persecution spearheaded by Saul of Tarsus, God's cue ball for the spreading of the people of God outside of Jerusalem, and He made havoc.

But as they were scattered, verse 4, they went everywhere preaching the word. So God, once again, is turning something evil for something very, very good.

And one of those who went somewhere preaching the word is Philip, a fellow deacon of Stephen's, a man who also loved

Christ and was full of the Spirit, full of wisdom, and wanted to preach the gospel. And so he went down, notice verse 5, to the city of Samaria.

If your translation says, a city of Samaria, please forget the translators. Forgive them, right?

Jesus said, forgive those who wrong you. Really, the best translation is the city of Samaria, and he preached

Christ to them. And the multitudes, with one accord, heeded the things spoken by Philip, and hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.

For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed, and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed.

And there was great joy in that city. Clearly, Philip comes preaching in the power of the

Holy Spirit. The authority of Christ is seen. It's like He's there. Jesus, when

He touched the unclean, He didn't become unclean. They became clean, right?

When He showed up, the demons trembled and wanted anything to get away from Him. So it's clear that the authority of Christ is what's being proclaimed here.

Philip is heralding the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the risen Christ, and there is great joy in the city of Samaria.

Now, this is very interesting. This is the first time, after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that we have a follower of Christ preaching the gospel, declaring the kingdom of heaven, and seeing this joyful response and this coming to Christ outside of the confines of the

Old Covenant Jerusalem. I mean, prior in chapter 5, they were bringing all of the ill and infirm into the city, but the

New Covenant wine has broken through. The Old Covenant wineskin is shattered and broken, and here comes the

New Covenant wine flowing out, and He has gone to the city of Samaria.

This is impressive. For the first time, the boundaries of the New Covenant Jerusalem are exceeding those of the old.

It's spreading, just like it was promised in Daniel, the mountain which will span to fill the entirety of the earth.

This is good news. So He preaches to them.

He gives these signs, and people begin to believe. They begin to respond with joy. Why are they so joyous?

Because they had been living in darkness, but here comes light. The genuine post -Tenebrous

Lux, it's not the Reformation, it was the New Covenant. After darkness, light.

Here comes the light of Jesus Christ. And they were in darkness. In verse 9, we see there was a certain man called

Simon who previously practiced sorcery. In Latin, his name is

Simon Magus, some of you recognize that name. He previously practiced sorcery in the city and astonished the people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great, to whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, this man is the great power of God.

And they heeded him because he had astonished them with his sorceries for a long time. So they had been deceived.

They were in darkness, but, verse 12, when they believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized.

As they believed upon Christ, as they professed their belief upon Christ, they were welcomed as those who were in Christ, as part of the church, baptized.

Then Simon himself also believed. And when he was baptized, he continued with Philip and was amazed, seeing the miracles and signs which were done.

I remember an infamous, hotly debated, spirited, pointless argument in seminary about whether Simon Magus got saved or not.

It was amazing. It was one of those arguments you had to have an umbrella to hide behind so that the spittle wouldn't hit you.

We'll talk more about that later. What do we see happening here? Here, we see that the gospel comes to Samaria, to the city of Samaria, that the good news of Jesus Christ is being proclaimed to the one on the next list, wasn't it?

It was Acts 1, verse 8. What did Jesus say to his followers? They're wondering to know about the kingdom of heaven and how it was going to go, and he says, listen up.

Verse 8, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in all

Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. You see this pattern? First witnesses in Jerusalem, they've been doing that.

Chapters 2 through 7, here comes God's cue ball, Saul of Tarsus.

They begin to scatter, and now the gospel is going to go out to all Judea and Samaria. In chapter 8, we're going to watch

Philip do that. In chapter 9, we're going to see the church continue to do that, and the gospel starts going out to Judea and Samaria, and then beyond that to the end of the earth.

So this place is prophetical. This place is something that has long been anticipated that the good news of the son of David would come to.

Now, let's think about that together. Now, in Genesis chapter 12 and verse 3,

God assures Abram that in him, and Paul clarifies in his seed in Galatians 3, that all the families of the earth shall be blessed, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

And if you're kind of curious about, well, who are these families, right? You have your mind, you know, here's the cleavers, and then some of you have in mind, you know, family matters, and you think about these families.

If you don't know who the families were, you just back up to Genesis 10, where all the families of the earth were listed.

And when you read Genesis chapter 10, the little subheading you have at the top of the chapter is the table of nations.

What are nations? They are regional cultural mega families.

They have a patriarch. They have a beginning. They are a big family that have kind of settled in a region, and they have a kind of a shared culture.

And this is what the Bible thinks of, this is what we are to think of biblically when we read nations. You see, we have a modern political understanding in our world today.

We think of nations. We think of the United States of America, and Russia, and China. Beloved, those are empires.

Those are empires filled with regional cultural mega families that the

Bible will call nations. Nations. So, we need to think about when we read that the families of the earth shall be blessed, we read about the nations coming in, the goim in the

Hebrew, the Gentiles, the ethnoi, the Gentiles in the

Greek. What are we thinking of? We're not supposed to be primarily thinking of political entities.

We're to be thinking of what Christ was thinking of as He was dying upon the cross.

People from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. Not political boundaries.

Talking about Him redeeming people from every regional cultural mega family, all the different expressions of humanity.

Psalm 22, verse 27 says, All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you.

Those things are combined there. You have families and you have nations. You have clans and then you have larger, larger families.

Verse 86, Psalm 86, verse 9, All nations whom you have made shall come and worship before you,

O Lord, and shall glorify your name. All of them. This is what

God promised to Abram through his seed, who is Christ, and the nations come to him.

Isaiah chapter 2, verses 1 through 3, The word that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

Now it shall come to pass in the latter days. Latter days of what? Latter days of the old covenant. Same sermon that Peter preached on Pentecost.

That the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills and all nations shall flow to it.

If you come to Christ, you come to Mount Zion, you come to the assembly of the church of the firstborn, who is

Christ. This is Hebrews 12. And that shall be exalted above the hills, all nations shall flow to it.

Many people shall come and say, come and let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.

He will teach us his ways. We will walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the

Lord from Jerusalem. Christ in throne says, this is the way, follow me.

Isaiah 11, verse 10, And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse shall stand as a banner to the people, for the

Gentiles shall seek him and his resting place shall be glorious.

This is a sampling, a very small sampling of the Old Testament scriptures to which

Jesus referred in Luke 24 when he told his disciples, thus it is written and thus it is necessary for the

Christ to suffer and rise from the dead the third day. What else was written? What else was necessary? And that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his name to all nations.

So what's the work? It isn't like, oh, after you get done preaching in this little small part of Rome, then you should go over to this little small part of China, which was in operation at the time.

And good, check that box. It's not political borders, it's regional cultural mega families.

There are many nations in our empire, there are many nations represented right here in our auditorium right now.

All right, we didn't all come from the same region. We don't all share the same culture.

We don't all come from the same mega family. We don't. Right. So the world would have you look around and do a measurement on how much melanin is in your skin.

How unbiblical can you be? How unbiblical can you be? We have many nations present right here, right now, united in Christ with the glory of God.

And God loves the nations. He loves the tribes. He loves the peoples. He sent his son to die for them.

So we need to think rightly about that because we need to be clear on that. Because why? What just happened in the text?

What just happened in the text? Philip goes out of Jerusalem and he goes to Samaria.

Guess what he did? He went to another nation. That's what just happened.

He went to another nation and began to preach Christ to them. Remember Samaria? Back in 1

Kings chapter 12, we learn about a division between the tribes of Israel.

There was a division because of Solomon's foolish son, Rehoboam. And we get the synopsis or the summary of the problem in 1

Kings 12, 19. So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day. The northern tribes separated under the reign of King Jeroboam.

And they said, we will follow the house of David no more. And to make sure that they stayed loyal to him, he built shrines in Bethel and Dan.

He wanted the economy to be rich in his nation, in his area, and not go south to the other nation.

So there was false worship and syncretism straight from the beginning. And that only continued even into the end of their time there.

In 722 B .C., the northern kingdom was conquered by Assyria and they were displaced from their place.

And they put other people there who didn't know how everything worked. And so they sent a priest, it wasn't really a priest, sent a priest from captivity back to the land of Samaria.

By the way, the word Samaria is used well over a hundred times in the Bible to describe the northern kingdom.

The most common expression of the northern kingdom is just simply Samaria, named after their capital city, the city of Samaria.

Sometimes they're called Ephraim, sometimes they're called the house of Joseph, but most often they're called Samaria. So they sent a priest back to teach the new people there how to do things.

And he taught them. And they ended up on every high place worshiping both the God that he taught them and all the other gods that they liked.

That's classic Samaria, classic. So later on,

Samaria, still syncretistic in their worship, when

Alexander the Great came through, they convinced them that they could build a temple on Mount Gerizim.

And they did. They built a temple to Zeus and to God. Classic Samaria.

That's how they roll. Bring in all the gods and we'll worship them together. Alexander the

Great did authorize that. And that went well until the time of the Maccabeans, who revolted against the atrocities of Antiochus Epiphanes and began to self -rule.

And the Hasmonean dynasty took issue with the Samaritans and they went and destroyed that temple up on Mount Gerizim, killed many

Samaritans. And then that wasn't enough. They went and destroyed the capital city of Samaria, killed even more

Samaritans. And you might guess why Samaritans and Jews don't like each other when we get to the time of Christ. Remember one of the most stinging insults that the opponents of Christ had for them.

He said, you're a Samaritan and demon possessed. Ooh, zing, zing. They hated

Samaritans. Wouldn't have anything to do with them. Herod the

Great rebuilt the capital city of Samaria and he called it Sebaste. So, Luke knows that.

Luke is a most excellent historian. When he comes to the text, when we read his text, when he writes, he says,

Philip came to the city of Samaria. I don't care what Herod the Great calls it.

I don't care what the title of it is. This is the city of Samaria. And he has a point he's making.

One that has already been made in Acts 1 .8, because not only is this evangelization of another nation by Philip, not only is this fulfilling the prophecies that the gospel was going to spread to all nations, but even more specifically,

Philip is going to the city of Samaria. He's going to Samaria because this is all part of the promises that God made about the new covenant.

We've been looking at the the fulfillment of the promises of the new covenant through the reign of the risen

Lord Jesus, by the power of his spirit, in the lives of his apostle, in the lives of his people as the church.

We've been watching this ever since chapter two. This is yet another evidence that Christ is on the throne, that he has brought forth a new covenant, because here we have the initial fulfillment of a new covenant promise.

What is that? I encourage you to read Jeremiah 31.

It's a long chapter. It's good. I encourage you to read Ezekiel 37.

It's a good chapter. You'll love the part about the dry bones. But read the whole chapter. It is encouraging.

But as you read that, we have promise after promise clarifying that in the new covenant, there's going to be a reunion of the nations.

Not only of the Gentiles, but primarily, more specifically, a reunion of Ephraim and Judah, of Samaria and Judah.

Both those chapters have well over 15 references to that fact in connection to the bringing about of the new covenant, which

Christ says he has established by his death and resurrection. That being the case, it makes sense that in Acts 1, verse 8, that we read that first, it's to Jerusalem, and then to where?

Samaria and Judea, the names that are used throughout the

Old Testament to signify the northern and southern kingdoms. Think like the original audience.

Think like a Jew hearing the gospel preached to you. Think about one.

Think like somebody who has immersed their minds in the scriptures of the stories of what happened with the northern and southern kingdoms.

What were they called? Samaria, Judea, Samaria, Judea, Samaria, Judea. What were the new covenant promises? That when the son of David, nigh, even

David himself, when he would reign upon the throne and in the midst of his people, that Samaria and Judea would be bound together like two sticks as one.

How is that going to happen? Well, I'm glad you asked. Look over in Ezekiel 37 with me just briefly.

To find Ezekiel 37, find strange and weird visions and head right.

In Ezekiel 37, verse 24, here is the description of what the new covenant is like. David, my servant, shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd.

David, my servant, shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. This after describing the two nations being one, like sticks bound together.

They shall never be divided into two kingdoms again. When will this happen? When David, my servant, is king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd.

Peter is already preached in the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. He has said that David was not talking about himself in the

Psalms, for his grave is still here to this day. It wasn't David who was raised from the dead, but the fulfillment of David, who is the

Messiah. It is the son of David. And Peter says in Acts chapter 2 that Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who is the son of the living

God in his resurrection, is indeed now reigning upon the throne of David.

Take it or leave it. That's what he preaches to his generation on Pentecost in Acts chapter 2.

So that being the case, that verse 24 is fulfilled, that there is one king over north and south.

Look at verse 26. Moreover, I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them.

This is all language of the new covenant. I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set my sanctuary in their midst forever.

My tabernacle also shall be with them, and indeed, I will be their God and they shall be my people. How? How is the sanctuary set in the midst of God's people forever and ever and ever?

Shall never be taken away. What is that? Jesus said, I am the temple.

Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up. Jesus does this by the sending forth of the

Holy Spirit to indwell not brick and mortar, but you and I, to indwell not dead stones, but living stones.

So the new covenant temple is not one that is brick and mortar covered in gold and silver.

Peter and John says silver and gold, we don't have. But you could be a stone in the new covenant temple.

Verse 28, the nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel when my sanctuary is in their midst forever.

In other words, when God, when God through Christ puts his temple into the midst of them, where he where Christ is the cornerstone and we are the living stones built upon him, when the sanctuary is in, it was in the midst forever.

Not only does this unify north and south and bring and bring Samaria and Judea together once again, united in Christ.

But then the nations will know not not just Samaria and Judea, but then the nations.

How did it go? You'll be my witnesses of these things in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. And the other most parts of the earth, the nations, you see what

Jesus is doing there. He's just exegeting Ezekiel 37. That's all he's doing.

He's telling them, you ought to know these things. You ought to pay attention to these things. What happens in the book of Acts after the

Samaritans get the gospel and they begin to believe upon Christ and come to him? You know what happens next? Philip, Philip's next opportunity is witnessing to an

Ethiopian. And then he makes this little travel around the coastlands and he goes from port city to port city to port city, preaching the gospel where the nations are mixing in with the

Jews. And then we come to the story of Peter Simon Bar -Jonah, who's a little reluctant to go to the nations.

Remember? And he's in the city of Joppa. Sounds familiar. This is how

Acts is being laid out before us. This is the way that Christ at the right hand of the father is is guiding and empowering and building his church.

This is how the new covenant temple is getting built. Christ is going to the quarry, getting stones for his temple, and the quarry is of the nations.

Now, do you remember what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman in that very famous interaction?

She was talking about, hey, we say we should worship on this mountain. And then and the new Jews say we have to worship on that other mountain.

And Jesus says, no, the time is coming and now is when worshipers will worship

God in spirit and in truth. God is spirit. We must worship him in spirit and in truth. So what is he saying?

The sanctuary has come among the people of God in Christ. Now, when we read

Acts 8 and we read that in verses 14 through 17, we read this passage and we have our system of doctrine over here.

And then we've got Acts 8 verses 14 through 17 over here. And we're just like, I can't fit it.

It's as weird as weird can be on first reading. What does it say?

Now, when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent

Peter and John to them, who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the

Holy Spirit. For as yet he had fallen upon none of them.

They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them and received the Holy Spirit.

Why the delay? The delay is doctrinal.

There is a teaching purpose behind it. Why did Jesus delay in going to Lazarus? Wasn't there a point to be made?

Oh, it's not just the healing of the diseases that we encounter. No, Jesus is not just the healer. He's the resurrection and the life.

There was a delay for a doctrinal reason, a reason for hope that we would hold on to. And if you want to delay, think about this delay.

Peter, James and John, the faithful disciples, the apostles, those 120 that were gathered together for prayer in the upper room, were they born again?

One hundred percent they were born again. How did Timothy get saved?

You know, what about what about Simeon and Anna, faithful believers?

Jesus spoke to Nicodemus and he said, look, unless you're born again, you can't even see the kingdom of God.

Aren't you the teacher of Israel? Shouldn't you know these things? Being circumcised of heart, having ears to hear and eyes to see was always a precious gift of the

Holy Spirit, always of the grace of God. Same in the old covenant as in the new.

The difference, one of the differences, is that in the old covenant you had all manner of unregenerate, non -born -again members of the old covenant because you were in by birth in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

So you had a remnant, you had a remnant who believed, a remnant whose hearts burned within them when wickedness was done.

And there were a remnant of believers, but they weren't all believers. In the new covenant, every last one of the members of the new covenant have the word of God written on their heart, all of them born again.

That's a big difference. Another difference in the old covenant, the spirit of God was among the people of God.

How? He filled the holy of holies in the brick and mortar temple and he fell upon certain servants of God for particular purposes that related to the kingdom of God.

But in the new covenant, what happens? You know, Peter, James and John and the rest of the disciples at Pentecost, when the

Holy Spirit fell upon them, did they just then get saved? Oh, no, they were already born again and saved.

What happened was that the new covenant temple was being revealed. The locus of where God meets with man in Christ was being revealed.

The old covenant temple, the veil is cut and torn in two. There's nothing in there, nothing to do there.

But now when the Holy Spirit becomes upon the people of God, that is a clarification, that is an identification of this is now the temple.

This is the new covenant temple of God, where God manifests His dwelling is

His temple, and He has done so in His people who are living stones. That's what happens at Pentecost.

And then Samaritans are nasty, horrible people, a bunch of secretists living in under the curse of God, and we don't want to have anything to do with them.

And then here comes Saul of Tarsus and oh, boy, we're on the run preaching the gospel. Philip goes to Samaria and all these people start believing by the grace of God, by the power of the

Holy Spirit, believing in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And Philip's like, hallelujah, you get baptized, you're a part of the church.

However, in the sovereignty of God, he delays sending his spirit upon them until the apostles get down there and say, yes, yes, indeed.

One hundred percent Samaritans, as well as Jews, are the new covenant temple of God. Same thing happens with Cornelius.

Same thing happens with the followers of John the Baptist like Apollos in the book of Acts. There is a specific delay, a clarification that the people of God in Christ are the new covenant temple.

The delay is doctrinal. The delay is doctrinal and it was promised.

When John the Baptist came preaching, Luke 3, verse 8, he tells those who come to him, therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance and do not begin to say to yourselves, we have

Abraham as our father. Who's he talking to? You know, who's he talking to? People who think that they're saved because of their nation, because of their regional cultural mega family.

No. For I say to you, listen, that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.

Hello. What was the work of Christ? He says in verse 16 and 17, John answered and saying to all,

I indeed baptize you with water, but there's something more important. One mightier than I is coming whose sandal strap

I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his barn.

But the chaff will burn with unquenchable fire. Where was the temple built?

The threshing floor of Arunah. What did Christ clean out? The temple.

Why did he do it? To demonstrate there's a new way of doing things. It's a new covenant temple.

So when we look at what goes on here in Acts chapter eight, we could look at it and say, well, this disproves baptismal regeneration.

It sure does. You don't get born again because you get water on you. This disproves baptizing babies.

Certainly the men and women who believe they're the ones who got baptized. This disproves all manner of doctrinal positions.

But what does it say? It's a demonstration of the new wine bursting forth out of the old covenant wineskins.

The old covenant Jerusalem is now surpassed by the new covenant Jerusalem's borders. The old covenant temple is no longer needed.

Here is the new covenant temple being built by Christ with living stones. That is the background, which is why when we get to it,

Simon Peter is so harsh with Simon Magus.

You see, the building of the new covenant temple is not by the power of money. The building of the new covenant temple is not by the power of money.

It is by the power of the Holy Spirit, the power of Christ as he builds his church.

And the gates of Hades will never prevail against it. And he does so by the power of his spirit. This is what's going on in Acts chapter 8.

I pray that it's a blessing to you. Let's pray this. Lord, we thank you for the time that you've given to us. I pray that you would help us to rejoice in the truth that you have sent your son to be the savior for the world.

That men from every tribe, tongue, people and nation are brought in to be living stones for this new covenant temple where the

Holy Spirit indwells. We thank you that we live on this side of the cross and resurrection, this side of Pentecost.

We are so blessed. Thank you for showing us the work of Christ that we may rejoice in it and agree with it and give an amen to it.

Lord, I pray that you would continue to warm our hearts to the truth of your word, that we would trust you in all things and not ourselves.