What a blessing it is to be here. I'm glad to see you. I look forward to this moment every Sunday. Would you turn with me in our study of the book of Acts?

I direct your attention this morning to a verse over in the book of Exodus. As you travel with me over to the book of Exodus, we find in this passage of scripture a verse that is really an outline for all the rest of the Bible. Now I realize this passage of scripture in the book of Exodus, we have Genesis before it, so we could also say it is a passage of scripture that gives us the understanding about the book of Genesis.

This verse of scripture brings us to a place when the children of Israel were in a place of great consternation. They were up against the Red Sea and the armies of Egypt were behind them. And it didn't look like there was any hope. Now that's the way we find God does his business. He is going to show us how he takes care of his people.

And here in the book of Exodus chapter 14 and verse 13, it says, and Moses said unto the people, fear ye not, stand still. Now what does that mean? Quit fretting, look, listen, but don't get involved. You stand still, and what does it say? Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.

Now, when we travel through the book of Acts, as we have been going, we have seen in a number of places that this is how God does his business. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. We saw that in Acts chapter two, when that great host of people was brought into the church of the living God after the preaching of the gospel by 12 people speaking in different languages. We have just witnessed that when Philip was in the towns of Samaria preaching the gospel. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. It is a symbol to us that our involvement is only going to bring hindrance. We have one thing to do, and that's brought out in the book of 1 Corinthians. Apollos planted, I watered, And God gave the increase. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show to you this day. For the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you shall see them again no more forever.

And what a statement he makes about our sin. When Jesus Christ took our sin to the cross, you will see it never again. When he saves his people, their sin is as far away as the east is from the west.

Now travel with me, if you would, over to the book of Acts. They're in Acts chapter 8. The book of Acts chapter 8, we have spent some time there as Philip has been called down to Samaria to preach the gospel. And there's been a number of folks that God has saved by his free and sovereign grace. And they're made comfortable under the sound of the gospel. They've been brought to hear things that they never heard before. They may have read the Bible before, but now they had some things that they had never heard before that thrilled their hearts.

And it tells us in the book of Acts, chapter 8, there in verse 25, as those two preachers from Jerusalem went home. John and Peter, they came down and I mentioned the other day, they didn't come down with an investigatory casserole to find out what fault was going on down there. They came down there with the idea that we've heard about God saving some people down here and we want to come and rejoice with them. And then it says there, and they, when they had testified and preached the word of the Lord, returned to Jerusalem, and preached the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans. What a message, what a return trip that these two had from down there in Samaria back to Jerusalem to report what was going on. They preached in many of the villages of the Samaritans.

Now keep your finger right there for just a moment and turn back with me to the book of Acts chapter one. The words of the Lord Jesus Christ are brought up here just before his ascension And it tells us that he is going to give a commission. He is going to call on his people to go out and preach the gospel. He is going to call on his people to go out and preach the gospel to all the world, wherever God should impress them.

Now we do find out in the scriptures that the Apostle Paul at one time, he had an interest in going to one part of the world and the Holy Spirit hindered him. and he had an interest to go to another part of the world and the Holy Spirit hindered him. And then God pointed out exactly where he wanted him and that was over in Macedonia. And there he went over and people were saved by the grace of God.

Well read with me here in the book of Acts chapter 1 verse 8 it says, but ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria. Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. What they did fulfilled the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Philip was called down there to preach the gospel. These two men came down and they preached the gospel. And on their way back to Jerusalem, they preached the gospel in Samaria.

Now, going back to the book of Acts chapter eight, we find that Philip is called on another missionary journey. To many people, he made a great mistake. I've had people tell me he made a mistake because he is in the middle of a great revival meeting and people are being saved and he should have stayed there. Well, the reason he left is God called him. Underline that. God moved on him. God spoke to him. You leave here and go over there because I have someone else that desperately needs to hear the truth of the gospel.

All right, here in the book of Acts chapter eight, we get down here to verse 26, and it tells us these words, and the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip. The angel of the Lord. Now, in what capacity? It doesn't give us a lot of information about it, but we do know this, that he was spoken to.

Now, the way that God generally speaks to us today is right here. This is how he speaks to us. I have a cartoon in my phone and under the pictures. It says, Lord, tell me what you want me to do. And he's handing down a Bible. It's full. The Word of God is our guide. And he left it to us. Now at this time, it's not complete. We don't have the New Testament at this time that Philip is going up out here into the desert. We don't have the New Testament when he goes down to Samaria. We don't have the New Testament when they preached on the day of Pentecost. And there were things that happened there that do not happen today. They're not necessary to happen today. We have the completed Word of God. And if we're not satisfied with that, then we better go back and have a heart check with God himself. Because if we're not satisfied with his word, we're not satisfied with him.

All right, here in the book of Acts chapter 8, it says in verse 26, the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip saying, arise and go toward the south into the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza. And look at the last phrase. which is desert. You're taking me from this wonderful place in Samaria where we have lots of groceries down to where? Down to a desert.

Now, the interesting thing that we find with regard to Philip was the very next verse, and he arose. What a blessing it is when God calls on his ministers whether they be male or female, to go and they go. They have a ministry given to them. He arose and went and behold, a man of Ethiopia, this angel of the Lord comes down to Philip.

Now you remember the first time we heard about Philip? That was in the book of Acts where there was some problems in the church at Jerusalem. Some of the folks were not being taken care of like they should have been because they were Gentiles. And a disciple said, seek ye out seven men of honest report full of the Holy Ghost. And Philip was one of those guys. He was one of those servants.

Now, I was told when I was in Bible school that this is the first time in the Bible that we have the office of a deacon. And you know what? I swallowed that hook, line, and sinker. that we have the office of a deacon. If you go over to the book of 1st and 2nd Timothy, you have those words, office of a deacon. Well, if you look that up in the original language, just go to your Strong's Dictionary, you'll find out that that word office has been supplied by the translators because the translators already had the office of a deacon and it was something they could not get rid of.

I have never seen a church that had that kind of office that didn't have some people elevated above the other people. It's just the way it works out. You give somebody that kind of authority that says, we are going to put our hands on you. And now you're in an elevated position. They're going to have some kind of authority over other people. And that is not in the church of the living God. You shall not do this, he said. You do not have this kind of situation. We are equal before God in the church of the living God. We are all sinners saved by grace. And there is no difference between bond or free, male or female, all the rest of those comparisons, there is no difference. It is the only place in this world where there is absolute equality.

Now, sometimes we don't think it's equal, but in God's mind, there is equality in the church. He's made it that way. So Philip was one of those brothers that was taken out of the host and made to help serve there in the church of Jerusalem. And it pleased the whole multitude. And Philip was one that the Holy Spirit chose to help with a problem. And we noticed earlier in chapter eight that he was sent to Samaria to declare Jesus Christ and him crucified. What did he preach when he got down there? He preached Jesus unto those folks.

When it comes to the office of a deacon, it's not found in scripture. You know who are the deacons and deaconesses in a church? The saved folks. The word means bond servant, bond slave. God has ever saved you. You're a bondservant of the Lord. You are a servant of the Most High God. All of God's saved people are servants. And in our language, we call them deacons and deaconesses.

without the title. When I came the first time for that year up here from down in the Portland area to preach for this church, at the conclusion of that, I asked some of the men, I said, what do you think about ordination? Because in the religion I had, you had to be ordained. You had to have the special service, you had a whole bunch of preachers come, they ask you questions, and at the end if you answered correctly in their mind, they put their hands on you and said some words in your ear that I can't remember. I've got my ordination file or my ordination paper in my laugh file because it's laughable what people will do. I asked this church, what about ordination? And you know what the men said? We think God ordains preachers and we just get the opportunity of noticing that. And you know that's right.

God ordains his speakers. He ordains his sheep before the foundation of the world. They're ordained of God. He ordained Peter to be a preacher of the gospel. He ordained Paul to be a preacher of the gospel. And they didn't go through any of that nonsense that the world has placed upon religion and put people in, giving them some authority. My authority is to preach Christ and him crucifying. That's it. And I'm thankful that this church recognized that I already had been ordained.

All right, let's move on here and see what happened. In our text today, we find there that Philip was spoken to by the Lord, arise and go down to Gaza. Now, he's going to travel some distance down south of Jerusalem, and he does not know the outcome when he is called on to go down there. He's not told about much about what to do. He says, you just go down there. And it says in verse 27, he arose and went and behold a man of Ethiopia. Now this man is there, but Philip does not know that this man is here. He is just being obedient to the Lord. And he heads down in that direction that the Lord told him.

Now, does the Lord still do that? Absolutely. He still does that. The most outstanding of that is our friend Lance Heller, going down to Papua New Guinea, where not that long ago they were cannibals. And now there are many down there that we would call brothers and sisters in Christ. May not be able to say a word to them because our languages are so different, but we're brothers and sisters in Christ. Now God still does that. He moves his people to be in the right place at the right time. He's done that with every one of his children. If it was before we were saved, we were put in the right place to hear the gospel at the appointed time. Something moved. Either someone who knew something was sent to our place or we were moved to somewhere where someone who knew something we could hear.

But God is gonna make sure that every one of his lost sheep hear the truth of the gospel by someone who knows the truth of the gospel. And so Philip knows the truth of the gospel. There's a man down here from Ethiopia. Now we know a number of things about him. He's pretty wealthy. He's traveled 1,500 miles by chariot from Ethiopia to Jerusalem to worship. Notice this. He arose and went, and behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority. from Candace Queen of the Ethiopians who had charge over all her treasure and had come to Jerusalem for to worship. Now probably he's a proselyte. Someone was down there that was a Jew and they convinced him he needed to become a Jew. They got him interested in religion. And you know what? Jews are God's chosen people, and you really should come over to our religion, and therefore, you can become one of us. Mostly. Well, it's nothing more than making a proselyte. And making a proselyte is so different than preaching the gospel. It is not in our interest whatsoever to convince anybody of any special doctrine. It is not our interest to convince anybody of having a special creed. It's not our interest to convince anybody to become a member of this church. It's not our interest. God may do that, but we are not interested in making proselytes. We're interested in preaching the gospel and having God save some people.

Proselytes have only converted to a religion. I was proselyted by some Calvinist to become a Calvinist when I went to Bible school 55 years ago down in Dallas, Texas. I met some people that I wondered why they believed what they believed and they just brought up a couple of verses and, you know, that sounded all right, so I became one. But I didn't have one whit of change in my heart, not one whit of change in my mind. I didn't have anything change about my salvation. It was just I had become a proselyte.

And here we have a man that would travel 1,500 miles as a proselyte to come to Jerusalem for to worship what? What was there? that would cause you to worship. Oh, we got these sacrifices going on, we got these special meetings going on, we got the high priest here, we've got all this stuff going on here in Jerusalem. So he came up from Ethiopia, 1,500 miles, it took him a while to get there, and he came in and did his thing, and he's on his way home, and he knows no more than when he left Ethiopia as a proselyte. Oh, I've had a religious experience today. I was there when they had that sacrifice. Wonderful, wonderful. And you know what? That sacrifice was absolutely worthless because Jesus Christ had already gone to the cross. It was a worthless sacrifice. It was a worthless building. It was a worthless high priest. It was worthless religion. It was absolutely worthless. And here he is traveling that great distance to be up there so he would have some significance in his life. I've done something for God.

Well, we find out as we go down here, Philip comes down there and it says there in verse 28, was returning and sitting in his chariot and read Isaiah the prophet. You know, this man is rich and he tells us that he's rich because he has a copy of the Bible. He has a scroll. This is all handwritten stuff. This is not off a printing press. I've got a Bible right here I keep it in case my other one goes dead. I paid $2.50 for this at St. Vinny's. Several others that I've given away, $2.50 for a really good Bible. Well, in this day and in this time, if you had a Bible, you paid probably several thousand dollars to have that. And here he is reading.

Now I can just imagine that he's doing his daily Bible reading. You know, I was encouraged to do my daily Bible reading when I was in religion, and that meant you didn't think about much of it because you had to read too fast. I'll tell you, my friends, read slow. Read slow. We're out in a horse race. We're looking for some wisdom as we heard this morning. If it takes you a month to read the book of Jude to say hallelujah, it's one chapter long.

Paul said, I'd rather know what 10 words with understanding than 10,000 without understanding. or five words, I think it is, five words with understanding rather than 10,000 without understanding. And most of our Bible reading in the old days in religion is without understanding. We're skipping through it so we can check it off. We got a Christmas card and it had one of those papers in there that you could check it off.

You know, Sometime I do really want to sit down and read you the Bible in a year again, been a long time, but I get to go to the book of Matthew, the book of Acts and spend some good time thinking. And sometimes my, as in Farside, the young man said, can I go home? My brain is full. Sometimes my brain is full. You know what I do? I get out and sometimes if it's nice weather, I put my metal detector in my hand and I go metal detecting. And I got time to ruminate. Think about it. Go over it. Some people do their gardening, going over the word of God.

It's not a horse race. It's for knowledge about Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit giving us wisdom to understand it.

All right, so he's down there, he's reading the book of Isaiah. How providential. Now it wouldn't have mattered wherever he was, Philip would have preached the same thing to him. It wouldn't matter if he was in the book of Genesis, or whether he was in the book of Leviticus, or whether he was in the book of Joshua, or Judges, wherever he was. But it was providential that he was in the book of Isaiah, chapter 53.

It tells us there, it says, And he was reading the book of Isaiah, the prophet. Then the spirit said unto Philip, go near and join thyself to this chariot. Now that chariot's over there and he's over here and he's looking on to see what's going on here. And some way God speaks to him and says, I want you to go over there and gather yourself to that chariot.

Now the mystery to me is when he gets over there, that man says, come up and sit down with me. Not that trusting soul. No, God's already visited with him. God's already said. Now there's something about Philip that made this man understand he knew something. He knew something about the gospel and what it was He said, gather yourself to this, join yourself to this chariot.

And Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah and said unto him, what a question Philip asked. You know, he didn't ask him, where you been? What you been doing? Didn't ask him what religion he was. You know, that's the old days. What kind of religion are you? Well, I'm a blah, blah, blah. Oh no, we can't fellowship with you. That's not a question that I ask anybody. I may ask you, when did you hear the gospel? But I'll not ask you what religion you are.

You know what? When God saves us, he puts us all in the same bucket. A safety bucket.

Philip read thither, verse 30, heard him read the prophet Isaiah, and he said unto him, understandest thou what thou readest? You know, it shares with me that in God's scheme of things, whenever he's gonna save somebody, he's gonna make sure that they have the word explained to them honestly. There will not be some long drawn out process. I have a good friend that shared with me just this last week about something that he asked or a friend of his asked when they were in the same religion. How do you know someone is saved? And this friend of mine said these were the three things that the head of the church told him. Can you guess what the number one is? You have to tithe. Number two, you have to change your diet. You can't eat the stuff that the Jews couldn't eat. And the third thing was, you're gonna have to observe the days. We got a Sabbath day and you better be sitting down at the end of Friday sundown and stay there until the end of Saturday sundown. Aren't those scriptural reasons to be a Christian? I just, well, at this time, we both laughed about it, but you know, it was serious business. It was so serious. And we get so serious in religion until God frees us from that in salvation. He frees us from all of that nonsense. My goodness, God does his great work in us. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. So he does that here. He says, understand this, in verse 31, he said, how can I accept some man should guide me? What a statement.

Now, my friends, if you're on a desert island, and lo and behold, one day, a box shows up floating on the top of the ocean, and you open it up and there's a Bible inside, you'll be sure to know that God is going to send someone to bring you what that word means. Because you can't figure it out on your own. People have tried, people have tried, people have tried. They say, I was just reading my Bible and it struck me. I'm sorry, that's not the gospel way. The gospel way is God's gonna send somebody who knows something to you. Now that Bible is just a precursor to it. Someone is going to come along just like this. This is how God does his business. I am so thankful.

40 years ago, he sent a Philip from Kentucky out to Oregon. He sent him to the backside of the desert, I'll tell you. He sent him down to Gaza. He sent him down to Central Point, Oregon. And someone had asked him to come out and preach the gospel. He came out and he preached the gospel and the response that I gave him when I heard it was, I hate you. I didn't say it to his face, but I said it to my wife, I hate you. You know, by the grace of God, that was the message that God intended for me to hear so that in the right time, the proper time, the time appointed of God, He would give me the new birth and I could rejoice in Jesus Christ the righteous. Not in religion. But in Jesus Christ, and that's where we're headed here.

The place where the scripture was read was this. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, as a lamb done before his shearer, he opened 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 speakest the prophet this, of himself or some other man? And oh, Philip, he did the same thing he did when he went down to Samaria. What did he preach? He didn't get up there and say, you know, your religion is just pretty close. We just need a couple of things to change here. He preached, what does it say there? Verse 35, he preached unto him Jesus. He didn't preach religion, he didn't preach days you should keep, he didn't preach the law, he didn't preach, he preached Christ and him crucified.

Philip's response to go down was the fulfillment of the Lord's words. When we read in John chapter 10, verse 27, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. Why did Philip go down there? Because he was a sheep of the Lord and the Lord had spoken to him and the trip down there may be difficult and it may be long, but he went down there because the Lord had called on him to go down there.

I remember when I was in Bible school, I met a lot of young boys whose goal, once they graduated, and this is what they would tell you, their goal was to go to Pennsylvania and create independent Baptist churches. Their goal was to go to Texas and create independent Baptist churches. They didn't know the first thing about the gospel. Because if they had of, they'd say, I want to go preach Christ. I want to go preach Christ. That's who saved me. And he's the only one that can do the same for someone else. All we are doing, we're beggars telling other beggars where we found bread. In Jesus Christ, the bread of life.

This man from Ethiopia was educated, but he didn't know the first thing about the gospel. This man could read, but he didn't understand a word he was reading out of that Bible. Now, I think it was probably either written in Greek or Hebrew, so he's pretty educated, but he didn't know a thing about what the Bible was about.

And Philip told him who it was about. Philip told him it's about Jesus Christ. It's about this one, the Lord Jesus. It's about this one that the prophet Isaiah was writing about in one of the greatest statements that we find in the Old Testament about the gospel, Isaiah 53.

In the book of Luke, would you turn there with me for just a moment? Two verses of scripture I want to read out of the book of Luke. Luke chapter 24.

Verse 27, why did Philip begin at the same place and preach unto him Jesus? Well, he was convinced of something. More than convinced, it was part of his makeup. He understood who the Old Testament was about. It had been brought to his attention by the preachers in Jerusalem, because they got to hear the master say what it's about.

Now the Old Testament prophets knew what it was about. Someone's coming, someone's coming. But this, the great high priest, the prophet of the church, gave his disciples the absolute understanding about what the Old Testament is about.

Here in the book of Luke, chapter 24, verse 27, Jesus, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them all the things in the scriptures, the things concerning himself. The Bible's about Christ. Everything about him. Who he is, what he intended to do, who he intended to do it for, where he was to be born, what capacity was his mother, virtue, all those things are recorded in the Old Testament.

And in that same chapter in verse 44, would you look there with me? in the book of Luke chapter 24, verse 44 says, and he said unto them, these are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, Every type, shadow, and picture, every sacrifice, every tabernacle, everything in the tabernacle, all the temple, all those things, the robes that the priests wore spoke of Christ.

He said they're fulfilled in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning me. Isn't it interesting at this place that it is a small pea on Psalms? There were about five books in the Old Testament that were written in verse. And this is what that is referring to, Job, the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon were written in verse.

So we have all the Psalms, those books written in verse, glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ, the law of Moses, all the prophets. And in the Psalms concerning me, then opened he their understanding that they might understand the scriptures. And that's where Philip is when he begins at this place and preached unto him Jesus.

Now we're gonna stop right here and pick this up the Lord willing next week and we'll see what that message was and the outcome of preaching the gospel at God's ordination.