Thank you, Adam. That was a great
blessing. For you are dead, and your life
is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory. We are crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, we live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me, the life that I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son
of God, who loved me and died for me. That was the gospel in
that hymn. Adam, thank you. Let's open our
Bibles together to the eighth chapter of Acts. The eighth chapter
of Acts. I've titled this message, A Pattern
of Salvation. I know that the Apostle Paul
refers to his salvation as a pattern for every believer. We're going to look at what the
Lord did for this Ethiopian eunuch. And by God's grace and by the
power of his spirit, we will find ourselves identifying with
the experience of this Ethiopian eunuch. I can remember as a child,
my mother would by fabric and lay it out on the floor in the
living room. And then she would dig these little patterns, real
thin paper patterns and pin them to the fabric and then cuddle
on the dotted lines. And when she was finished, the
fabric looked just like the pattern. I pray that the Lord will pin
us down and that he will show us that what he did for this
Ethiopian eunuch is a pattern. for all that he intends to save. The Lord tells us in Luke chapter
19 that the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was
lost. We have the salvation of one
lost sinner. On a dusty road in a desert called
Gaza, and the Lord sent a preacher to deliver the gospel to him.
You have your Bibles open. We've been studying the book
of Acts and we saw, I think it was last Sunday, where Philip
went to Samaria And the Lord sent his spirit in power, and
there was a great revival. There was great joy in the city.
Many believed. The apostles came down, you remember,
from Jerusalem and blessed them with the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
And Philip is going from town to town in Samaria preaching
the gospel and the Lord's blessing. And then all of a sudden, the
Holy Spirit tells Philip, go down to Gaza. And he takes, contrary
to what you would think, would be our plan, a man who
is having success in preaching the gospel with many converts
and sends him down into the desert to speak to one person, one person. We'll begin reading at verse
25. 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. And the angel
of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go towards
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, a eunuch of great authority under Candace,
queen of Ethiopia, who had the charge of all her treasure and
had come to Jerusalem for to worship, was returning and sitting
in his chariot, reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit
said unto Philip, Go now, and join thyself to this chariot. Philip ran thither to him, and
heard him read of the prophet Isaiah, and said, Understandest
thou 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 sheep to the slaughter
and as a lamb was done before his shearer, so opened he not
his mouth. This of course is a quote from
Isaiah chapter 53 verses 7 and 8. And in his humiliation, his
judgment was taken away. 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. And as they went on their way,
they came into 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 then 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. But Philip was found at Azotus
and passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came
to Caesarea. The first thing we see in this
story is the value that our God puts on one's soul. As I said, it wouldn't have been
me to leave a great revival and go down into a desert and try
to preach to one person. As the Lord said to the disciples
when he went through Samaria, I must needs be go through Samaria. And the Lord had one woman there
at the well that he was going to preach to. Our Lord said,
I will leave the 99 and I will go and get the one lost sheep. wandering out there by himself. What love, what grace, what mercy
the Lord has towards each one of his children. The Lord tells those people in
Nazareth in Luke chapter 4 about what happened in the days of
Elijah when there were many prophets, there were many lepers in Israel
but the Lord showed mercy on none except for Naaman. That
one lonely soul up there in Syria chose him out and had mercy upon
him and got the gospel to him. And there were many widows in
the days of Elisha the prophet But only that widow of Sarepta
did the Lord show mercy on. And he chooses one and leaves
another. What great perseverance and what
great mercy the Lord has towards each one of his elect people,
each one of his lost sheep. I think about the story of Onesimus
who rebelled against his owner Philemon and ran away. He was a runaway slave. And he
went to the big city of Rome and tried to hide out in the
crowds. And the Lord had his hand on
Onesimus. Onesimus had heard the church
met in Philemon's house. And Onesimus as a slave in that
home had listened to the gospel many times, but he wanted part
of it. He won't eat part of it. I'll go hide out in the big city.
And in God's providence, Onesimus runs into Paul, the apostle Paul. Maybe they were in prison together.
Maybe they were sharing a prison cell. I don't know. Paul was
in prison. Onesimus was supposed to run away. So, you know, either
way, the Lord made sure that Onesimus heard the gospel and
believed the gospel. And Paul, you remember, sent
him back to his master Philemon. And we have that glorious story
and picture of the gospel in the book of Philemon as a result
of that work of grace for one lost soul. The Lord's going to
pursue his sheep. He's going to find every one
of them. And contrary to what we think
success is for the Lord. Success is not counted in numbers.
It's counted in individuals. And, you know, to love the story
of when the Lord was preaching right after the feeding of the
5,000, I mean, the people were thronging him and he gets in
a boat and travels across the Sea of Galilee and ministers
to one, demon possessed man in the gatherings, preaches the
gospel to reveals himself to him, delivers him from his sin
and leaves and comes back. One lost soul. Zachariah chapter four, verse
10 says, don't despise the day of small things. God doesn't measure success the
same way we do. What's smaller than a babe in
a manger, born to a poor woman and man in an obscure village
and in a country that the world despised? What's smaller than
that? And yet, look what God does with
the day of small things. The Lord doesn't measure success
in numbers. You remember when David took
a census of his army And the Lord was offended by that. What
was David doing? David was flexing his own muscles.
David was measuring his success in numbers. And the Lord sent
a plague. And 70,000 of those men that
he numbered were killed in three days as a result of that plague. Yeah, that's what we see in the
religious world, don't we? We see men counting numbers to
measure their success. having great influence in this
world, and yet no evidence of God's blessing. Everything's
measured by popularity, everything's measured by power, by material
wealth, and the influence that they have in the world, and yet
they have no influence with God. Here our Lord sends this lone
preacher, to go into the desert to preach the gospel to one lost
sheep. Nothing's changed. This is his
pattern. This is his pattern. And we long
for the Lord to save people and rejoice when he does. But if
he does, he's gonna save them one at a time. You know, what
we read in history about revivals, you know, I doubt seriously that they were
true revivals. You know, read about the things
in this country, in this world, those things that happened back
during the 17th and 18th century and we call the Great Awakening
where you know throngs of people were saved and the things we
call we we look at back at the reformation and we think well
those were great revived I don't know I don't know whether those
were any any more genuine than the things that men call revivals
today my point is that when the Lord saves his sheep he saves
them one at a time that means you are one and I am one That's his pattern of salvation. Notice in our text in verse 27,
and he arose and went. God's preachers go where they're
called. And behold, a man. What do we know about this Ethiopian
eunuch other than the fact that the Lord singled him out because
he was obviously one of God's chosen people. He was one of
God's elect. He was chosen in Christ and the
covenant of grace before the foundation of the world. And
the Lord said, I'm not gonna lose one of my sheep. I know
where each one of them are and I'm gonna get the gospel to every
one of them, one way or the other. The second thing we know about
him is that he is described in nature as a man. That's what you and I are. We're
mere men. And the scripture says that man
at his very best state is altogether vanity. Men pride themselves
in their accomplishments. See, just like in religion, they
pride themselves in their numbers and in their successes. But here's
the truth. When God singles out an individual,
he reveals to that person that he's nothing but a man. Nothing
but a man. David put it like this in the
Psalms. He said, Lord, make me to know mine end and the measure
of my days. what it is, that I may know how
frail I am. How frail are we? We're pretty
frail. Men pride themselves in flexing
their muscles and we're in the midst of a pandemic where something
microscopic, something invisible is sickening people and killing
people. And if we should learn anything
from this, it is how frail we are. David said, help me to number
my day, show me how weak I am. He goes on to say, all flesh
is as grass and the glory of man as the flower of the field. The grass withereth and the flower
fadeth away, but the word of the Lord endureth forever. You
and I are just men, that's all we are. or men. When the Lord
told the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 40, he said, comfort
ye, comfort ye my people. Speak ye comfortably unto Jerusalem
and tell them that their warfare is accomplished. And Isaiah said,
Lord, where do I begin this? How do I introduce this message? And the Lord said, tell them
their grass. Just tell them their grass. Remind them how frail
they are. Remind them how powerless they
are. Remind them that they are creatures
in the hand of God and that they are mere, mere men. Job put it like this in Job 14.
He said, man that is born of woman is a few days and full
of trouble. man that is more this this Ethiopian
eunuch was a man. You know I mentioned I mentioned
the uh... the leper ne'eman and he was
uh... powerful just like this ethiopian
was you know he was a man of great power and great wealth
and and he he he became upset when uh... the prophet told him
to just bathe in the river he said we've got better rivers
back in samaria i thought the prophet would come out and meet
me and say something great and bow to me and do some great act
before me Naaman didn't know. He thought he was a powerful
man who happened to have leprosy. When the truth is that he was
a leper who just happened to be a man of power in this world. What did the Lord say to Pilate,
who believed himself to have the power? Do you not know? You're not going to answer me.
You're not going to respond to me. You're not going to bow to
me. Don't you know I have the power to crucify you or the power
to release you? And what did the Lord say? You're
a man. You're a man. You have no power
at all except that which is given to you from heaven. And the Lord
said, all power has been given unto me in heaven and in earth. If he possesses all powers, it's
because you and I have no power. We're men. That's the pattern. God saves sinners who are mere
men born after The likeness or born in the likeness
of sinful flesh. Turn with me to Job chapter 15.
Job 15. Look at verse 14. What is man that he should be
clean and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous. Behold, he putth no trust in
his saints. Yay, the heavens are not clear
in his sight. The moon, the stars, the planets
are not clean in his sight. How much more abominable and
filthy is man which drinketh iniquity like water. And that's
what God says about man. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
as a man, the son of man, born of a woman, born under the law
to redeem them who are cursed by the law. made flesh and dwelt
among us." Here we have our need of the God-man to stand in our
stead. There is one God and one mediator
between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus. This man can't
save himself. I'm in need of the Lord Jesus
Christ as the God-man to stand in my stead, be God's perfect
man on my behalf. That's who he is. He's man's
perfect God, and he's God's perfect man. And he's the only man who's
able to take one hand and touch God without being destroyed,
and take his other hand and touch man without being defiled. The
Lord Jesus bore our sins as our sin bearer, as our mediator,
as our substitute, as our surety. that men, that men, all of his
men would be saved. All of his people will be. So
we see the nature of this Ethiopian eunuch. We see something about
the purpose of God in in leaving the 99 and going out
into the desert and getting that one lost sheep and that the Lord's
gonna save everyone that he chose. Everyone, not one of them's gonna
be lost. We see something of the nature
of those whom he saves and that they are all mere men. That's all we are. Go back with
me to our text in Acts chapter eight. You and I live in a land of spiritual
darkness. And if the Lord doesn't shine
the light of the gospel in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ,
we will have no light. In him is light, or life, and
the life was the light of man. He is the light of the world.
And without him shining his light, we'll never know the truth about
who we are. We'll never know the truth about
who God is. We'll never know the truth about how it is that
God's pleased to save sinful men. That's what he does. He takes us out of a land of
darkness. We know something about the nature
of this man and that he's a mere man. We know something about
where he's from. He's from the same place you
and I are from, Ethiopia. Translated means black or darkness. And the scripture says, the earth
was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of
the deep. That's in creation in Genesis
chapter one. And the Lord said, let there
be light. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
light. Then you see that physical creation is a type, it's a picture,
it's an allegory of the spiritual new creation. We're without form
and void. Darkness is upon the face of
the deep. And if God doesn't say, let there
be light, there will be no light. That's where we're from. He commanded the light to shine
out of darkness. And you go back to Genesis chapter
one, the moon, the suns, the sun, the stars, they weren't
made until day four. But the first thing that God
says, let there be light. That wasn't the light that was
reflected from the stars and the sun and the moon. That's
Christ. He's that light. He's that light. And just as Philip preached unto
him Jesus, the light of the world, here's the pattern where God
takes men from Ethiopia, men from Ethiopia, men who are by
nature living in darkness. And he commands the light to
shine out of darkness. And he has shined in our hearts
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord came to give sight to
the blind, did he not? What's darker than those who
are blind? And yet that's what we are by
nature. We're Ethiopians by nature. We live in darkness. We're blind. When the Lord spoke of himself
as coming to cure the blind and then proved his power by actually
giving sight to the blind, The Pharisees, the self-righteous
Pharisees said, are you suggesting that we're blind? The Lord said, if you were, if
you were, you could see. But because you say you can see,
therefore your sins remain. There's no greater blindness.
There's no greater darkness. There's no person more living
in the heart of Ethiopia than that one who thinks he can see
when he can't. Lord, open my eyes. Blind Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus, what would you have
me to do for you? Oh, Lord, that I might see. That's our constant
prayer, isn't it? Lord, we look through a glass
dimly now. It seems so distorted. Lord,
clarify the gospel for me once again. Reveal the glory of Christ
to me once again. Show me my need and my dependence. Show me, remind me that I'm a
man from Ethiopia. Turn me to Acts chapter 26. Acts
chapter 26. Paul is recounting his call from
God to Agrippa, this Roman commander and the one who had
arrested him was going to send him to Rome. And he's telling
him about how the Lord had called him out of darkness into his
marvelous light and how he was on a road to Damascus and how
the light shined out of heaven and the voice of God spoke. And
he goes on to say, when it pleased God, when it pleased God who
separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace
to reveal Christ in me. He did this. So why did he call
me out? Well, look at what Paul says
to Agrippa in verse 18. Well, verse 17. delivering thee
from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom now I send
thee to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light
and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness
of sins and the inheritance among them which are sanctified by
faith which is in me. And that's what the Lord told
Paul. He said, I'm gonna send you to
the Gentiles to preach the gospel, to turn them from darkness to
light, that they might have their sins forgiven. That's what you
and I are in need of. Just as we saw in the first hour
this morning, all of the world is represented by Babylon. So
all of the world is represented by where this man was from, Ethiopia. And if the Lord doesn't shine
the light of the gospel, we'll live in darkness. We'll live
not knowing God and not having any hope in this world or any
hope for the next in the forgiveness of our sins. Go back with me to our text in
Acts chapter eight. And he rose, verse 27, and went
and behold a man Here's the pattern. How God saves
every one of his sheep. You and I are mere men. And we
are from Ethiopia. And we are eunuchs. Eunuchs. What is a eunuch? It's
a emasculated man. An impotent man. A man who had no power to produce
life, that's who we are. We're just eunuchs. When we were yet without strength,
without strength, Christ died for the ungodly. You and I have
no strength in ourselves. We can't save ourselves. We can't
put away our own sin. We can't obligate God. We can't make a decision or perform
a work. We're without strength. We're
eunuchs. It is not of him that willeth.
It's not by our will. It's not of him that runneth.
It's of God that showeth mercy. He's the one who has the power
to save. Salvation's of the Lord. None
of our works are gonna be weighty enough or sufficient to put away
one of our sins. Only the work that he did on
Calvary's cross, making himself a sacrifice to his father for
our sins will be sufficient to put away our sin. Not by might, nor by power, Not
by my might, not by my power, not by my words, not by my persuasion,
but by my spirit, saith the Lord. It's the work of the spirit of
God that has to open the eyes of our understanding. It's the
work of the spirit of God that has to take out the heart of
stone and put in a heart of flesh. It's the work of the spirit of
God that can give understanding. We can't impart that. It's the work of the Spirit of
God that has to give faith. You see, I'm impotent. You're
impotent. We're all without power. We're
all a bunch of eunuchs. Lord, you're going to have to
be the one to give life. Whatever power we have is only
among men. It's not before God. It's not
before God. When we were yet without strength,
Christ died for the ungodly. I've told you what that word
ungodly means. You can look it up. It means it's the word worship
with the alpha in front of it. That's what the word ungodly
means. It's the word worship with the alpha in front of it.
Just like in the English language, when you put the A in front of
a word, it reverses the meaning of that word. Completely reverse
it. Who are the ungodly? Those who
left to themselves have no way to worship God. They are powerless
to worship God. Men talk about, you know, we
don't invite people, we don't invite unbelievers to come worship
with us. We don't do that. They're not
capable. Unless the Lord makes them godly,
unless the Lord does a work of grace in their heart, they can't
worship God. Come, hear a man that told me
everything I ever did. Come, listen to the gospel. Come,
join us. But it wouldn't be right for
us to say to our unbelieving friends and family members, come
worship with us. Only those who have been translated
from darkness to light have the ability to worship God. So his condition is the same
as our condition. His nature is the same as our
nature. Where he's from is the same as where we're from. His
spiritual condition, being a eunuch, being powerless to worship God
is the same as ours. What about his position in this
world? Well, look what he says in verse
37. And he rose and went and behold
a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace,
queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure
and had come to Jerusalem to worship. This man was very wealthy in terms of material wealth. And
here we find the state of everyone outside of Christ, not with material
wealth, but we're wealthy in our own righteousness. You remember
the rich young ruler? Scripture says he went away sad
for he had much possessions. What was the problem with the
rich young ruler? He was self-righteous is what his problem was. All
these things I've done from my youth. I've kept the law. No, you haven't. You never kept
the law. But all of the, you see, everyone
outside of Christ believes they've got some righteousness. They've
got something they can offer God. They've got something they
can do. Surely, surely there's a prayer
I can pray. Surely there's a work I can perform. And all the unrighteous believe
themselves to be righteous. They do. And all the truly righteous
believe themselves to be unrighteous. This man was wealthy. The disciples ask after that
rich young ruler walked away, Lord, the Lord said, it's easier
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for
a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. There's nothing,
nothing evil about material wealth. There's nothing virtuous about
poverty. It's not what he's talking about
here. He's talking about men putting their hope in the wealth
of their own righteousness. For the Lord, when the disciples
said, who then can be saved, what did the Lord say? With man,
it is impossible. But with God, all things are
possible. All things are possible. God
can strip a man of his righteousness. God can make him dependent upon
the Lord Jesus Christ for all the hope of his salvation, but
only God can do it. It is impossible to get a camel
through the eye of a needle, and it is impossible for one
who is trusting in their own righteousness to enter into the
kingdom of God. The Lord has to take us from
that land of darkness, a mere man who is at his very best state
altogether vanity, and he has to strip us naked. He has to
take away all the hopes that we had in ourselves or in anything
else for salvation. You know, the religious world
presents salvation as a choice. It's not a choice. A choice is
when you have two or more options. That's what a choice is. And
anytime you can choose between Christ and anything else, you
will choose something else. Coming to Christ is when God
shuts you up to only one option. Hey, we didn't call it an option.
That's a bad choice of words. I realize that. But you've got
no place else to go. What did the disciples say when
the Lord invited them to go? Aren't you going to go too? Well,
the disciple of Peter said, Lord, where are we going to go? Where
are we going to go? You have shut us up to yourself.
You alone have the words of eternal life. We know and are sure that
thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. We don't have
any place else to go. If you've got someplace else
to go to find forgiveness for your sin, you will go there.
The only time a person comes to Christ is when they are made
to come to Christ. They are stripped naked by the
preaching of the gospel. They are left without any hope
outside of Christ. Turn me to Revelation chapter
three, Revelation chapter three, the Lord speaking to the church,
and the last of the seven churches is the church at Laodicea. And
in Revelation chapter three, verse 14, unto the angel of the
church of Laodicea write, these things saith he, amen, the faithful
and true witness, the beginning of creation of God. Here's the Lord Jesus Christ
speaking to his church. He's the creator and sustainer
of all life, both physical and spiritual. There's no spiritual
life outside of Christ. There's no physical life outside
of Christ. He created all things for his glory. And look what
he says in verse 15. I know thy works that thou art
neither cold nor hot. I would that thou were cold or
hot. What are they doing? They're talking out of both sides
of their mouth. They're saying, well, yes, salvation's by grace,
but look at us. Look what we've done. Look what
we've got. They're playing the hypocrite.
They're doing what religious people do today. They're competing
with one another to see who's more spiritual and who's more
righteous. Instead of esteeming one another
more highly themselves and believing themselves to be the chief of
all sinners, they play the hypocrite. And that's what was happening
in Laodicea. They were promoting themselves. Look how good I am.
Look at what I've achieved. Look what I've done. And here's
what the Lord says. So because, verse 16, thou art
lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of
my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with
goods and have need of nothing and knoweth not that thou art
wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. You see,
this Ethiopian eunuch was wealthy. materially, but like every unbeliever,
he was also wealthy in his own righteousness. And he had to
be stripped naked of that. He had to be shown who Christ
was and how he had no righteousness whatsoever before Christ. Our
righteousness are as filthy rags before God. And the Lord says,
don't you know? that you're naked, that you're
miserable, that you're poor. Don't you know that that's your
condition? I counsel thee, look at verse 18, I counsel thee.
And when God says, I counsel thee, that's a good counsel to
follow. You know, we counsel one another and you know, maybe,
maybe it's good, maybe it's not good counsel. But when God says,
I counsel thee, You just take it for every word. I counsel
thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire. And Isaiah put it
like this, without money and without price. You're not gonna
buy it with something that you do. This gold has been tried
in the fire. Who is that gold? Gold is Christ.
What's the fire that he was tried in? He was tried on Calvary's
cross when the fire of God's wrath fell upon him. and consumed
that sacrifice as a payment for our sin. Gold tried in the fire,
that thou mayest be rich and white raiment, that thou mayest
be clothed and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear
and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve that thou mayest see. Isn't this
exactly what the Lord is doing for this Ethiopian eunuch? showing him how his wealth and
his righteousness have no merit with God. And that's exactly
the same pattern that he does for each one of his children.
He leaves the 99. He knows where every one of his
sheep are. He gets them as men who live
in Ethiopia. And he brings them to himself
by stripping them naked of all of their possessions. Where was this man, where was
this man sitting? He was sitting on a chariot.
Now chariots in the Bible are instruments of war. That's what
they are. And you and I come into this
world with our fists raised to heaven. We declared war against God in
our father Adam when we disobeyed him in the garden. And the spirit
of man has always been, I will not have that man reign over
me. Why don't people come to Christ?
Because they will not bow. They will not. They will not
submit to him. I'm going to do it my way. I'm going to have
it my way. I'm going to be captain of my own ship. And they're riding
proudly on chariots. Listen to what David said in
Psalm 46, verse 9. He maketh wars to cease unto
the ends of the earth. He breaketh the bow. He cutteth
the spear asunder. He burneth the chariot in fire. Oh, that's what we need. We need
God to take away the weapons of our warfare. The scripture
says that he beats our swords into plowshares and our spears
into pruning forks. Now, what's a sword and a spear?
It's an instrument of war. And that's what we are against
God. We're in conflict with God. We're at enmity with God. We've
declared war against God. And what's he do when he saves
us? He takes those instruments of war and he beats them into
instruments of planting and reaping and harvesting the souls of men. What a glorious God we serve. You see, this Ethiopian salvation
is the same as yours and mine. Psalm 20, verse seven, some trust
in chariots, and some in horses, but we will remember the name
of the Lord our God." What is his name? He asked Philip, he
said, what doth hinder me to be baptized? And what did Philip
said? If thou believest with all thine
heart thou mayest. That's the condition. And what
that Ethiopian say? I believe. That Jesus you just
preached to me from Isaiah 53, I believe that he does all the
saving. You see, if you believe what the Ethiopian unit believe,
you're a believer. The problem is there's a whole
lot of people that say with their mouths, they honor God with their
mouths, but their hearts are far. They say words they don't
mean. They say words they don't understand.
If you're going to call him Jesus, then you must know that he shall
save his people. That's what Jesus means. Jesus
means salvations of the Lord. He does all the saving from election
To redemption, to regeneration, to sanctification, to glorification,
he does it all. And he does it all by himself.
And he gets all the glory. That's what Jesus means. It means
that when he laid his life down on Calvary's cross and shed his
precious blood, that he actually accomplished the salvation of
his people. He wasn't making a stab at it.
He wasn't trying to make an offer of himself to us. He was shedding
his precious blood on the altar of God. He put that blood on
the mercy seat and all the sins of all of God's people were covered
by the blood of Jesus Christ. So when that Ethiopian, and that's
exactly what Philip preached to him from Isaiah 53. And so
when that Ethiopian said, I believe, I believe that Jesus, And I believe, look at verse 37. And Philip said, if
thou believest with all mine heart, thou mayest. And he answered
and said, I believe that Jesus Christ, Christ, that's the Messiah. That's the one that was promised
to Adam in the garden when they said the seed of the woman would
crush the head of the serpent. And that man has been waiting
for the Messiah ever since. The anointed one, the Christ.
The one who would come in the full power of God to accomplish
the purpose of God in saving the people of God. I believe
that Jesus is the Christ. Nothing, he's not frustrated. No, no, he's the anointed one. And he was anointed with the
oil of gladness above his fellows. He came in the full power of
the spirit of God. And he actually accomplished
what God sent him to do. And I believe he's the son of
God. And men call Jesus God and then they deny the very essence
of deity. They hold up their free will
or their works or they put God dependent upon man. No, He's
God. He's the sovereign, almighty,
successful Savior of sinners. That's who we believe in. That's His name. That's His name. This is the pattern of salvation. To everyone that believeth. To
the Jew first. And also to the Greek. It is
the power of God unto salvation. What? What great hope we have. Knowing that the Lord will leave
the 99. He will go out into the wilderness.
He'll find a wealthy man trusting in his own righteousness, living
in darkness, and he'll call him out of darkness into his mark.
It gave him a heart to believe. I mean, you can just imagine
what Philip looked like. You know, he didn't look impressive
at all. And this man's riding on a chariot, reading the scriptures. That's
the means that God uses. He uses the scriptures. Faith
comes by hearing. And yet, he was humble enough
to say, how can I? How can I understand unless a
man should guide me? Come up here. Tell me what this
means. Is the prophet speaking of himself
or is he speaking of another? Oh no, he's speaking of another.
Let me tell you about Christ. He's the savior of sinners. Our Heavenly Father, bless your
word to our hearts. Give us faith to believe all
that you've said. To rest our hope. In thy dear son. For it's in
his name we pray. Amen. 236 let's stand together 236 amazing grace.