We have no idea how glorious
that day is going to be. Let's open our Bibles together
to Acts chapter 8, Acts chapter 8. In the previous hour, we were
speaking of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. that he
placed his precious blood on that mercy seat, which is not
made with hands of men. And we're reminded of what the
Lord said when he told Aaron to take the blood of the lamb
and put it on the mercy seat. And God said to Aaron, here,
I will meet with you. Here, I will meet with you. We're just saying as a congregation,
a hymn that had a line in it, cover my defenseless head with
the shadow of thy wings. And I was thinking about those
cherubims whose wings extended over the mercy seat and how they
were there to show God's protection of what the Lord Jesus had done
in putting his blood there on that mercy seat. And God saying,
here's where I'll meet with you. We are protected under the shadow
of his wings, secure in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, let not your heart be
troubled. You believe in God? Believe also in me. For in my
Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. He said, I go and prepare a place for you. And if I go
and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive
you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also. When the Lord Jesus Christ ascended
back into glory, The word of God, the living word of God did
not return unto God void. He took with him the names of
those for whom he lived and died. He took with him his own precious
blood and he secured their salvation by the sacrifice of himself once
and for all. And we are protected under the
shadow of his wing. That's where we flee to. We flee
to Christ. We look to his glorious person
and to his finished work. That's the message that Philip
is preaching now to this Ethiopian eunuch. And I want you to notice
we're going to deal with the subject of baptism in the next
few minutes. And, uh, My objective is not
to try to persuade someone to be baptized. It's to encourage
all of us to look in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ and to
understand what this ordinance that God has given us called
baptism has to do with our union with Christ. It's the hope of
our salvation. Rochelle Bolton has asked to
be baptized, and we're going to observe baptism this morning
of this dear sister. And so I hope, Rochelle, this
will be an encouragement to you, and I hope that it'll be a great
encouragement to our whole church. You have your Bibles open to
Acts chapter eight, verse 35, Philip opened his mouth, and
began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus, preached
who he was and what he had accomplished. Obviously, there was much more
that Philip had to say to this eunuch than what we have recorded
in Acts chapter eight, because the eunuch responds by saying,
as they went on their way, Verse 36, they came unto a certain
water, must have been some sort of oasis there in the middle
of the desert. I'm thinking that the eunuch
was probably, as he's hearing the gospel and rejoicing in what
he's hearing, he's wanting to be baptized. And in God's providence, the
Lord leads them to a place where he can be. He doesn't just see
the water and just all of a sudden decide, well, look, here's water.
Why don't I go ahead and get baptized? No, he's wanting to
identify with Christ. as he's listening to the gospel,
and then the Lord provides for him an opportunity. So 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?
You know, the question that I hear most often about baptism is not
what doth hinder me to be baptized, but why do I need to be baptized?
What a difference. Is baptism necessary for salvation? I'm sure that this Ethiopian
had probably been involved in some sort of pagan ritual back
in Ethiopia, and many of those pagan rituals involve some sort
of washing. Why didn't he say, you know,
I went through a ritual in my religion that I grew up in, and
it was kind of similar to baptism. Isn't that sufficient? Those
are the kind of questions that I usually hear when people want
to talk about baptism. Oh, but what a delight it is
when someone says, is there anything that would hinder me to be baptized? I mean, I know I'm a eunuch.
And as a eunuch, I'm powerless. I have no source of life in me. I'm impotent, both physically
and spiritually. Would that be a hindrance to
me? Oh no, that's the very qualification to be baptized. That you're a
powerless sinner, unable to save yourself. Well, you know, I'm
from Ethiopia and that's a dark country. That's what Ethiopia
translated means. It means darkness. And there's
no knowledge of God and I grew up a pagan. Would that hinder me from being
baptized? You see, he's looking for, not for an excuse not to
be baptized, he's looking for any opportunity to identify with
Christ. Oh no. No, Mr. Ethiopian. Coming out of darkness
into his marvelous light is the very qualification for baptism. Well, you know, I'm a Gentile
and I know you Jews refer to Gentiles as dogs. Would that disqualify me from
being baptized? Oh, no. No, being a dog is the
very thing that qualifies you to be baptized. The Lord said
to that Syrophoenician woman, the bread, the children's bread
is not to be given to the dogs. And that Ethiopian said, that
Syrophoenician woman, what she said, she said, truth Lord, it's
all I am is a dog. Would you just scrape a few crumbs
of that bread off of the table for me? I'm down here on the
ground, I'm just a dog. Remember what Mephibosheth said
when David fetched him and brought him back to the palace? And David said, oh, Mephibosheth,
Mephibosheth. And what did Mephibosheth say?
Oh, what would the king have to do with such a dead dog as
I? Oh, no, Mr. Ethiopia. The fact
that you're a eunuch, the fact that you're from Ethiopia, the
fact that you're a Gentile dog is the very thing that qualifies
you to be baptized. because it means that you have
nothing in yourself to offer God. You're completely dependent
upon the one I just preached to you to save you, to do all
the saving. You know, this Ethiopian, my
thought, you know, I came all the way up here from Ethiopia
and I thought I was going to worship Jehovah, but it wasn't
really anything in Jerusalem for me, except that I did get
a copy of the scriptures. And this is the first time in
my whole life that I've ever read the Bible. And I don't even really
understand Hebrew very well. Would my lack of understanding
of the Bible hinder me from being baptized? What would Philip have said?
Oh, no. No, if you know who Christ is
and you know what he's done, you know the Bible. You know
the Bible. He is the sum and substance of
the Bible. He is the author of the scripture
and he is the subject of the scripture. He's everything in
the word of God. The volume of the book is written
of him. If you believe what I just told
you about the son of God, there may be a lot of other things
in the Bible you don't understand, but that doesn't disqualify you.
Oh no. No, that doesn't hinder you.
You know, I thought maybe this Ethiopian Philip had seen the
Lord Jesus in the flesh, handled him. Peter put it like this. He said, we did not bring to
you cunningly devised fables. We handled the word of God. And
we saw him when the veil of his humanity was taken away on the
Mount of Transfiguration, and the radiance of his deity shined
forth like the noonday sun, and we were forced to the ground.
We saw him is what Peter said. Peter, James, and John, you remember,
were up there. And they heard, audibly, they heard the voice
of God say, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. And the Ethiopian might have
thought, you know, you actually saw the son of God. You handled
him. You heard him speak. You sat
at his side. You saw his miracles. I've never
had an experience like that. Does that disqualify me from
being baptized? Does that hinder me because I've
not had the kind of experience that you've had? What did Philip say? Oh no. No, we have a more sure word
of prophecy than our experience is. We've got the word of God
that reveals the glory of Christ. And I just preached to you from
Isaiah 53, the clearest revelation of Christ and all of scripture. If you believe on him with all
of your heart, thou mayest. The only hindrance for baptism
is unbelief. That's it. Your knowledge, your experience,
your pedigree, whatever else you might feel like as a hindrance
to you, look at our text. 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 notice this Ethiopian didn't
say, I believe I'm saved. I believe God's done a work of
grace in my heart. I feel something different, ain't
ya? Or I've had this experience,
or I've got this or that, or I've done this. No, he didn't
say any of that. If thou believest with all thine heart. You see, faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, though it often wavers and is mixed with unbelief always,
we believe, Lord, help thou mine unbelief. We, our faith is so
fraught with our failures and our sin. And yet every child
of God can say with that Ethiopian eunuch, if there's anything that
I believe, if I can trust my heart in anything that I believe,
I know that that one you just preached to me is the son of
God. He's the Savior of sinners. And
if I'm going to be saved, if I'm going to be saved, I'm gonna
have to have Him stand in my stead before God. I'm gonna have
to have Him place His blood on the mercy seat for me. I'm gonna
have to be hid under the shadow of His wings. I'm gonna have
to have Him to open the eyes of my understanding. I'm gonna
have to have His righteousness I have no righteousness outside
of you. If I'm going to be saved, he's going to have to be all
my righteousness before God. That's what he's saying. That's
what this Ethiopian saying. He's saying, he was a wealthy
man. As all of us are outside of Christ
in the wealth of our own righteousness, as we saw last week. That's why the Lord said, except
your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and the Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.
You've got to have a righteousness that far exceeds those religious
men that seem so upstanding and moral and pious all the time. You've got to have a righteousness
that exceeds their righteousness. What righteousness is that? If
I'm going to stand in the presence of a holy God, I'm going to have
to have the Lord Jesus Christ's righteousness. He's going to
have to be all my righteousness before God if I'm going to be
saved. Peter put it like this, you are
not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver and gold
from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers,
but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without spot. and without blemish. If I'm going
to be redeemed, the Lord Jesus Christ is going to have to pay
my redemption price. He's going to have to offer his
blood on the mercy seat as a covering for my sin. That's what this
Ethiopian is saying, I believe. Moses wasn't able to bring the
children of Israel into the promised land. Why? Because Moses is a
picture of the law. The law can't save a man. Going
to the law to try to be saved is like going to the doctor and
saying, you know, let's do some more CAT scans and some more
biopsies in hopes that it will cure my cancer. The radiation
from the CAT scans and the probing of the biopsy is only gonna aggravate
your cancer. You see, those things are diagnostic. They're not curative, and so
it is with the law. The law is not curative, it's
diagnostic. By the knowledge of the law is
sin revealed. Now, I did not know I was a sinner
until the law came. And so, The law can't save us,
and yet men go back to the law. They think, well, I'll just do
better. I'll be more obedient. I'll be more faithful, and God
will reward me with salvation. And all you're doing is aggravating. You're adding to your sin, because
the worst sin of all is self-righteousness. The worst sin of all is robbing
Christ of His glory and salvation and taking His glory to yourself,
thinking, oh, I can do this. Moses couldn't bring the children
of Israel across the Jordan into the promised land. And the law
can't bring you or me into fellowship with God. Joshua had to do that. And Joshua's name means exactly
the same thing as Jesus. What did this Ethiopian say?
I believe that Jesus What the Lord told Joseph, you shall call
his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins. There's
our Savior. Who were the only two left in
the entire adult tribe of Israel who had left Egypt that made
it into the promised land? Only two. Joshua? That's the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the one that divided the
waters at the Jordan River and Caleb. And what's Caleb's name
mean? A faithful dog. And there's his
church. Moses can't bring us into the
promised land. Only Christ, only Jesus can do
that. Only Joshua can do that. He's
the only one that has the ability to deliver us of our sin. and
bring us into glory. That's why he said, I go and
prepare a place for you. And I will come again and receive
you unto myself. I put my blood on that mercy
seat. Revelation chapter five, verse
nine says thou was slain and hast redeemed us with thy blood. With thy blood. Oh, it's redeeming
blood. It's sanctifying blood. It's
justifying blood. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission of sins. You and I are completely dependent
upon the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, offered not to
us, but to the Father. The Father saw that Let's go
back to Isaiah chapter, this is where Philip is preaching
from. Let's go back to Isaiah chapter
53. Verse one, who hath believed
our report? Who hath believed our report?
And the answer to that question is not really a question, it's
an answer. The one to whom the arm of the
Lord has been revealed, the Lord Jesus Christ is the strong right
arm of God and he has to be revealed. The spirit of God has to reveal
him to our hearts. And when he's revealed, we believe. Now, obviously the spirit of
God had revealed to this Ethiopian eunuch. And he believed. He said, I believe
that Jesus Christ is the son of God. If I'm going to be saved, he's
going to have to do it. His strong right arm is going
to have to be my redeemer. For he shall grow up before him.
Now, the first he is Christ. The second him is God. The Lord
Jesus Christ grew up before God as a tender plant and as a root
out of dire gown. He hath no form nor comeliness,
and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire
him. The natural man has no interest in Christ. You see, God has to
give us a heart of faith. There's no form or comeliness
in him. There's no beauty in him. We
have no desire for him. He is despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it
were, our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not. We esteemed ourselves. We don't esteem Christ unless
the Lord gives us the heart of faith to esteem Christ. Surely,
Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet
we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he
was wounded for our transgressions and was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him. And by his stripes,
we were healed. By his stripes, we are healed. We are healed. All of sin's been
put away. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. That's
what we are, wayward sheep. There is a way that seems right
unto man and the end that way leads to death. What's the way
that seems right unto man? Just to go our own way, to work
our way to heaven. He was taken from prison and
from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he's
cut off off the land of the living, for the transgression of my people
was he stricken. And he made his grave with the
wicked and with the rich in his death, because he had done no
violence, neither was any deceit found in his mouth yet. Here's
the Lord Jesus Christ as the lamb, slain before the foundation
of the world, the lamb of God, bearing the sins of his people
on Calvary's cross. Notice he didn't say bore all
the sins of all men, he bore the sins of his people, of his
people. God saw what he did and it pleased
the Lord to bruise him for he had put him to grief when he
shall make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his seed
and shall prolong his days and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand the father will see the result of what the
Lord Jesus did in satisfying the demands of God's justice
and he sees his church which is his seed. And the Father shall
see, verse 11, the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. Satisfied. Here's the question,
brethren. At Ethiopian eunuch, after hearing
this passage preached about the Lord Jesus Christ, came to this
conclusion. I'm satisfied. with the one that
God's satisfied with. I don't want to add anything
to him or take anything away from him. He is all and he's
in all and if he doesn't do all the saving I have no hope of
salvation. I believe that he bore the sins
of his people. Now notice, he didn't say I believe
he bore my sins. Here's what faith is. Faith is
not having absolute confidence that the Lord Jesus Christ bore
all of your sins. Faith is having confidence that
the only hope that you have of your sins being taken away is
that he did bear them. I've got no place else to go
with my sin problem than to the Lord Jesus Christ. And if he
didn't bear them away, then I've got no hope of salvation, I believe. Jesus. For he shall save his
people. I believe he was successful in
saving his people. And I believe the only hope I
have of being one of his people is to believe that he is successful.
He's the Christ. Notice what this Ethiopian said.
I believe that Jesus Christ. I believe that he's the anointed
one. I believe that he's the Messiah. I believe that God sent
him. We knew a man in another city
years ago who was a preacher, and he died this past week. And
he was in his late 80s, I think, and preached all his life. False
prophet is what he was. But in his obituary, they published
the passage of scripture that he believed was his call of life. Turn with me to Isaiah chapter
61. This was the passage that he often quoted and that he chose
as his call to life. The Spirit of the Lord God is
upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings
unto the meek. He has sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening
of prison to them that are bound. The Lord Jesus Christ quoted
that passage in Luke chapter 4 when he went back to Nazareth,
his hometown, and began his public ministry by publicly declaring
himself to be the fulfillment of this prophecy. When he stood
up and read this passage of scripture, they wondered at the The gracious words which he spake,
and he said to them, this day, this prophecy has been fulfilled
in thy sight. He's the anointed one. He's the
anointed one. He came with the full power of
the spirit of God, so that there was no way that he could fail.
Isaiah chapter 42, you've got your Bibles open, Isaiah 61,
turn back just a few pages to Isaiah chapter 42. Verse one, behold my servant
whom I uphold, mine elect and whom my soul delighteth. This
is God speaking of Christ. I have put my spirit upon him
and he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not
cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.
The Lord Jesus Christ is not looking for a following. He's
not going around begging men to let him into their hearts,
pleading with men to let him have his way, and I wanna save
you, but won't you let me? No, no. Look at the next verse. A bruised
reed shall he not break, and a smoking flax shall he not quench.
Now there's the sinner. Lord, that's me, I'm just a bruised
reed and a smoking flax. Lord, don't put me out. He shall
bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail, nor be discouraged
till he has set judgment in the earth and the isles shall wait
for his law. Even that woman at the well,
she was only half Jew and she only had the first five books
of the Bible. The Samaritans only believed in the books of
Moses. And yet she knew from those five books that God had
promised to send a Messiah. And what would be the result
of the Messiah coming? After the Lord, you remember
the Lord said, you know, He, she said, I know that you're,
you know, I perceive that you're a prophet. And, and then she
goes on to say, she said, she, she said, I know that when
Messiah comes, he will lead us into all truth. Even that, even
that woman at the well knew that when Messiah came, that he was
going to make everything right. and that all Israel was going
to be saved. All Israel. Romans chapter 11
makes it absolutely clear that the Lord Jesus Christ is that
Messiah and not one single member of spiritual Israel can possibly
be saved. Why? Because he's the fulfillment
of that promise that was made all the way back in the garden
and all the way through the scriptures. Serpent is going to bruise the
heel of the man of God, and he's going to crush the head of the
serpent. The seed of the woman was not
Cain. When Eve gave birth to Cain,
she said, The man. She thought that Cain was the
fulfillment of that promise that God had made to bring the seed
of the woman to crush the head of the serpent. No, Cain wasn't
the man. He was a murderer. No, that seed
of the woman was the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the Messiah. He
is the Messiah. He's the Christ. God saw the
travail of his soul and God was satisfied. God sent him to save
his people. You see, people use the name
Jesus Christ all the time and they don't even believe what
his name means. Don, you read from Exodus about
the name of God. His name is a picture of his
character and his nature. When this Ethiopian said, I believe
that Jesus the successful savior of sinners, the deliverer of
his people, the one that you just preached to me from Isaiah
53, who bore our iniquities. And when God saw the travail
of his soul, that God was satisfied, I believe that he is the son
of God. He's the sovereign, omnipotent
son of God. And Philip stopped the chariot
and they got down and he baptized him. Let's go back to our text. Look at that. In verse 38, 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. Baptism is not a complicated
thing, and it's not something that you have to achieve
a certain level of spiritual maturity before you qualify for
it. Baptism is the very first step
of obedience that a believer takes in following after Christ. That's all it is. It's identifying with the death,
burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ as the only
hope of your salvation. It's saying that his life is
my life, his death is my death, his resurrection is my resurrection,
his ascension into glory is my ascension into glory. Christ,
who is my life, is my hope of glory. And all the hope of my
salvation is bound up in who he is and what he accomplished. The Lord has commanded us to
teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I've commanded you and lo, I'm with you even
until the end of the earth. Notice that baptism is the first
thing. Baptism is the first thing. So much. growth to be done and
things to be learned after baptism, but baptism is us is the believer
saying, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of a living
God. And if I'm going to be saved,
he's going to have to save me. Mark chapter 16, verse 16 says,
he's that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. So now wait a
minute, preacher. I'm just read you a passage of
scripture. That's all I did. Are you saying the baptism is
required for salvation? No. You know, God has written
his word in such a way as to give those who don't believe
it enough rope to hang themselves. Men will make a work out of baptism. Nevertheless, God makes you. I began this message by saying
I'm not trying to persuade someone to be baptized. I want you to
believe on Christ because I know that if you believe on Christ,
you won't be baptized. You'll want to identify with
him. You see, to say that you believe on Christ but not want
to identify, what did the Lord say? He said, if you confess
me before men, I'll confess you before my father, which is in
heaven. But if you deny me before men, I'll deny you before my
father. You suppose that thief on the
cross would have been baptized had he had an opportunity to
be baptized? If that thief on the cross had
said, what doth hinder me to be baptized? Well, the answer
to that's pretty obvious. No. Turn with me to Colossians chapter
two. Verse nine, for in him, in the
Lord Jesus Christ, dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. That's what it means to believe
that Jesus is the Son of God, that he is the fullness of deity
in the body of a man. And you are complete in him. If we are in Him, then we are
complete. Everything that God requires
of you and me, the Lord Jesus Christ presents it. You are complete in Him, which
is the head of all principalities and power. There He is. There's
the Son of God. God's given Him preeminence.
He reigns over the living and over the dead. He's God. And
He is the successful Savior of His people, in whom also you
are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands and putting
off the body of sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.
Here's the work of the Spirit in the heart of God, giving us
the faith to believe on Christ. It's the circumcision of the
heart. Lord, I've got nothing but flesh. I've got nothing but
sin. I've got to have Christ. Look at verse 12, buried with
him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with him through
faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the
dead. And you, being dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision
of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven
you. trespasses. I've got to be found in Christ. Romans chapter 6 verse 3 says
buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk a new life
in Christ Jesus. Baptism is the new believer just
like this Ethiopian eunuch saying Is there anything that hinders
me? I want to be baptized. I've been
thinking about this for the last two hours while we've been going
through the desert, looking everywhere for water. You've been preaching
to me. I want to be baptized. Is there
anything to hinder me? Do you believe? Because that's
the only hindrance, is not believing that Jesus is the Christ, the
son of the living God. That's the only hindrance. Oh
no, I believe that. I believe everything you just
preached to me." And they stopped the chariot
and they went down into the water, both of them, and he baptized
him. He publicly professed his faith
by demonstrating physically his hope of being found in Christ. Our merciful heavenly Father,
we thankful for your word and we ask Lord that you would bless
it. To our hearing ears. We prayed in Christ's name for
his sake. Amen. The time 190 190. Let's stand together. Yeah, we'll
stand together. We'll stand together.