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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/eric-mccullough/salvation-of-an-ethiopian/
I'll ask you to read please in the Acts of the Apostles. Perhaps we could call it the Acts of the Holy Spirit, chapter 8. Chapter 8 of the Acts, reading at verse number 5. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them, and the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake.
Every gospel preacher would like that effect on his audience. The people with one accord gave heed unto the things which he spake. Verse 8, and there was great joy in that city. Now look down to verse 26.
And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise and go toward the south unto the way that goes down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candese, queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem, for to worship was returning.
And sitting in his chariot read Isaias the prophet. Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Isaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?
And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. The place of the scripture which he read was this. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth.
In his humiliation his judgment was taken away, and who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth. And the eunuch answered Philip and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this?
Of himself or of some other man? And then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached on to him Jesus. And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water. And the eunuch said, See, here is water.
What doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest, with all thine heart thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still.
And they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing.
Now God will bless what we have read from his word. I want to ask you a question before I try and speak on what we have read. Who do you think it was that went on his way rejoicing? It just says he went on his way rejoicing.
It doesn't say it was Philip. It doesn't say it was the eunuch. You can be sure that the evangelist was rejoicing in the fact that a recent convert, who evidently had heard from Philip the truth of baptism, was willing to be obedient to the Word of God, and that brought joy to the heart of Philip.
But you can be sure that there was joy as well in the soul of this Ethiopian, obeying the Word of God. I can remember when I was baptized, about four years after I was saved, by the way, because my father was one of those that believed if you said you were saved, you better prove it.
And I'd be out kicking a ball around with some of my friends, and he'd say, I thought you were saved. You're away to the sport field again. Well, finally I persuaded him, and he said, if the brethren will baptize you, it's all right with me.
And so I can remember that night so well as I went down into the water of baptism. It was to me almost as happy as the moment that I trusted the Savior. Wonderful to obey what God says. Hasn't even been mentioned in this conference.
We used to hear separation from the world and believers' baptism at all of our conference gatherings. But if you're saved tonight, if you want to please your Savior, you take this first step of obedience, and you'll get joy, and the Lord Jesus will get joy.
Mr. McKelvey that I preached with in Ireland years ago, he used to tell of a man who was all crippled up with arthritis, and he walked with two canes, and the brethren were hesitant to baptize him because of his health problem.
But when he came out of the waters of baptism, he left the canes behind, and he never used them again. That's the God that we have. Now here's a man, Philip the Evangelist, and he's preaching the gospel in the city of Samaria, and the people are responding favorably.
With one accord, they were giving heed to what he said, and there was great joy in that city. And yet in the midst of that work of God, there's an angel appears to him, and he says, Philip, you go down from Jerusalem to Gaza, a desert.
Not too many preachers that I know, if God is working and souls are being saved, would like to leave and go somewhere for one soul, and maybe God is blessed in a remarkable way where they're laboring.
But Philip obeyed, and this is what I want to point out, that in this chapter, we have three things that are absolutely essential in the salvation of any soul. The work of the Spirit of God, the Word of God, and the messenger.
It may be a preacher, it may be a silent messenger, a gospel tract, a Sunday school paper. This section of the book of the Acts is most interesting. Chapters 8 and 9 and 10. If I took you away back to Genesis chapter 9, you would read about the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and by them the earth was over covered.
In other words, they populated this earth. And in chapter 8, God is reminding us about this man, a son of Ham, a black man, and God saved him. In chapter 9, it was the son of Shem, Saul of Tarsus, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, God saved him.
In chapter 10, it's the son of Japheth, Cornelius, a Gentile. And so the message of the gospel that I've been trying to preach now for 65 years, it's for the world. That's what God says. Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.
And I want to say that the gospel still works. We don't need new methods. I preached with a man some years ago and a missionary, and when he was home on furrow, there was a missionary conference in England, and Friday night there was a missionary asked to preach on the subject, the gospel, is it real?
And the next night the man was asked to preach on the subject, the gospel, does it work? And Sunday night the man was asked to preach on the subject, the gospel, will it last? Well I want to tell you, friend, the gospel is real.
We heard last night, yesterday, Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. And it works, and it's lasting. Everyone that's saved here tonight appreciates the fact that this gospel that I have believed and this Savior that I have trusted, he's real.
He's able to meet all my need. I'm thinking now of the days of the World War II, where Uncle Sam had many of us, 60 ,000 from this country, there's about 12, 60 million rather, there's about 12 million left, and there's 1 ,200 dying every day.
So one day you'll hear that that little preacher McCullough, he's joined the rest of them, he's gone. But don't weep for me. But I can remember during the war days when our ship would be in some pier and young men falling morally night after night, and I was so thankful that I knew the Savior and I learned that not only is he able to save he is able to keep to keep us from falling.
That's the Savior that we have. And so Philip heeds the message. He heeds the urgent of the Spirit of God to go down to Giza. I want you to think of his desire. This Ethiopian, who by the way likely carried the message home, and the late Emperor of Ethiopia, Hilselassie, was a genuine believer, and this was likely the first one to bring the gospel to Ethiopia.
He went up to Jerusalem, his desire was to get to know God. But now he's coming home disappointed, and he had traveled a thousand miles, had come to Jerusalem to worship. He had a big position, you know, in the government.
He was treasurer of the Queen Candace's monies. We'd call him likely the secretary of the Treasury. And here he is coming home disappointed. He'd been seeking God, but he didn't find God. But I'm thankful that he found a copy of Isaiah's prophecy, a scroll undoubtedly.
When I meet him in heaven I'm going to ask him, who gave you that scroll? You know, he'd begin to read right at the beginning, and he was reading out loud, by the way. You said, how do you know? Well, it says Philip heard him read.
He was reading out loud, and he'd begin in chapter 1, and he would read that from the sole of the foot to his head there was nothing but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, an unclean leper, sinful, ungodly.
And then he would unroll that scroll and roll up that other end of it. And when he got into chapter 6, he'd read something about the holiness of God. Those seraphim with their six wings, with twain they cover their face, with twain they cover their feet, with twain they did fly.
And they're proclaiming the holiness of God at the throne and dispensing mercy at the altar. And he would be reminded that God is holy and I'm sinful. Then he read on. When he got into chapter 9, he'd be reading something about this glorious person.
His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. And he was learning something of the greatness and the majesty of divine persons. And he kept reading.
When he got to chapter 40, he would read that God measures the heavens with a span. And he puts a little water in this hand, and that's the Atlantic, and a little in this hand, and that's the Pacific.
And then he would read that the nations are as the dust in the balance, and they're nothing. And more than that, they're less than nothing. And he's beginning to find his own level in the presence of this infinitely holy God.
But you see how God arranges circumstances. If there was a anxious soul here tonight in the meeting, God would so arrange it that at the very moment that you would be willing to believe what God says to be true, the Spirit of God would open your understanding, and you would have God's great salvation.
He's in chapter 53 when Philip gets to his chariot. And when he got there, Philip said to him, he ran, good thing that he ran, or he'd been out of chapter 53. And Philip said, do you understand what you're reading?
He said, how can I except some man should guide me? And he said to Philip to come up and sit beside him in the chariot. You know what Philip did? He began to preach to this one individual the same thing he was preaching in Samaria.
You see, God had said earlier in this gospel, in the Gospels, chapter 4 of John's Gospel, the Lord had said that the field was white unto harvest, and that there would be blessing in Samaria. And there was blessing.
And so now Philip is preaching Jesus, the same thing that he preached in Samaria, to this anxious, seeking soul riding along in his chariot. And here's what he said to him. There was a man called Jesus, and he came from the glory, and he went to the cross, and he was wounded for our transgressions.
Led as a sheep to the slaughter. Some people say, well, why doesn't say led as a lamb to the slaughter, like Isaiah 53 says? Because this was quoted from the Septuagint version, a translation from the Hebrew into the Greek from the Septuagint.
You know I can go back 75 years on the 14th of last March. I was 12 and a half years of age. Now you know how old I am. You sisters always like to sort that out. But I can remember that Monday morning just as vividly as it was this morning, listening to a little Scotchman, David Craig, the greatest preacher I ever heard.
He preached for six weeks from Isaiah every night. I don't remember one message, but every night he sang that lovely hymn, out of the ivory palaces into this world of woe, only his great eternal love made my Savior go.
And God blessed in those meetings, and souls were saved. And the last night came, and I wasn't saved. And a friend of mine talked me into going back in and speaking to the preacher. My dad was a preacher, and he had never pressured me at all.
And we sat down in the little Sunday School room, and Mr. Craig opened his big Bible, and he went over scripture after scripture that I knew so well. But there seemed to be no help for me. It was all darkness, and I thought, I can't get saved.
I'll just have to go to hell. And I walked the mile home to our little cottage, and his car pulled in the driveway, and we sat down on the running board. Some of you don't know what a running board is.
Used to have them on cars to step on to get up in the higher door. He thought of an illustration. He said, Eric, during the sailing days of sailing vessels, it was a man tried to commit suicide, and he jumped over the side, and one of his shipmates lift a life belt with a coil of rope, and he threw it out over the waves, and it fell over his uplifted arms as he struggled in the water.
And they all cheered, but then they watched to their horrors. He took that lifeline, and he threw it from him as far as possible. He didn't want to be rescued. He didn't want to be saved. He said, Eric, the gospel is like that lifeline.
It's for you. God wants you just to accept it. But it didn't help me. I spent another sleepless night, and the morning my mother came into the room, and she said, are you saved? I said, no, Mother, I would love to be saved, but I can't understand it.
There was a little Bible on the dresser. She opened it up to Isaiah 53. She said, read this verse and put your name in. And I read, but he was wounded for my transgressions. He was bruised for my iniquities.
The chastisement of my peace was upon him. And I didn't finish the verse. It just dawned on me, that's why Jesus died. As if I was the only sinner in all this world, he came from heaven, and he went to Calvary, and he died for me.
It would be a wonderful meeting if some soul would take that in tonight. I am a guilty sinner, but Jesus died for me. You know what would happen? You'd go on your way rejoicing. Your fortune would be made for eternity.
You would never perish. This man believed the message. I believe, he says, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And as I have said, apparently Philip told them that he should be baptized, and they went down into the water, and came up, and went on his way rejoicing.
My friend, God wants you to take that in tonight, that you're a poor, lost, guilty, hell-deserving sinner. And if you die in your sins, you'll be in hell fire. Make no mistake about it. Loved ones will be in the glory.
You'll be left for judgment, never, never to come back again. But if you look away to Calvary tonight, you'll have God's great salvation. The Lord help you to trust him, shall we pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for the kind attention given to the preaching of Thy Word.
We believe there are souls here, and they would love to be saved. Our heart goes out to them. We pray, Lord, that Thou will help them to understand it. Help them to take it in, what it meant to Thee, the Holy One, to bear away their sin.
Bless Thy people here. Thank Thee for the conference weekend, for the happy time we have enjoyed around Thy Word. And Lord, we look to Thee for blessing, even in salvation, we ask in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Amen. I'm going to sing a couple of verses in closing of that lovely hymn, Just As I Am, without one plea. Number, what, three hundred and thirty-three. That Thy blood was shed for me, and that Thou bidst me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come.
The year that we lived in Ireland, the first summer we lived with our grandparents in the city of Belfast. Went to Sunday school in what was called the Old Park Gospel Hall. They had two sessions on Sunday afternoon with over 200 children in each session.
Tremendous Sunday school work. One Sunday a teacher said to her class of girls, I want you to learn the words of Just As I Am without one plea, and come back next Sunday and you'll get a prize. So a little girl went home and her daddy was lying in bed, smoking a cigarette, reading the Sunday paper.
She says, Daddy, I want you to help me learn this and we'll get a prize. Now she said, you say it after me. And she said, Just As I Am without one plea. And he said, Just As I Am without one plea. And then she said the next line, but that Thy blood was shed for me, and he said that.
And the third line, that Thou bidst me come to Thee, and he said those words. But when she said, O Lamb of God, I come, he wouldn't say it. Now come on, Daddy, she says. We've got to learn this. We've got to learn.
I've got to win the prize. And she went over it two or three times, and every time he refused on the last line. But finally, as she went over the words of that hymn and got to the last line, O Lamb of God, I come, that big man who had heard the gospel as a boy, he began to tremble.
And the tears coursed down his cheeks. He said, O Lamb of God, I come. And God saved him. Oh, she said, Daddy, we'll get the prize. We'll get the prize. And if you would take God at His word, you would have this great salvation.