Good evening, let's all stand
together. We'll sing hymn number 145. 145. Hail Thou once despised Jesus
Hail Thou Galilean King Thou didst suffer to release us Thou
didst free, salvation bring Hail Thou agonizing Savior Bearer
of our sin and shame By thy marriage we find favor Life is given through
thy name Paschal Lamb, by God appointed All our sins on thee
were laid By almighty love anointed Thou hast full atonement made
All Thy people are forgiven Through the virtue of Thy blood Opened
is the gate of heaven Peace is made to explain, and God Jesus,
hail, enthroned in glory, There forever to abide, All the heavenly
host adore thee, Seated at thy Father's side. Therefore, sinners, thou art
pleading, There Thou dost our place prepare, Ever for us intercede. Till in glory we appear Worship,
honor, power, and blessing Thou art worthy to receive Loudest
praises without ceasing mean it is for us to give. Help ye bright angelic spirits,
bring your sweetest hopeless slaves. Help to sing our Savior's
merits, help to chant Emmanuel's praise. Besated will sing hymn
number 361. 361. Sweet hour of prayer Sweet hour
of prayer That calls me from the world of care And bids me
at my foe Make all my wants and wishes
known in Caesar's throne. of distress and grief. My soul has often found relief
and oft escaped the tempter's snare. Return, sweet hour of prayer. Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour
of prayer, Thy wings shall my Shun her, to him whose truth
and faith In case the waiting soul to bless And since he can't
beseech his face I'll cast all fears behind Him. And wait for Thee Sweet hour
of prayer Sweet hour of prayer Sweet hour of prayer May I thy consolation share,
Till from Thou viscous love behind I view my home and take my flight. This robe of flesh I'll drop
and rise to cease the ache. Acts chapter 8. Acts chapter eight, we dealt
with some of this last week. And I'll start reading down here
in verse 26, down to verse 35. And the angel of the Lord spake
unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south, unto the
way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And
he arose, and went, and behold, a man of Ethiopia, and eunuch
of great authority, unto Kendese, 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 Isaiah the prophet. Then the spirit said
unto Philip, go near and join thyself to this chariot. And
Philip ran there to him and heard him and read the prophet Isaiah
and said, understand 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. And the place of the Scripture
which he read was this, He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
and like a lamb done before his shearers, 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 some other
man? Then Philip opened his mouth
and began at the same scripture and preached unto him, Jesus. Oh, our blessed Father, Gracious God, merciful God, God
of great mercy, God of judgment, Lord, we bless you that you made
a way, made a way, provided a way for sinners like ourselves to
have life and be justified from all our sin, be justified before
a holy God, to be cleared of all guilt, to have no sin, to
have no condemnation. Oh Lord, how we bless you for
that, that you taught us that, we believe that. We find that
to be our hope and that to be our comfort. And Lord, we've
gathered tonight to worship, to read your word, to study your
word and learn some things from it. So Lord, you take us in hand
and you teach us. May the Holy Spirit come and
be our teacher tonight. May he be the one that blesses
the word to our heart and our understanding. And Lord, we thank
you for those that's come out and pray your blessings upon
them. And our Lord Jesus, we pray for
those whose bodies are still frail, bodies are getting weaker,
and we pray for them, Lord, that we know your grace is sufficient.
You told us that, and we believe it, and we've seen it, and experienced
it, and every one of us have experienced that, that your grace
is sufficient. So meet with us tonight, bring
glory to yourself, and do these things for our Lord Jesus Christ's
sake. Amen, amen. page 30 in our course books,
Living by Faith, on page 30 in the course books. I care not today what tomorrow
may bring, If shadow or sunshine or rain. The Lord I know ruleth
for everything, And all of my worry is vain. Living by faith
in Jesus above, Trusting, confiding in His great love. Safe from all harm, in His sheltering
arm, I'm living by faith, and feel
no alarm. Though tempests may blow and
the storm clouds arise, obscuring the brightness of light. I'm never alarmed at the overcast
skies The Master looks on at the strife Living by faith in
Jesus above Trusting, confiding In His great
love Safe from all harm In His sheltering arm I'm living by
faith and fill the world. I know that He safely will carry
me through, No matter what evils be tied. Why should I then care though
the tempest may blow, If Jesus walks close to my side? Living by faith in Jesus above,
Trusting, confiding in His great love. Safe from all pain, In a sheltering home I'm living
by faith And I feel no alone Our Lord will return to this
earth some sweet day Our troubles will then all be over The Master
so gently will lead us away Beyond that blessed heavenly shore Living by faith in Jesus' Son,
trusting, confiding, I'm hiding in His great love
Safe from all harm In His sheltering arm I'm living by faith You know, last week I preached
on persecution, preaching persecution and profession. Tonight I'm going to preach on
a preacher, a sinner and salvation. And the preacher, of course,
is Philip. You know, God doesn't do things
the way that the world does or anybody else does. And that's
what we love, that God's ways are not our ways. I'm so thankful
they're not. They're so far above us as the
heavens is above the earth, so far as His thoughts and ways
above us. And the way He deals with men,
you know, He deals with men, some He deals in grace. Some
He deals with in grace. Others He deals with in judgment.
It's like Pharaoh. He said, Pharaoh, I raised you
up just for one purpose. You exist for one purpose, for
me to show you how much power I've got, how much power I've
got. And the scriptures tells us plainly
that He makes some vessels of honor, some to dishonor, some
vessels of mercy, some vessels of wrath. And it's the same God
that does both of them. And what God does in this chapter,
we've seen last week that He opens the door to the Samaritans
to go down there, and they were half-breeds. This is where false
doctrine, really, they started worshiping false gods there,
and false people there, and so God opened the door to the Samaritans. You know, our Lord Jesus Christ,
He went to Samaria and set on a whale. walked seven or eight
miles out of his way to go sit on a well to save a woman of
Samaria. And so here God opened the door
for all the Samaritans. But He also exposed the false
profession of Simon the sorcerer. And you know this passage that
I've read tonight about the Ethiopian eunuch and Philip and the preaching
that Philip did is no doubt a familiar passage to you. But what we have
here is the Lord Jesus Christ going after one of His sheep,
just one. But do you know how many times
He went after just one? Just one. Zacchaeus was one. That man born blind was one.
The woman at the well was one. Christ will go after one, He
said one sheep. If you lose, got 99, got one
lost, you gotta go get it. If you lose one coin, you sweep
the house till you find it. One prodigal. God deals with
people as one. And that's a wonderful thing
for me to think, that you know that's what God did for me. He
come to want to me, me alone, me alone. And so first of all,
let's look at the preacher. The preacher, look what it says
down in verse 26. and the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip.
He said, Arise, and go down toward the south unto the way that goeth
down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. Now he was led
of the Lord to go down into the desert. You know, he had been
in Samaria for quite some time. He was the first one to go down
there and start preaching, and the Lord was using him. Look
back up here in verse five of chapter eight. And 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, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. Oh,
they liked, they liked what he had to say. And then down in
verse 12, look what it says. But when they believed Philip
preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name
of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. So there's
a great revival going on here in Samaria. Even Peter and John
came down and they had to see what was going on. And yet here's
this great revival going on and God tells this man that started
it and was used of God to start it, you go down to the desert,
go out into the desert. What, Lord, go down into the
desert, we got a revival going on up here. People are being
converted. People are being baptized. They
go down to the desert. What in the world was going on
down in the desert? Nothing goes on in the desert
but dry, heat. Well, what could possibly be
in the desert? But Philip didn't question him.
He didn't say anything. He said, Lord, is there anybody
else you can send? I'd like to stay up here where
this revival's going on. But all in all, Philip didn't
question. What'd he do? He headed to Jerusalem. I mean,
he headed down into the desert. From Jerusalem, it goes down
into Gaza. And he didn't know why, he had no clue why God was
sending him down there. He had no idea why would God
send him to the desert, but he knew that the Lord was sending
him. And here's the thing, key thing was that he knew the Lord
himself. He knew the Lord himself, and
whatever the Lord says, that's what he's gonna do. And he knew
the Lord. And he arose, and as Chris says
in verse 27, he arose and went. He didn't say, Lord, I need a
good night's sleep, and then I'll get up early in the morning
and go. No, he just got up and went. He arose and went. And
he went. And oh, listen to what happened.
And behold, and behold. He didn't know this was gonna
happen. I don't know how long he's in the desert. I don't know
how many hours he's there, a day or two or what, I don't know.
But he arose and went, and behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of
great authority. And this tells us that the worth
of a soul, the worth of one soul to our covenant God, the worth
of one soul to our Lord Jesus Christ, the worth of one soul
that Christ purchased with his own blood. Oh my, here's God,
He deals with individuals like I told you. He dealt with Enoch
by himself. He dealt with Noah. He dealt
with Abraham. He dealt with the woman at the
well. He dealt with Saul of Tarsus, that one man born blind, Zacchaeus
up a tree. God goes to great lengths to
get one soul for whom Christ died. that God made in a covenant
with, in the covenant of grace, that Christ Jesus would die for
them, and God went to great lengths. He sent a preacher, and that
s what God always does. He ll cross people s path with
a preacher, with a preacher. And then, oh, so we see the preacher.
Now, look at the sinner. Let s look at this sinner. And
here rose and went, behold, a man of Ethiopia." Now, Ethiopia is
not like that little bitty country you know, it's in Africa now.
Ethiopia at that time was almost, encompassed almost all of North
Africa. And then this man traveled 1,200
miles. So that gives you a big idea
of how big Ethiopia was at that time. Huge, covered most of Africa. And oh, he said, And he was,
who had the charge of all her treasure and had come to worship
it, Jerusalem for to worship. So here the sinner's a powerful
man. He's a powerful man, a wealthy man. It says here, had great
authority, had great authority. I mean, this was, this guy's
somebody, he's a treasurer. He took care of all the money
in all of Ethiopia. He was in charge of the treasury. He had access to multitudes,
unbelievable amounts of money. So here's a powerful man of Candesi,
the queen. She is a queen and she's rule
over there. And this Candesi is the same
thing as a title like Pharaoh was. I don't know what her name
was, but it's like a title. Candace is the same thing as
Pharaoh. And so here she was, and here
she was, she's this queen, and here he comes down to Jerusalem. And I tell you, God takes a powerful
man and great men and don't do it very often, but oh, he's humbled
some great men, some great, great men. Naaman. the great, great
general from Syria. God humbled him. Hezekiah, the
king who went in and told everybody, showed them how great wealth
he was, and he was a man after David s own heart. God had to
humble him and Saul, A man who despised Christ, despised the
gospel, and despised the Lord's people. God humbled him. God takes great men and humbles
them. And here's a great man, he humbled
him. And look what it said. It said in verse 27, had come
to Jerusalem for the worship. You remember when our Lord was
talking to the woman at the well? She said, sir, we know that Jerusalem
where men ought to worship, but our fathers worship in this mountain.
She said, I know that you know where people supposed to go up
to Jerusalem. And this man came 1,200 miles. And I mean he's in a When we
talk about a chariot, we're not talking about these chariots
that you see in these movies, you know, with one fellow standing
up there whipping one horse. This is like a, it's like a,
almost like a stagecoach. I mean, you know, it had lots
of room in it. It had all his belongings in it. It had all,
lots of money in it. So it had a lot of room in it.
It had clothes in it. And then, and it had so much
room in it that he told Philip, come up here, sit with me. So
this is not like a little old chair that you see in the movies. It's not that way at all. And
he went down to Jerusalem to worship. What do you reckon he
found when he went there? He went to great lengths, went
to great expense, went to great time, I mean time, and went a
long way. What did he find when he got
there? You know what he found when he got there? he found an
empty shell of religion. He went there empty and he came,
left there empty. I mean, religion. Jerusalem's
where men ought to worship, it said. But then all they found
there was religion. He found people twice dead, twice
dead. They were dead in trespasses
and sins and they were dead in their religion, had a dead religion. And I tell you, if you had the
super religious, who were those? They were the Pharisees, the
Pharisees. Hold Acts 8 here and go with
me to Matthew 23. I want you to see something over
here. These fellas, these super religious,
Paul was one of these. He was super, super religious.
Oh, they're straining the gnat gnat and swallow a camel. There's
more concern for the jots and the tittles than they were for
the mercy and grace of God. Super religious. And oh, how
many people are super religious? Got religion coming out their
ears. And look what he said here in
verse five. talking about the Pharisees,
for all their works they do for it to be seen of men. I want
people to see me. I want people to see how religious
I am. I want people to understand how deep and how devoted I am. They make broad their phylacteries,
enlarge the borders of their garments. Oh my, and then he
goes on to say, look what he said down in verse 13. Our Lord
said, whoa unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, you shut
up the kingdom of heaven against men. You won't go in yourselves. You won't go in yourselves and
you won't allow them that are in him to go in. You wanna stop
them. You wanna bring them to the law.
You wanna bring them to works. You wanna bring them to trusting
in themselves. And then look what our Lord said
down in verse 23 about them. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisee
hypocrites, for you pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cumin,
and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment,
mercy, and faith. These ought ye to have done,
and not to leave the other undone. But oh my, listen to what he
said about them. You blind gods, with strain at
a gnat, strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. And people say,
listen, that camel means, you know, just a little thing. No,
no, he's literally talking about what's literal. Nobody likes
gnats. Gnats get around you and you
do like this to get rid of them. And a little old gnat, he said,
you all strange. Choke over a gnat. Choke over
a gnat. And yet you'll turn around and
swallow a camel to let everybody know how religious you are. You
know, and that's what they were, they were super religious. And
then he also, when he got down there, he found the Sadducees.
The Sadducees were the political party of the day. They didn't
believe in a resurrection. And at this time, they were the
one that the high priest came out of the Sadducees. Now here's
their problem was, they had religion and politics. And that's a deadly
combination. That's a deadly combination.
Religion and politics. And they called it so-called
worship. And that's one thing, and listen, I'd rather be known
for my relationship with Christ than my relationship with any
party in this United States of America. I'd rather be known
to be a Christian than to be identified with any political
party whatsoever. But here's the thing about it,
that's the way they was. You had the super religious,
And you had the political. And they all was religious. And
he went down there and that's what he found. That's what he
found. He went to the temple, what'd
he find? Bunch of Pharisees and Sadducees. And when he got there,
there's all going on and on about the Lord and the works and all
that stuff. And he got there, and when he got there, he was
empty. He went up there to find something,
find some religion, find some comfort, find some assurance.
He went up there to worship God, to worship God Almighty. And
what did he find when he got up there? When he got up there,
it was empty. He went in there empty and he
left empty. He went up there to have a relationship
with God, he didn't have one. He started back home, started
back home. And oh my, that's why our Lord,
you know what our Lord said on this day? That day, you know,
when they went up there for these feasts and all that, our Lord
said, stood in that great day, that last day of the feast, and
everybody there was worshiping. There's all around and all the
washings and all the waters. Our Lord stood and cried, if
any man's thirsty, you come up here to have some comfort, some
relief. If any man's thirsty, let him come unto me. Come unto
me and drink. Not the Pharisees, not the temple,
not politics, not religion, come unto me if you're thirsty. And I tell you, if a fellow's
thirsty, you know what he's gonna do? He's gonna drink. If he's
hungry, you know what he's gonna do? He's gonna eat. That's just
the way it is. And so he goes up, and this fellow
in verse 28, He was returning and sitting
in his chariot and he read Isaiah the prophet. And oh, he's sitting
and reading. He's reading from Isaiah. And
the two verses he's reading from, back over here in Acts, they
read aloud. He's riding along, he's reading
out loud. He's reading out loud. And the scriptures were in scrolls. They're not a book like we've
got now. They were in scrolls and they'd
unscroll them. They'd unscroll them, you know,
this way and read it and then scroll this way and scroll that
way and read it. This is in scrolls. And they'd
open it up and he was reading from Isaiah chapter 53, verses
seven and eight. He read aloud the scrolls and
he didn't find God in Jerusalem. But I tell you something he did
find, something he delighted in, and God blessed it. He found
the book of God, he found the scriptures, he found the scrolls,
and oh my, you know how precious the Word of God was in those
days? You know, it says that over in
1st Kings said, oh, the word of the Lord was precious in those
days. Do you know how hard it was to come by a scroll in those
days? This man was extremely wealthy
to be able to hold a whole scroll of the book of Isaiah. The book
of Isaiah has got 66 chapters in it. And here he had this whole
book, this whole scroll, very expensive, very, very expensive. And oh my. And he's sitting in
his chariot. And Philip was walking along
and he saw him, saw him. And the Lord said, you go and
walk up to him, walk up to him. I want you to go and speak to
this man. So the spirit said, go and join
yourself near to this chariot, to this chariot. Get up next
to this chariot. Get up close to this man and
to where he's going. And look what is so evidently
there was a distance between them because it says Philip ran
there. He ran, so there's some distance
between them. And I tell you what, he ran. He said, listen, I gotta do what
the Lord said. And so he ran to catch this chariot. He ran to catch this man. And
as he does, he heard him. That's what I'm gonna tell you
what, he was reading aloud, he heard him. He heard him read. He heard him reading. He got
right up beside him and walking along beside him and he heard
him reading. The prophet Isaiah and said unto
him, and he's still on the ground now, he's caught up with him.
He's following him and he said, do you understand what you're
reading? Do you understand it? That's
a good question for anybody. Do you understand what you're
reading? You know, I'm gonna say something right here, and
then of course I may preach on the Word Sunday, but anyway,
preachers get all over folks for not reading their Bible.
But now listen. A lot of folks, that's what God
calls preachers for. Now, people ought to read the
scriptures. I believe you ought to read the
scriptures. And don't be one of these fellows that I've got
to read the Bible through every year. Don't do that. Don't bind
yourself like that. Then you're just reading and
you're not getting anything out of it. But if you can just read
a few verses and get just a little bit out of a few verses, that's
a great blessing. But I'm not one of them preachers
that just gets on child's people for not reading the Bible. That's
what God calls preachers to do, to give people. That's what Philip
said. Here's a man reading the Bible. He's reading the word
of God. Philip said, do you understand
what you're reading? The disciples spent three years
with the Lord, and they had no clue that he was gonna rise again
from the dead. They went off and hid because
they didn't understand what the Lord was doing. And they'd been
with him three years. So you know, and that's what
I mean. But here's the thing, he said,
do you understand what you're reading? Huh? Oh, look at the preacher and
his message. And he said, and this is, oh, you talk about why
very few people would admit to this. Very few people admit to
this. And he said, how can I? How can
I understand what I'm reading? How can I possibly understand
what I'm reading? Unless some man should take these
scriptures and guide me. Be a guide to me. Guide me in
this word. Guide me in these scriptures.
How can I? Except some man should guide
me. And he said, Philip, come up here and sit with me. Then
he said, come up here and sit with me. So he did, he stopped,
and he got up there in that truck, and this is the place where he
read. And this is the question he asked,
the place of the scripture he read, which was this, he, he, so it's talking about a man,
he was led as a sheep to the slaughter, as a lamb, like a
lamb before his shears, done before his shears, so he opened
not his mouth. In his humiliation, his judgment
was taken away. Who shall declare his generation,
and his life was taken from the earth. And so this Ethiopian,
he asked him a question. And the Ethiopian answered Philip
and said, I pray thee, I want you to tell me, Who is this prophet
talking about? Who is this prophet speaking
about? Is he talking about himself?
Is Isaiah speaking about himself? Or is he talking about some other
man? He said he knows it's a man.
He knows if it's Isaiah, I'd like to know who it is. If it's
some other man, I wanna know who that other man is. And oh,
listen, let me tell you something about what Jews believe about
Isaiah 53. They believe it's about Jeremiah,
or else themselves as a nation, and how God's gonna do something
for them as a nation. But all he said is this about
some other man. He knew it was about a man. He,
he, he, is what he said his judgment would take. He was led as a lamb
to the slaughter. And then look what he said. Then
Philip opened his mouth. And he started right there where
he was reading from, and he began to preach the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, You know who this man
s talking about? This man that I m talking to,
he s talking about is a man named Jesus Christ. He was born of
a virgin, you know that? And he went over to Isaiah, no
doubt in Isaiah 7, 14. And then he went down through
those verses and he preached how that the Lord Jesus Christ
was a root out of dry ground. There's nothing beautiful about
him that we should desire him. But he said, I'll tell you something
about him. He said, he made his soul an offering for sin. He was wounded for somebody else's
transgressions. He was bruised for somebody else's
iniquities. And I tell you what, this is
the message, this is the theme of true preaching, is the Lord
Jesus Christ. And this is what fulfills the
scriptures, is the Lord Jesus. Oh, listen, preaching is the
relation between scripture and Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ,
even after his disciples, when he appeared to them and he ate
with them, you know what he did? He said, he started at Moses
and the prophets and the Psalms, giving them understanding about
these things speak of me. and he opened the scriptures
to their understanding. And these are fellas been with
him through years. He had to open the scriptures to their
understanding. They didn't understand it, and
that's what this fella's doing. Well, how am I gonna understand
this? He preached unto him Jesus Christ. Oh my, the preaching,
real preaching is the Word of God preaching the Lamb of God,
the written Word, as it relates to the living Word. the record
that God gave us, and the person of the record that God gave us.
And oh my, there's no doubt what I tell you what, he preached
the Lord Jesus Christ. He told about our Lord's substitutionary
death, about his birth, about his holy, sinful life, sinless
life. He told him, he said, you know,
he was led as a lamb before his shearer. He didn't open his mouth.
A lamb to the slaughter, never said a word. Oh my. And then he preached about how
he was rejected of men, despised of men, crucified by men. Then he talked about his death
on the cross and his resurrection. He talked about what his death
accomplished for the transgression of my people was he stricken. Oh my. Sin, judgment, death,
all conquered by this man. That's what he preached to him.
He said, sin, he put it away. Death, he said, oh grave, where's
your victory? Oh death, where's your sting?
Oh my, judgment, he bore it all. And oh my, all accomplished by
this man. I don t know how long he preached,
but I d say he preached a good little while. I d say that he
started with Christ. He said, You see this world that
we re in? He said, He s the one that created
it. He was before it, and there s nothing that exists in this
world apart from Him, and it s upheld by Him. Oh, he honored
God, he honored Christ. He made Christ known to this
man. He made Christ known to this man. He said, how can I
trust him? He guided him. Where'd he guide
him to? To the Lord Jesus Christ. John
the Baptist himself said, he said, he must increase, I've
got to decrease. And then look what this man's
confession of faith now. Oh, just look at his salvation.
Look at his, and you know, faith cometh by hearing, and that's
exactly how his faith came to him, by hearing. Faith came to
him by hearing. He preached unto him the Lord
Jesus Christ, and he believed on him. This is what God did
for this one lost sheep. Sent this preacher from where
a revival's going on to preach to just one person. And then
look what he said. In verse 36, and as they went
on their way, they're keeping on going, they came to some water,
came to some water. So they went somewhere and there's
water out there. And the eunuch said, here's some
water. What doeth hinder me to be baptized? Is there anything
against me that can't keep me from being baptized? Is there
anything that can keep me as anything that would hinder me?
Anything that would stop me from being baptized, confess my faith
in Christ. You know what Philip said to
him? And this is what the first book of John's all about. If
thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest. And this is what
this man, this is his confession of faith. I believe that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God. That's a mouthful. God had a son, and that son had
to come into this world. That son had to come into this
world. How did he come into this world?
Why did he come into this world? Who did he come for? And that's
what he said. That's what John said. He said,
if any man believe not that Jesus Christ is the son of God, he
don't know God. He don't know God. So when you,
he said, listen, that this son that I'm confessing, he is as
good, he is God himself because he's God's son. Oh my. And oh, if you believe, and I
believe that. And that's his confession. He didn't talk him
into this. He didn't get down beside him,
whisper in his ear, said, now you ready to get saved? You wanna
repeat after me? I'd like to get you saved tonight. He didn't do none of that. I'd
like you to be saved this afternoon. He said, if you believe with
all your heart. And he said, I believe, this is what I believe.
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Oh my. And I tell you what, Philip said,
okay. And he commanded the chariot
to stop. Stop this thing. Stand still. Oh my. Oh, I'll tell you what, here's
water. What hinders a fella? What hinders a man? What hinders
a woman? And then look what it says. And I want you to notice
this. And they went down both end of
the water. both Philip and the eunuch. And
Philip, it says, he baptized him. Now I'm gonna tell you something
that didn't happen. He didn't get him in that water
and take some water and throw it up over his head. He didn't
take some water and sprinkle it. It says they both went down
into the water. This idea, you know, of sprinkling
somebody. If you get saved in spots, sprinkle. If you get saved in streaks,
pour them. But if you get saved all over, bury them. Ain't that
right? But oh, they went down into the
water. Baptism. And then he said, this is gonna,
he said, here's the water. What hinders me? Do you believe?
I do, I do, I do. And his confession of faith that
Jesus Christ is the son of God, he went down in that baptismal
pool. And he said, I confess that I'm gonna go into this water,
and I'm gonna be buried in this water, and I'm gonna rise again,
and I'm gonna live in newness of life to the glory of God the
Father. God done something for this man.
Baptism of his confession of his relationship to Christ. Then
look what happens now. Look in verse 39. And they were
come up out of the water, the Spirit, of the Lord called away
Philip, said, Philip, I want you to go somewhere else. And
that eunuch never saw him again. Now where Philip went, but it'll
tell us here in a minute. And look what this Ethiopian
eunuch happened, what happened to him. And he went on his way
rejoicing. something to rejoice about then.
They were like, we got something. Rejoice in the Lord, I say again,
rejoice in the Lord. He went down there rejoicing. And they never saw one another
again. That's what God'll do to get one of his children, just
one. He went down there and done all that and went through all
that to reach one man. And God saved that one man. And
he went on his way rejoicing. He heard that joyful sound. Daryl
said the other day, he said, we heard the joyful sound. He
heard the gospel of his salvation. Have you heard yours? And then
look what it says about Philip. Philip was found at Azeltus.
I have no idea where that's at. I'd have to look on a map. But
he continued on being led of the Lord, preaching the Lord
Jesus Christ as the Savior of sinners. Passing through, he
preached in all the cities till he got back to Caesarea. This
great man, this powerful man, didn't come to Christ as a treasurer. He didn't come to Christ as an
Ethiopian. He didn't come to Christ as a
wealthy man. You know how he come to Christ?
A sinner. Huh? A sinner, he admitted his
ignorance, he admitted his need, and he believed and was baptized. Huh? That's what everybody's
gonna have to do. God went to great lengths to
get us, and I'm certainly, certainly thankful. Our Father, oh, blessed be your
holy name. Thank you for allowing us to
be here this evening. Thank you for your gospel again.
Oh, what a gospel we have. A gospel of a savior. A gospel
that truly saves sinners. A gospel that goes and talks
about God going and getting his sheep, bringing them back to
the fold, bringing them to that place where they are nothing
but a sinner. And oh Lord, we pray that this
gospel was a blessing tonight and be a blessing to all who
heard and all who are watching. We ask that you'd bless this
congregation, bless the ones that are not with us through
frailty of body. We ask these things in our Lord
Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Oh, how merciful, how merciful. Blessed Lord, how merciful thou
art to me. Oh, how merciful, how merciful, blessed Lord, how
merciful thou art to me. Good night and God bless you.
See you Sunday, Lord willing.