Go back to Acts chapter 8 that
Brother Joseph read to us, Acts chapter 8. This is a very familiar
story to most of us and a fitting message, I believe. There's going
to be a baptismal service after this. This is the story of a
man who heard the gospel and believed, and confessed Christ
and believed with baptism. This is the way, baptism is the
way that our Lord told us, told his people. All believers, he
told them to confess him and believe his baptism. This is
what he told us to do. He said to his preachers, he
said to his disciples, go into all the world and preach the
gospel. Men and women have to hear the
truth, have to hear the gospel. And that gospel is a person.
The gospel is Jesus Christ and him crucified. That sums it up.
And he said, go into all the world and preach the gospel.
He that believeth, that is, believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ, believeth,
looks to him, believes him. Not believe in himself, but believe
in him, believe on him. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. Baptism doesn't do one thing
for us. This is just old Franklin County
well water. You have to put stuff in it to
keep it from turning red, orange. It's just old well water. It doesn't put away sin. It doesn't
change the person who gets in there. It doesn't do a thing.
It doesn't do a thing. It's just a public confession
of faith in Christ who was crucified. What you're saying What Cary
is going to be saying by doing this, and what everybody says
does it, who does this with the understanding. But to say it
is, when Christ came and lived, I believe, I hope He lived for
me. Holy man, I'm not older, I'm sinful. He came to do this
for His people. By his knowledge, Isaiah 53 says,
my righteous servant will justify me. His knowledge of the law,
his knowledge of God, his knowledge. And that Christ, when he lived,
God accepted. God was well pleased, Isaiah
42 says, for his righteousness. He's well pleased. And God said,
I'll accept everybody that comes to me by him, by faith in him. Not what you do, what you don't
do, it's who you trust, who you believe, who you look to. All right? So, this is faith. And you confessing him what he
lives, he did this for me. I haven't lived a holy life,
he did. He did this for me. And he was crucified, hung on
that cross as a sinner. God made him to be sin for his
people. What you're saying in baptism
is, I believe He bore my sin in His body on the tree. So He
was crucified. God poured out His wrath and
His judgment on Jesus Christ. Now He didn't do that for everybody.
But whoever He did it for, they're justified. Their sin's gone. It's not your faith that's saved,
it's Christ that's saved. This is the faith of God's elect.
They believe what Christ did, it accomplished. Salvation of
his people. He put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. Didn't try to. Didn't make an
attempt to. He put away sin. That's what you're saying. I
believe he put away my sin and he was buried. Baptism is a funeral. Our funeral. What you're saying
is I deserve to be hung on that cross and put the shame for everybody
because I'm just a shameful person. Sinned against God. My life hadn't
been worth living. Just kill me on that cross and
just bury me out of sight, out of mind. Christ was buried. Three days later, I told Kara,
I said, I haven't left anybody under the water yet. Nobody's
drowned. We come up out of that water.
We're quickened with Christ. We arise with Him. When Christ arose, we're quickened
together with Him. He's a new creature, a new person.
When you get in that water, nothing changes. You don't change. These
things don't change. Your sins aren't washed away
in that pool. No, no, no, no. You're confessing
Jesus Christ. You're not confessing yourself.
Confessing Him. That make sense? I just preached my whole message.
But Acts chapter 8 is a story of a man who heard Philip Philip
wasn't a pastor. Philip wasn't an apostle. He
was just a deacon. That's all right. That's good,
isn't it? He was a preacher. Romans 10
said, Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be
saved. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord. Who is
it? The Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. How shall they call
on Him, it says, in whom they have not believed? How shall
they believe in Him whom they have not heard? There's another
Jesus preachers of preaching, it's not the Jesus Christ of
Scripture. You've got to hear the true Christ. And how shall
they hear without a preacher? Please God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them the gloom. That's what the Scripture
says. And this man, he had to hear a preacher and God sent
him a preacher all the way out in the middle of that desert.
This is absolute proof that you must hear a preacher. This man
was coming back from Jerusalem, which God said, come to Jerusalem
and see the sacrifices made and the temple and all of that represents
Christ. But he didn't get a thing. Because
as we said earlier, Jews were in darkness. They weren't believing
Christ. They were going through the motions. They're going through
the rituals. Going through the ceremonies,
like most in religion today. Just going through the motion.
Tending church, you know. They weren't looking to Christ.
They weren't believing Christ. They didn't even cry. They were
proud of their religion. Proud of their morality. Proud
of their goodness. Proud of it. Paul said, God forbid that I
should boast, save in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ. Now you understand what that
means. But they were proud, and he came back from there with
nothing. He didn't get a thing out of that. He didn't get a
thing out of it. And he was returning, verse 28,
returning and sitting in his chariot. He was reading the Scriptures.
The Lord had him reading the Scriptures. I didn't get anything
out of those Pharisees, so I'm just going to read God's Word.
That's good. That's real good. Better to read God's Word than
to listen to a liar. Then the Holy Spirit said unto
Philip, verse 29, go near and join thyself to this chariot.
Now, Philip, I forget how far it was. I wrote it down years
ago, but it was a long way. He had to go a long way to preach
to one man. Is this one man worth it? If
you'd asked him, he'd have said no. But what if this man was
your brother? What if this is your husband? Your son? So Philip ran. I love this. Acts
8 verse 30. Philip ran to him. He ran. If God calls a man to preach,
he'll run. carry him. He'd run. He'd go
there. He'd go where he said. Drop everything
and go there. That's right. So he did. He ran there and he was here.
He heard this man. I believe the chariot was walking
along and the man's reading and I don't think anybody was with
him. I think he's driving his own chariot. And this is fitting
because when you hear from the Lord, you want to hear from the
Lord. Philip was walking alongside
and he heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 53. And he said to the Ethiopian
eunuch, he said, do you understand what you're reading? Understandest
thou what thou readest? And you know, most people get
offended by this. I know because it happened to
me. I approached a man, I saw him reading the Bible, I said,
do you understand what you're reading? He got indignant with me. What
do you mean you understand? If we don't receive the word
of God as little children, we'll not hear it, we'll not believe
it. I quoted earlier this morning,
if anybody thinks they know anything, they don't know anything as a
youngster. This man, God was humbling this
man, God was calling him to seek, The truth, the Lord, he didn't
get anything in Jerusalem. He's writing, he's starting to
read the scriptures, and he's reading Isaiah 53, and God sent
him a preacher. And the preacher said, do you
understand? He said, how can I? No. I don't understand. See, this gospel's for the ignorant.
This gospel's for the sinful. This gospel's for those who don't
know anything, can't do anything, don't have anything. This gospel's
for the poor. And he said to Philip, would
you come up here and sit with me? Would you come up in this
chariot and sit with me? And tell me? And the place he
was reading was Isaiah 53. And down in verse 34, Enoch said
to Philip, tell me, I pray thee, who is this prophet Isaiah speaking
of? Of whom speaketh the prophet
this? Is he speaking of himself? or some other man. Talk about
this one who's wounded for our transgressions and bruised for
our iniquity and chastised in our peace laid on him and by
his stripes we're healed and who bore our griefs and carried
our sorrows and by his knowledge justified. Who's he talking about?
Who's Isaiah talking about? Is he talking about himself or
is he talking about some other man? In verse 35, Philip opened his
mouth and began at the same scripture, Isaiah 53, and preached unto
him another man. His name was Jesus. Now go to Isaiah 53 with me.
Let's look at this whole story of this man named Jesus, okay? Let me just say right from the
beginning, he's not just a man. is God manifests in the flesh. He's the Son of God. This is
what this Ethiopian eunuch is going to come to understand.
That wasn't just a man named Jesus. Helpless, hopeless, wanting,
hoping, trying, failing, wanting you to do something for him.
This was God who came to earth to do something that God sent
him to do. Isaiah in chapter 42 said, He
shall not fail. He won't even be discouraged.
He didn't come to try to do anything. This whole chapter is talking
about once God said to do a work and He did it. Our Lord's last
words on Calvary's tree were, it's finished. I've done all I can do, now it's
up to you. No! All that can be done, all that could be done,
all that was necessary to be done was done by Jesus Christ. A successful, a sovereign, successful,
victorious savior, not a wannabe, a savior. This one named Jesus is not just
Jesus. Long before he took a body, He
dwelled with God the Father in equality. This is the Son of
the Most High God, who was with the Father from the beginning,
who made this world. That man named Jesus made planet
Earth. That man named Jesus made the
tree from which the cross was hewn, that he hung upon. And
nobody hung him on that tree voluntarily. He hung himself
on it. This is God manifest in the flesh.
Well, who believes this? Verse one begins that way. Who
hath believed our report? Who believes this gospel? I've
quoted Romans 10 and said, have they not all heard? No, but they
don't all believe. Who will? Whoever God chose, whoever God
elected, whoever God gives this gift of faith. Faith's not of
yourself. You don't decide to believe. It's an infinitely wonderful,
merciful, and gracious gift of God, just to believe. Not an
act of the human will. It's not a choice you make. It's
not something you decide to do someday. It's something God decided
before the world began. He said, you're going to have
this faith. I'm glad because I would never have believed.
I wouldn't be standing here. You're looking to the prodigal
son. I would not be standing here if God hadn't sovereignly
come. Broke my proud wheel off that
wild ass's coat and rode me. Broke me. Revealed the truth. To whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed, verse 1 says. Salvation is a revelation. It's
not something we figure out. It's a revelation. All right,
I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 100 million. Somebody tell
me what it is. You understand the mind of
God, mankind will understand the infinite
God by figuring it out. The revelation. He has to reveal
himself to you. Reveal the truth to you. That's
why a few people believe it. His children did it. Read on,
it says, he grew up as a tender plant. This is the vine. This
is a tree of life. A root out of a dry ground. He
came into a sinful, dry, dirty, thirsty land. Water of life,
tree of life. Hath no form nor countenance.
When we see him, there's no beauty that we should desire him. All
these pictures of Jesus are lies. They're false. They're idols.
Something men have made up. There's no description of Jesus
Christ in this Bible, except in Revelation 1. You can't paint
the sun. That blue-eyed, beautiful, Caucasian
man standing, that's not Jesus Christ. That's an idol. He had
no form or countenance. There's nothing beautiful about
him. He had blue eyes. He was a Jew. He wasn't beautiful
to look at. In fact, he's the opposite. He
had no form, no comeliness, no beauty about him that people
should decide. He looked like a common, ordinary,
brown-skinned Jew. He looked like anybody else.
There's nothing about him outwardly that distinguished him from anybody
else, except his holy life. Why is that? Because you've got to see on
the inside. That's where God looks. That's where God looked on the
heart. That old tabernacle of old out in the wilderness that
Israel traveled with. It was brown on the outside,
brown badger skin on the outside. And boy, you can go on the inside.
Gold, silver, precious stones. That's Jesus Christ. He wasn't
tall, dark, and handsome. He was just ordinary. He became
a man. He became a man. He was despised,
verse 3 says, despised and rejected of men. A man of sorrows, acquainted
with grief. We hid as it were our faces from
him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Despised and rejected
of men. People didn't receive the Christ
of Scripture back then and they don't receive him now. The true Christ is despised and
rejected, the sovereign Christ. They said, that's what the Jews
said about him. They said, you're just a man. You're not God. You can only do what we let you
do. They heard him, what he was saying.
He was saying, you can only do what I let you do. They said,
no, you're just a man. You make yourself to be God.
God in all judgment is backward. Isaiah 59, it's backward, 180
degrees. He was God and made himself a
man, he said. And that's why people are confused.
That man can't be God. Well, he is. How? I don't understand. Sure you
don't. How can a man understand God? Can't. You believe him. I believe that
man that walked this earth was God. His God. We hid our faces
from him. I did. To ignore him, to not
pay attention to him. I don't care if he lived or died.
That was me. Disdained him not. I don't need
him. Anybody? As you would a brother. Long
time. I don't read this gospel. I did, but I sure didn't know
it. How'd I come to know it? Just like the Ethiopian Union.
God sent me a preacher. He said, you're lost and you
don't know it. You're in darkness and you don't
know it. You're no good and you don't know it. You're in danger
of judgment and you don't know it. And God made me to know it. Verse four. Now here's what The
gospel's all about substitution. Here's why Jesus Christ came,
a substitute. Substitution, satisfaction, a
substitute. If Christ came and did what he
did for me, it's done. And it ain't up to me to accept
it. It's up to him for God to accept
it, right? Jesus Christ didn't make an offering
to God. I mean the offer to a man. He
didn't make an offer to man that will you accept this offer. He
made an offer to God. That's who must accept it. You understand? Sure you do. Because you're blessed. It says,
He had borne our griefs, verse 4, and carried our sorrows. Yet
we did esteem him stricken and smitten of God and afflicted.
People thought surely he's done something wrong to go through
all this on the cross. Surely he must be a criminal
to have gone through this. No. He knew no sin. He's doing this for criminal. He was wounded, verse 5, for
our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquities,
the chastisement of our peace, the whipping, the stripes that
were laid on Him healed us. Who's us? Who'd He do this for? Who did Jesus Christ die for?
Everybody. If He did, everybody would be
saved. Why? Because the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanses. Because Christ put away sin by the sacrifice of
His head. If He did that for everybody, everybody's saved.
Who'd He do it for? His people. Look at verse 8,
the last line. For the transgression of my people
was He stricken. Well, who are His people, preacher?
Those who believe that He and He only is their salvation. Those that believe that if He
hadn't come to save me, I'd be lost. Those who believe, I didn't
do anything, He did it all. That's it. That's it. That's
pretty simple, isn't it? This fella, this eunuch,
didn't accept Jesus as his personal Savior. Philip did not have an
altar cup. Philip did not say, now won't
you accept Jesus? He didn't. He just preached Jesus
Christ, the substitute. And this man believed. Verse 6, Christ, see, by His
blood, by His atonement on the tree, His stripes were healed
by His blood. All we like sheep have gone astray.
Turn every one of us to His own way. You see that? Is that you? Was that you? Is it? Was it? There's a way that seems right
to men and women. It's wrong. It ends in destruction. And for many, it's a religious
way. A way of good works. It's not the way. What's the way? I've quoted it
ten times this morning. Christ said, I'm the way. No
man cometh unto the Father but by me. The Lord hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all. All of his people. God laid on
him. Here's salvation, that God made
Jesus Christ, when he hung him on the cross, to please the Lord
to bruise him. That God made Jesus Christ to
be me, to be you, to be the sinner. And laid on him. Here's Here's me. I've got this weight
of sin on me. I can't get it off. I can't do
one thing about it. All the law, all the handwriting
of ordinances are against me. Everything this book says, it's
against me. I am whatsoever things the law
saith, it saith to them they're under the law. I'm under the
law. guilty. The old scales of justice
back when they'd weigh things back then, see they'd put a weight,
a great big heavy weight on one side and this side had nothing
on it. You got to keep laying the weight
to come up, okay. And our Lord said, your weight
in the balance isn't found wanting, lighter than the dust. You can't
move the scales of justice. You can't unload one cent. What are we going to do? How are we going
to get to heaven? God put Christ in hell. God laid
on him the iniquity of all his people. See that? If he did that,
what's going to happen? We didn't do anything. We didn't do anything. Who did
it? He did it. That's the gospel. That's salvation. It's not D-O, D-O, do, do, do,
do. It's D-O-N-E. Done. God laid on him the iniquity
of us all. Verse 7. He was oppressed and
afflicted. Why? Because he's the Lamb. The
Lamb slain. He brought as a lamb to the slaughter
as a sheep before her shearers his gum, he opened not his mouth.
Our Lord stood before Pontius Pilate, witnessed a good profession,
but he stood before Herod and didn't say a word. Herod said,
don't you know, Pilate said, don't you know I have power to
crucify you? You see how ignorant man is?
He had no power at all. Christ said, you have no power
at all. The power you have is what I
give you. He brought us a lamb to the slaughter.
Now why didn't he open his mouth? He said he didn't open his mouth. The only man who ever lived who
kept the law, who was perfect before the law of God, the law
has no charge against him. The only man And once he did
say that, he said to everybody, who convinces me of sin? Somebody
convinced me of one wrongdoing in thought, word, or deed. Somebody
convinced me of one thing, Christ said, and nobody could. But now, on Calvary's tree, God
is laying my sin on Him, the sin of all His people. He's become
us, and we're guilty. And whatever the law says, it
says to them that under the law that every man may... Stop. Don't
say, but, but, but... Stop your mouth. But I hadn't... No, you're guilty of everything.
You've thought it all. You just hadn't done it because
God kept you from it. Right? That's just so. It's just so. If that's not so,
Jesus Christ didn't need to come. He didn't need to come. So He didn't open His mouth.
He didn't speak. Because God laid on Him our sin. The sins of His people. And He's
guilty. Not guilt that He, not anything
He did. He took my sin. He took your
sin. What have you got to say for
yourself? What if God, you stood before the judgment seat of God
right now, and He knows your thoughts, He knows what you've
thought today. What if He said, what have you got to say for
yourself? Do you see why Christ opened
up His mouth? He didn't defend Himself. Because
he's become me. Isn't that wonderful? And you won't confess him? Who did that? Would you take
the blame for what some death row criminal did, would you?
That's who he died for. Lamb to the slaughter. This is a lamb slain for the
remission of our sins. A sheep before a shearer. A sheep
is sheared, isn't it? Why is a sheep sheared? So we
can be covered in His covering. Why did they strip Christ on
Calvary's tree? Because God's people got His
covering. Adam was naked and Eve were naked
and they tried to sow some fig leaf. We're covered now. No,
you're not. You turn over a new leaf and
that won't cover your sin. What's going to cover it? God
took a lamb right before their eyes and slit its throat and
shed his blood and skinned that lamb and put it on those two
naked slaves and said, now you're covered. And they were warm and
they felt secure. He's taken from prison, verse
8, from judgment. Our Lord was put in prison. Why?
That's where the prisoners are. There's a man named Barabbas,
remember? He's one of God's elect, one of God's chosen for the foundation
of the world. He's in prison. He deserves to
be there. He deserves to die. But God put Jesus Christ in prison
and the jailer came and said to Barabbas, you're free. Go. Why? I didn't know you didn't. You see that man hanging on the
cross? He took your place. Go. And you wouldn't confess him? I want to get in right behind
you. I want somebody to just dunk
me down there. One more time. Show everybody. I'm a nothing
from nowhere. I don't deserve nothing. Just
kill me, put me out of my mind. I need to be crucified with Christ.
Don't deserve to live. He's taken from prison. Who shall declare his generation?
He's cut off from the land of the living. Verse 8. For the
transgression of my people was he stripped. You see that? His
people. His children. God's children.
Children of Israel. True Jews. Inward. Circumcision. It's not of the flesh, but of
the Spirit. Verse 9. He made his grave with
the wicked. Our Lord died between two thieves
to show us that's who Christ came for. Thieves. One of them
he left alone. One on his left hand. He just left him alone. And that
man was cursing his only hope until the day he died. Cursing! His only hope was hanging there
beside him. He's cussing him. And this man
was too. I'll be seeing you. How? Why? Jesus Christ said so. He looked, he saw, that's the
Lord. That's God. That's the Son of
God dying. He's not getting what he deserves.
I'm getting what I deserve. And he said, Lord, would you
remember me? Why? What has he ever done? What has
that thief ever done that the Lord should remember me? Nothing! How's he going to get there?
There's blood being shed right there. That's his substitute,
the one beside him. It's his only hope of getting
the glory, not what he did. His only hope is that man hanging
beside him did what he did for him. Lord, would you remember?
He said, today. Today. And with the wretch and his death,
God had a man named Joseph of Arimathea give his tomb that
no man had ever laid in for Christ to be buried in, because God
said he's not going to die the death of a commoner. I mean,
he's not going to be buried in the burial of a commoner. Common
criminals, they probably took those two thieves off those crosses
and threw their bodies in a pile with the rest of them. It's called
Golgotha, the place of the skull. And you couldn't distinguish
one skull from another. Oh, pile of bones. And that's
mankind. But now God had him put in a
tomb when no man had laid, because three days later, he came out
of there, and there are no bones in that grave. You're not going
to find any bones in that grave. He did not suffer corruption.
He did not perish. He would not leave his soul in
hell or seek corruption. He didn't perish. He came out
of the grave. So did his people. His people. He'd done no violence, you see.
That's why God had a rich man bury him on honorable death,
a burial. No deceit in his man. Yet, here's
the reason it all happened. Verse 10, it pleased the Lord
to bruise him. See, God put him to grief. Men
did what their wicked hands wanted to do and willed to do, but they
did what God determined before to be done. And God made his
soul an offering for sin. See that? Sin offering. A burn offering. Hell. He's going
to see his seed. Who's that? It's you. Jude, this
is that corn of wheat fell in the ground, bears much fruit. God's people will see his seed,
his children. He shall prolong his days. How
long is his days going to be? How long is Christ going to live? Forever. So will his people. The pleasure of the Lord, here
it is, the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his Scripture
says it pleased the Lord to make you his people. How? It was in
his hands. It was in Christ's hands. And
he's going to see the travail of his soul, verse 11. See, all
this happened a long time before Christ came. All this was prophesied. He shall see the travail of his
soul like a woman travailing in birth. He'll be satisfied. Every single one whom Christ
died for, they're going to live. And by his knowledge shall my
righteous servant justify many, not everyone, but many. Because
here's what, here's how he's going to justify. He's going
to bear their iniquity. And they get his righteousness.
He gets the blame, they get the credit for what he did. But they
would never, never give themselves any credit. So God said, I'm going to divide
with him a portion with the great. I divide the spoil with the strong.
He's poured out his soul unto death, numbered with the transgressor.
He bear the sin of many. Our Lord on the cross, the first
thing he said on that cross was, Father, forgive them. They don't
know what they did. And God heard that prayer for
every single person Christ died, and he frankly forgave them all.
And made intercession for the transgressors. He ever lives
to make intercession. Go back to Acts chapter 8. Philip
told this eunuch, that's what he preached. He preached what
I just preached. Who? And he told this eunuch,
he said, this is the truth. The Son of God has come and given
us an understanding. I know Him that is true and we're
in Him that is true. This is eternal life. And he said, our Lord said that
whoever believes Him and trusts Him to be baptized, confess Him. It's a picture of what Christ
did for them. Baptism, bury them. Don't sprinkle
them. Don't sprinkle dirt on you when you die. We're going
to bury you. Dead, covered over, right? Well,
how are you going to get out of there? Somebody's going to
raise you. And so they rode along and verse
36, they went on their way and they came to a certain water.
See, a lake A river or something, Enoch said, hey, hey, here's
water. What doth hinder me to be baptized? Philip said, if you believe with all your
heart in sincerity and truth, you may. And listen to his answer. I believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God. God made this community. The
one sent by God to do what he did for his people. And Philip said, stop the chariots. The chariots stood still. They
went down into the water. Philip, the eunuch, and he baptized
them. Like we're going to do now. And
when we come up out of the water, Spirit of the Lord took Philip
away. Why? Because Philip just told him the truth. He's a nobody
from nowhere. He's not going to let this eunuch
worship him. No, no, no. He's going to worship
Christ. Philip didn't do anything. Just
tell him what Christ did for him. Philip said, I heard the
same thing. He said, I'm just telling you
what I heard. What Christ did. And it says
this eunuch saw him no more and he went on his way rejoicing. Rejoicing in what? In who? Rejoicing in the Lord. The Lord
Jesus Christ. The Lord his Savior. And Philip,
what was Philip doing? He just went on and did some
more preaching. What did he preach? One thing. Is that what you believe, Carrie?
Rather who? All your hope? That eunuch's
hope? Jesus Christ. That is it. That's
what she's told me. So she's gonna come. Carrie,
you come. Get ready. John, you come. Lisa, yeah.