Once again today, I would like
you to turn back to the 8th chapter of the book of Acts. Acts chapter
8, where we have been looking at this amazing illustration
of the sovereign, almighty grace of God, of His purpose to save
a sinner. that he loved from old eternity
and set himself in every part and in every way to assure his
salvation. You see, the Scripture says that
God has sent a man by the name of Philip away from a very populated
area out into the desert and calls him to be joined up with
a man who is only described as the Ethiopian eunuch. And he has joined himself to
this man in his chariot, this man who has been riding along
from Jerusalem on his way home, reading from the prophet Isaiah. And as he does, Philip asks him
if he understands what he is reading. And I tried to show
you from that verse in this text how necessary it is that God
gives to us an understanding. That's what John says. He has
given to his people an understanding. that we may know Him that is
eternal life." And then also we found that he was reading
from Isaiah 53, which speaks so much of the death of Jesus
Christ. He speaks of Christ crucified
long before in time Christ was crucified. So, we tried to talk
about understanding the death of Christ. And then also from
another verse, which is a reference in particular here in this chapter,
in verse 33, where he was talking about this thing that took place
there in the death of Christ. And I tried to speak to you last
week concerning understanding righteousness. And this morning,
I want us to look here, beginning in verse 36, at understanding and believing. Verse 36, it says that after
Philip had preached unto him from that same Scripture Jesus,
it says, "...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. And Philip was found in Azotus,
and passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came
to Caesarea." Now, Philip has been following the command of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm talking about that specific
command that we find in Matthew 28, where he says, "...go ye
therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Now, oftentimes
there is something that is missing in that order as men look at
this business of evangelism, and that missing element is what
he says in the second part. It is not simply, Go ye therefore. It is also and most definitely,
go ye therefore and teach all nations, all peoples. And if you notice, as Philip
does this, as he is led and directed and in God's providence carried
by the Spirit of God, we read that this man was baptized by
Philip. And maybe next week I'll deal
with that part and complete this, if the Lord leads, and maybe
I'll talk about understanding baptism. But this morning, If
you notice here, we find what Philip gives as the prerequisite
or what was required for biblical Christian baptism. If you look down in verse 37, After the eunuch has said, what
would hinder me, or is there anything that would keep me from
being baptized by you? Verse 37, And Philip said, If
you believe with all your heart, you may. In other words, the only prerequisite
for baptism, as we find it here in this situation, is if you
believe with all your heart. And so we find that this business
of faith, is always associated not only with baptism, but always
associated with the salvation of God's elect. It is not simply
that if one is one of God's elect, they will be just saved and that's
all there is to it. Here is the way and the means
that God has ordained, not that there is any work in this matter
of believing, but that it is part of that which is necessary
to glorify God. I'll say this, God is most glorified. He is most exalted by His people
in their believing Him, believing on Him. So what is it to have
faith? Or what is it to believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ? Well, the thing that is most
closely associated with and defining of faith is this matter of trust. In other words, to believe on
Christ is to trust in Christ, or to rely on Christ, or as it
is in a picture, to lean your whole weight on Christ. In other words, if you're somehow
supposed to lean on something for all your support, and you
do so with most of your weight, and yet you hold on with the
other hand to something else, then you're not really trusting
and relying wholly upon that which you are supposed to trust. And if you notice here in what
Philip says, he says, first of all, if you believe with all
your heart. In other words, this man realized,
as a preacher of the gospel, that all men and women, as the
Bible says, do not have faith. Somebody in our day would say,
well, what is the use of saying if? It's not if, it's just if
you will. No, here it is, the Scripture
says that faith is the gift of God. For by grace are you being
saved, not of yourself, But it is through this faith which is
the gift of God. I like what old John Gill had
to say in reference to this. He said, this faith should not
be a mere historical or even a temporary faith, nor a feigned
one or a faked one that would be. but a believing in Christ
with the heart unto righteousness, or such a faith by which a soul
relinquishes its own righteousness and looks and goes unto Christ
for righteousness, life, salvation, and rest, and relies upon Him
for them, and it should be a believing in Him with the whole heart."
And then notice this, "...which does not design a strong faith,
Believing on Christ with the whole heart does not necessarily
mean a strong faith, or even a full assurance of faith, but
a hearty, sincere, and unfeigned faith, though it may be but weak
and very imperfect. Why is that? Why does faith not
necessarily depend upon how strong our faith is? Why is the Scripture,
in speaking of faith, telling us that there is weak faith and
strong faith, and yet at the same time, all who believe are
saved? Well, the reason is, the faith
by which men and women are enabled to lay hold of Christ, it does
not depend on faith itself, it depends on its object, which
is the Lord Jesus Christ. I like what Mr. Spurgeon gave
by way of illustration one time. He said, imagine in his day out
of London, imagine a steamship sailing for America. And on the
deck of that ship, he said, imagine, here is one person over here,
and they're shaking and quivering and fearful and fretful, and
yet here, on the other hand, is a person laid back in a deck
chair, resting and sunning and enjoying the voyage. He said,
which one of them will be safe and make it to America? Do you
know which one? They both will, because whether
or not they actually make the voyage and sail safely across
the U.S. to the U.S., it does not depend
on the way that they feel. It depends altogether on the
ship. If the ship makes it, they'll
both make it. And that's the way it is, whether
our faith be weak looking to Christ, or whether our faith
be strong looking to Christ, it all rests in Christ who is
the Savior. And that faith is called saving
faith, if we understand that rightly, which believes on the
Lord Jesus Christ. And I like what that man said
when he came to the Lord Jesus Christ. and was told by Christ,
he said, if you can believe, all things are possible. And
that man had to confess what every child of God confesses
almost daily, I believe. He said, Lord, I believe, but
help thou my unbelief. Help thou my unbelief. And this faith that he is talking
about here is that faith that Paul speaks of when he says in
Romans 10, "...for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." In other
words, the heart that is spoken of by Paul there is simply the
heart of faith. Faith given to a regenerated
person who is now giving evidence of this life that he's been given
by his faith. He believes on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And not only does he believe,
but what we also find in Scripture is that wherever we find faith,
we find that Siamese twin of faith, repentance. He gives us,
as the Scripture says, repentance toward God and faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And here is this eunuch, now
traveling back from Jerusalem, who has obviously been a religious
man, and who obviously has to some degree laid hold of and
embraced some of the tenets of Judaism, And when he is taught
by the Spirit of God under the preaching of the gospel that
some of the things that he believed about God were not true, he repents
of those things that he once thought was right about God,
and turning from them, he now, knowing God in a measure for
who He is, he believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what he's called upon
to do. That's what he's told is the
only prerequisite for baptism and for public confession of
Christ. It is that he believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. But it wasn't just a matter of
believing. How many times How many times
are men and women told that all they have to do is simply believe? And what they do is this. They
run in their minds. which, by the way, is the center
of all idolatry. They run in their minds and they
rest in this, which is their own ideas or what they have been
taught by false religion. It is to believe. In other words,
if I feel like I'm believing, I must be believing. There's
just one problem with that. Tomorrow, when you don't feel
like you're believing, will you still be believing then? You
see, the apostle calls, I mean, this man Philip, who was actually
a deacon, this man Philip had just preached unto him from this
passage in Isaiah. In other words, he's saying,
if you believe on this Jesus that I have just preached to
you from Isaiah 53, then you may. Because if you believe on
this Jesus that I've just preached unto you, you give evidence as
being a child of God. And as a believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ, it is yours by right, by privilege, and by responsibility
to confess Him in baptism. Now, somebody always says, well,
Jesus is Jesus. No, that's not true. Because
the Apostle Paul warned the Corinthians and was fearful in his heart
concerning some, he said, that might have embraced or believed
on another Jesus, who had believed what he called another gospel,
and who had been led by another spirit." What a danger and what
a thing to be dreaded and feared. Because the only Jesus that is
the Savior, that is the Son of God, the only Jesus who has saved
His people from their sins is the one that is set forth by
the prophets and by the apostles and by Christ Himself in the
Scripture. He said, do you believe this?
And I say, believe this, because along with an understanding,
God the Spirit had given him faith, and he didn't have faith
before. He didn't have faith before then.
You say, how do you know that? Because he didn't know anything
really about the object of faith. That's right. You have so many
people who imagine that almost from birth they have been believers
in God, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet this man,
who was evidently of about the same camp, he did not have faith
until he heard of the true Christ. Now, do you imagine he knew some
true things? I am absolutely positive. that
having made this pilgrimage to Jerusalem, having had the scroll
of the Scriptures, and I'm sure more than just the book of Isaiah,
having all these things, he evidently knew some true things. But you can know some true things
and still perish. I try to study as much as I can,
surely not as much as I need to and should, But every commentator
almost that I have ever read, some of whom have written volume
after volume, and in those volumes they said and give evidence of
knowing a lot of true things, but they don't know the truth.
When we read Psalm 29 this morning, you remember where it said, Worship
the Lord in the beauty of holiness? Well, I always think about that. What is beauty? Let's imagine
a beautiful woman. Is it that she simply has beautiful
hair and therefore we call her beauty? No. She may be as ugly
as we used to say as homemade soap otherwise. What is beauty? Beauty is the sum of all the
attributes in harmony with each other. We call one a beauty who
has beautiful hair and beautiful eyes and a beautiful nose and
beautiful mouth, beautiful complexion. She's just a beauty. Why? Because all of her features are
in harmony with each other. And that's the way it is about
worshipping the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Somebody said, well,
God is love. That's true. They may say God
is almighty. That's true. They may say even
God is just. That's true. But tell me about
how all those attributes, in a perfect harmony with each other,
can tell of God, and how can we believe God, who's all these
things, if these attributes are left contradictory to one another? When you find out. The truth. When you find out how all the
attributes of God, all the promises of God, all the statements of
God can come together in a perfect harmony and agreement, what you'll
find is not only the truth, but you'll find Him who is the truth. The Lord Jesus Christ. You see, He believed the truth. He believed the truth about Him
who is the truth. Let me read you what Paul says
in Romans 10. Romans 10 is a very popular chapter
in so far as there's a verse that is quoted quite often. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. You'd think that that verse was
the only one in that chapter and the only one in the book
of God. Let me read you some more. How then shall they call
on him in whom they have not believed? Well, that's an impossibility. And how shall they believe in
him of whom they have not heard? I heard of a Jesus all my life,
pretty much. And I imagined that I preached
a Jesus until God brought the true gospel to me. I did not
believe before I heard of Him that the Bible declares. I heard about this Jesus that
tries a lot, I heard about a Jesus who wants to help you and can't.
I heard about a Jesus who died for everybody and yet most of
them are going to go to hell. I heard about a Jesus who wants
the very best for you and is trying his best to see that you
get it. But I didn't hear about this
one. And how shall they hear without a preacher? Now, I wouldn't
say that somewhere at some time God did not use the Apostle Paul,
what he wrote, what he preached, Christ, what he wrote, what he
preached, to save someone. But I'm telling you this, the
way that we find seemingly so obvious in this text of Scripture,
and the way that could have been avoided should these other ways
be absolutely okay, is this way of God. going out of his way,
you might say, to see that this man had someone go to him and
preach the gospel. You think about this. From old
eternity, from the time that the world began, And from the
time that Philip was born and this other man, the eunuch, was
born, they were what you might say on a collision course with
each other. A God-ordained, a God-accomplished
collision course with each other. That this man might be brought
to the gospel, and this gospel might be brought to him. Where
was it? Very unlikely place. Not in a
synagogue, not in a cathedral, not in a fine building somewhere
with nice soft cushion, not in a place recognized by religion. He had just left the recognized
center of religion. It had left him as empty as it
was. God had purposed to show mercy
on him, and whatever it takes, whatever it takes. He's going
to get the gospel to his elect. He's going to bring him not only
to the gospel and the gospel to him. He says, "...and how
shall they preach except they be sent?" Philip was sent. He didn't know who he was sent
to. may well be he didn't even know where he was actually being
sent to. But whether he did or whether
he didn't, it didn't matter. He was being sent of God with
the message of hope that revealed and declared the object of that
faith that God was going to give this man so that he might embrace
the true Savior. Listen to what Paul writes in
Colossians 1. Writing to these in Colossians,
he says, "...the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof
ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel." Where
did you hear of this hope that's laid up for you in heaven reserved
for you by God Himself? He said, you heard it in the
word of the truth. of the gospel. What is that?
That salvation is of the Lord, from A to Z, and as we have it
set forth in Scripture, in Christ, in the Greek alphabet, from Alpha
to Omega, the beginning and the end. He's everything. He's everything. That it is all of God's grace
free, unmerited, undeserved favor. And that it is all in the Lord
Jesus Christ. The great and worst accusation
that men and women bring against true preachers of the gospel
is that all they ever preach about is Christ. I'll tell you
this, if you ever find anything more You've got too much, which
is really nothing at all. Paul writes to the Thessalonian
church, he says, "...for this cause also we thank God without
ceasing, because when you receive the Word of God, which ye heard
of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is
in truth the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you
that believe." In other words, he had heard this, and he had
heard that, and he'd read this one, no doubt, just like most
all of us are in our pilgrimage in this world. We've read that
one and the other one all. And then one day, if God saves
us, He brings home to our hearts that it's not what men say, what
God says. It's the truth. It's the truth. And when we're brought to believe
it, we're brought to that place that we believe it no matter
what. If man convinces you of something,
of some doctrine or something like that, if a man convinces
you of something, another man can come along and unconvince
you of it. But if God Almighty, if the Spirit
of the Holy One come down, and reveal Christ to you. You remember Saul of Tarsus?
Here he is riding along. He's the biggest religious, self-righteous,
gloating fool in the world. And he's so proud of what he
is, and he's so proud of what he's done, and he's so proud
of what he's not done, and he's so proud of his religion, and
he's so proud of this work that he's on his way to do. He's going
to do something for God. He's going down to Damascus,
and he's going to cast all these Christians, appalling this fellow
named Jesus, he's going to cast them into prison or have them
stoned or beaten or whatever. He's doing something for the
Lord. But the Lord Jesus Christ stops him on that road to Damascus. He stops the fool in his folly. He brings him to an end of himself. He shines as a light which is
always representative of truth. He shines as a light to him,
not only in his eyes, but in the depths of his heart, and
he reveals himself so that Saul is broken down to confess that
whoever it is that stopped him, he is the Lord. Who are you, Lord? I'm Jesus,
whom you persecute. But he didn't stop Saul of Tarsus
like he's done some, and slayed him. He stopped him to show mercy
on him. And this man who is called the
Ethiopian eunuch, he is no less met by Christ than Saul was,
who became Paul, because he was met with a man sent of God to
preach the gospel of Christ to him. You see, as he heard this
message, God made him alive. Now, how do you know He made
him alive? Because he believed. The Lord Jesus Christ, He set
the order right. Here's what we hear in this day,
that faith is a condition of salvation. No, it's not. Faith is the response of the
saved. Everyone, Christ says, that lives
and believes they shall be saved." They have eternal life. We don't believe in order to
get eternal life. We believe because Christ has
given us life. Imagine someone down in the nursery
at the hospital. Here's a woman who's just given
birth to a little baby. Do we say something like this,
we need to make this baby cry so it can have life? No. If that baby has life, it will
cry. It cries because it has life.
We don't believe in order to live. If we believe, it's because
the Spirit of God has made us alive. And we've never been made
alive until He's enabled us to believe the truth, to believe
on Christ and only Christ. And it means that He has also
brought us out of His purpose of grace to actually receive
in time which He always intended for us to have. Or when in Acts
13, He and those other brethren, they were preaching. Here were
the Jews over here and a bunch of other folks and they all,
they just, some of them said, we'll hear you again sometime
on this, or some of them scoffed and mocked at him. But you look
at what it says in verse 48 of Acts 13. It says, but as many
as were ordained unto eternal life believe. The false gospel
has it just the opposite. As many as believe, they'll be
ordained to eternal life. No. As many as were ordained
to eternal life believe. Somebody said, if I believed
that, I'd never preach. I'll tell you that. If I didn't
believe it, I would never preach. Faith is not the cause of salvation. No. Not the cause. It's the consequence
of salvation. It's something like this. We
could say it like this. Those breathing will be accounted
among the living. Is that right? We'll go out into
a mass disaster scene, and we'll have to immediately make a quick
survey of those who can have some help. We could say it like
that. We could say, those breathing
will be counted among the living. And that's what faith is. It's
the breath of God-given spiritual life. Turn over to 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians and the 2nd chapter,
Paul has just got through talking about, or he's just in the midst
of this been talking about, some who, what? Receive not the love. of the truth. They received not
the love of the truth. He said, and for this cause God
shall send them strong delusion that they shall believe a lie,
that they all might be damned who believe not the truth but
had pleasure in unrighteousness. But look at verse 13. we are bound to give thanks always
to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth. Whereunto He called you
by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Is that not the experience of
this unit? I'll tell you this, it's the
experience of every one of God's elect, of every person. They
will be brought to believe the truth as it is in Christ. Turn back over to Ephesians 1.
I'll tell you this verse was an eye-opener to me when the
Lord revealed it to me. Ephesians chapter 1, Paul writing
of this whole experience of grace and tracing it the work of the
Father, the work of the Son, the work of the Spirit, tracing
it from before the foundation of the world right down to this
present hour to these Ephesians who have been brought to believe
on Christ. Verse 13, speaking of Christ,
"...in whom ye also trusted." He has just spoken of God being
the first one to trust in Christ. But he said, "...in whom ye also
trusted after that you heard the word of truth." Not before. Why? Because the true Christ
was not revealed. After that you heard The Word
of Truth. What is the Word of Truth? He defines it. The gospel of
your salvation. Not the gospel of possible salvation,
or offered salvation, or the gospel of how to save yourself.
The gospel of your salvation. Paul writes in another epistle,
and he says, God who hath saved us and called us. You see, that's what the gospel
is. It's the gospel that Christ hath
saved us. That's just what Philip had been
preaching to this eunuch from Isaiah 53. I'm telling you, that's
exactly what he'd been preaching. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows, though we did esteem him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." Philip says,
you were. I mean, Peter says, you were
healed. All we like sheep have gone astray,
and we've turned everyone to his own way. Ah, he says, and
the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Who's that? Who's the all there? Go on. He says in verse 8, He was taken
from prison and from judgment. And who shall declare his generation?
For he was cut off out of the land of the living. Oh, for the
transgression of my people was he stricken." He says, if you
believe, you may be. What did this man say? What was
his confession? I mean, in just that... It wasn't
all that long, I don't imagine, that Philip was with him. But
it was long enough that he taught him the gospel. He said, I believe
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is saying, I believe
that this man Jesus, not long before crucified at Jerusalem,
I heard all about that at Jerusalem, that He is the Christ, the Messiah,
the one that the prophet Daniel said would bring in everlasting
righteousness. the one of whom it was said that
in him all Israel would be saved, the one in whom every blessing
was to be, every peace of God was to be. You see, that's what
that word Christ means. It's Christos, it's the anointed. There were three things anointed,
three people, or rather offices anointed in the Old Testament
that pictured Christ. The prophet was anointed, the
priest was anointed, the king was anointed. Here he is, Christ,
he's the Christ, he's God's prophet, he's the one to reveal God to
men, he's God's priest, he's the one to represent men before
God, he's God's king to rule over us. I bow to him. I like
what it said, what was said by those poor old weak apostles. when after the Lord Jesus had
done so many miracles and fed the multitudes and all those,
and when He began to talk to them about spiritual things,
when He said, except you eat My flesh and drink My blood,
you have no part in Me. Except you by faith are unable
to appropriate Me in all I've done, you have no part in Me.
Until I become your bread, your life, all your salvation, all
of it, You have no part of me." They said, boy, these are hard
sayings. Who can understand them? And they walked away, most of
them. The great majority of them walked
away, and they followed him no more. And here's just a handful
over here left. And our Lord turns to them. He
says, will you also go away? Why aren't you going away? They
said, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life, and we believe. and are sure that you are that
Christ. You're the One. They put all
their eggs, as we say, in one basket. They were like that old
hymn writer, My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood
and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frank, but wholly lean on Jesus, You see, trusting, believing
on Christ is looking to Him and no other, and especially not
anything in us done by us at any time for anything. That's the rest. That's the Sabbath. The Sabbath day represented what
every other thing in that mosaic economy represented, which was
Christ. And we rest in Him, we cease
from our own works as God did from His. But you notice something? Here's a man who has just been
brought to believe on Christ and to know that everything has
been accomplished by Christ. He's been saved from all his
sins in Christ. Well, you say, if you preach
that to him, if that's what Philip preached to him, there's no telling
how he'll live. What's the first thing that stirs
in this heart of faith? It's obedience. I need to be
baptized. Verse 38 says that they went
down into the water, he was baptized, And then it says that they went
up, were come up out of the water, and the Spirit of the Lord caught
away Philip, and the eunuch saw him no more. Well, what will
happen to him now? He'll probably run off again
if he was running around with women down there in Ethiopia,
or if he was a drunk or whatever, he'll just go back. No, he won't. Something's happening in his
heart. He believes God. He'll fall. He'll fail. The Lord
will always pick him back up. He said, if he does this or if
he does that, he said, I'll take the rod of chastisement to him,
but I won't forsake him. Then look at the last part of
verse 39. As he went on his way rejoicing,
he found out for the first time in his whole life what true joy
is. He found out that the kingdom
of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and
joy in the Holy Ghost. He demonstrated that he was a
true Israelite, one of the true circumcision. that Paul says,
we are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, rejoice
in Christ Jesus. You say, well, he did, didn't
he have any troubles the rest of his day? I just imagine his
troubles in one sense had just begun, but none of those troubles
could keep him from rejoicing in Christ Jesus. He says, "...and
have no confidence in the flesh." And though he had never seen
Jesus, when he heard the gospel of Christ and the Spirit of God
enabled him to believe, he could say with Peter, "...whom having
not seen ye love." in whom though now we see him not, yet believing,
ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Someone says,
how can you rejoice in something you can't see? If God reveals
him to you, you will. Because all that he gives this
understanding to, they believe. They believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Father, we pray this day that
you would give us faith that we might trust fully in Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. Give us understanding and enable
us to believe on Him, whom to know is eternal life. Enable
us to turn away from every other hope that we might find that
hope that is reserved in heaven, that is made manifest to us through
the word of the truth, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Save
your people, comfort each and every one of your persecuted
but believing sheep, and give us grace and strength in this
world, wisdom, help. But we pray all and ask each
thing in Christ's name. Amen.