Alright, brethren, let's turn
back to Acts chapter 8. Acts chapter 8. The acts are much more than the acts of the
apostles or the acts of the Lord's saints. These are the acts of
the Lord working through His saints. Now, in the message Sunday,
I used the Ethiopian eunuch as an example of that resurrection
glory that has been given to the Lord Jesus Christ who brings
the gospel to His people and by His wisdom and His power makes
Himself known in the hearts of His people and brings His people
to believe upon Him. and thereby causing us to receive
that free justification that Christ has already wrought for
us. Tonight I want to look more in
depth at how Christ brought the gospel to that eunuch. But before
we do that, I want to remind you what we've seen in Isaiah
53. We've seen there that when the
Lord made His soul an offering for sin, He satisfied God. He pleased God. He put away the
sin of His people He justified His people from our sins. He
is the righteousness of His people. And the Lord said in Isaiah 53
10, He shall see His seed. He shall prolong days. When Christ
was raised from the dead, God gave Him all power in heaven
and earth. He gave all judgment unto Him.
for the Son to quicken whom He will, even as the Father quickeneth
whom He will. This is as the Son of Man. He
went there not only as God the Son, but as the God-man and was
given all power as a glorified man in glory who is God, who
is able to overcome all obstacles, no matter what they are, and
get His gospel to His people. He shall see His seed, He shall
prolong days. And the pleasure of the Lord,
The pleasure of God, the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in Christ's
hand. Now, this is what Colossians
1.18 says. Listen carefully. He is the head
of the body, the church. The body is the church. It's
Christ's body. He's the head who is the beginning. The beginning. When was the beginning?
The firstborn from the dead. Here's why God gave him this
glory. When he was born from the dead and he went to sit down
at the right hand of the Father. Here's why God gave him this
glory. Gave him to be head over all things to the church. That
in all things Christ might have all the preeminence. All things. For it pleased the
Father that in him should all fullness dwell. Now he said the
pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. It pleased the Lord
for all fullness to dwell in Christ. For him to have all the
preeminence in all things. John said and of his fullness
have all we, all we who believe, we've received of his fullness.
That's how we came to believe. Now that pleased the Father for
Him to be the head, for Him to have all preeminence, for Him
to have all fullness dwelling in Him and to save His people
through His fullness. And we saw that it pleased God. 1 Corinthians 1.21 says, After
that in the wisdom of God, this was God's wisdom, the world by
its own wisdom knew not God. So it pleased God. It pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Now
the pleasure of the Lord is going to prosper in Christ's hand.
Christ shall see his seed. He knows where they are. And
Christ shall go to them and prolong their days. He is going to give
each one of them eternal life. And He is going to do it through
the preaching of the Gospel. We saw Sunday, He shall see of
the travail of His soul and be satisfied. That word travail
is used because That's a word that's synonymous with a woman's
travail, with childbirth, with a child being born. And he shall
see his children be born. How so? It's said by his knowledge,
by the wisdom and power of the Lord Jesus Christ. By his knowledge
shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their
iniquities. He's God's righteous servant.
And every elect child for whom He bore their iniquities, He's
put their sin away. He's justified them. He's made
them righteous in Him. Now, they've got to hear the
good news. And the only way they're going
to be made alive and hear that good news is for Christ Himself
to come to them by His power and His wisdom and give them
an understanding in their heart, and give them faith to believe,
and make them willing to believe on Him, so that now they receive
what Christ has already accomplished by simply believing Him. Now you might say, well, believing
Him doesn't seem all that hard. Why haven't you done it? It takes Christ to make a man
willing to believe Him. And God said he shall not fail
nor be discouraged till he hath set judgment in the earth. And
the Gentiles shall wait for his law, for his gospel. Now that's
the power and the wisdom that Paul warns us that men shall
deny in our day. And that's the power and the
wisdom men do deny in our day. Because the preaching of the
cross is to them that perish foolishness. Why do you think
men resort to the means they do? Churches. Why do you think
that on one side you have cantatas and ball games and all these
things trying to make church appealing? You have some now
who are claiming to preach the doctrine of grace, who are dressing
like the world and getting tattooed like the world and acting like
the world because they are trying to make it more appealing to
the world. And then on the other side, at
the opposite extreme, you have those who think the gospel is
not even necessary for a man to be saved. And so they don't
support missionaries, they don't support the gospel to go be preached
or anything because they say if God elected them and Christ
redeemed them, that's all he needs. He don't need to hear
the gospel. But the truth is, the just shall live by faith.
God told Abraham he would justify the heathen through faith. He's
going to bring his people to believe on him, to glory in him,
to give him the glory, give him the praise due to his name. But
to you and I who have been called, and only to you and I who have
been called, whether Jew or Gentile, Christ is the power of God and
the wisdom of God. And that's my subject tonight.
the power and wisdom of God. Now first of all, here in Acts
8, in Acts chapter 8, it says here in verse 26, And the angel
of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise and go. The angel of the Lord spake unto
Philip, saying, Arise and go. The first thing I want us to
see is, by his wisdom and his power, Christ shall justify each
of his elect through faith by calling and sending them a preacher. His preacher. His messenger.
Not just any preacher. His preacher. Here he spoke to
Philip. And he said, Philip, you arise
and go. Now Christ first works this work
of grace in his preacher. He has to. You got to be partakers
of these fruits before you can tell somebody else about them.
Christ had called Philip. Philip was an apostle. That means
Christ called him personally when he walked this earth. Christ
found Philip. Philip didn't find Christ. Christ
found Philip. And Christ told Philip. He commanded
Philip, in power, follow me. And you know what Philip did?
Philip followed him. He followed him. Now I have a
question for you. Why did Christ call the apostles
and send them forth to preach the gospel? If he came... as He did come to fulfill the
covenant that He promised the Father to go forth and be made
sin for His people and put away the sin of His people and arise
from the dead. And then why did He not just
do that work? Why did He call out apostles
and tell them to go forth into the world and preach the gospel?
Why did He do that? Why did He? Look, let me look
at 2 Timothy just a minute. 2 Timothy chapter 2. Why did the Apostle Paul teach
Timothy what Christ taught him? Here's what Christ taught him
to teach Timothy. 2 Timothy 2 verse 2. And the things that thou hast
heard of me among many witnesses, or by many witnesses, The same
commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others
also. Why did he tell him that? And
then look down at verse 8. Remember that Jesus Christ of
the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my
gospel, Paul said, wherein I suffer trouble. Because I preach this
gospel, Paul said, I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even unto bonds. But the word of God is not bound.
Therefore, this is why Paul said he went forth to preach, I endure
all things for the elect's sakes that they may also obtain the
salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. And
Christ's purpose to do that through the gospel. Here's why he sent
the apostles. Here's why he told Paul to teach
Timothy to commit this gospel to faithful men that they might
go forth and teach others. It's because Christ came to do
the will of His Father. And the will of His Father is
He pleased God to save through the foolishness of preaching.
That's why before He went to the cross, He established His
church. He established His gospel preachers.
And He gave them their mandate to go forth and preach the gospel. But even more has to be done.
Before sending them to preach, Christ does what He did to Philip.
He taught Philip that Philip had no power and he had no wisdom
in himself. That Christ was his wisdom and
Christ was his power. A man's got to know this. If
a man doesn't know this, he won't preach the gospel. He won't preach
the word of God. He'll preach his own word. First
of all, look at John 6. Let me show you some of the things
Christ did to Philip. Before Christ fed the multitude,
John chapter 6 verse 5, When Jesus then lifted up his eyes
and saw a great company coming to him, he said unto Philip,
Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? He said this to
Philip. And this he said to prove him,
for he himself knew what he would do. He already knew what he was
going to do, but he's wanting to see what Philip's going to
say. He's going to prove Philip. Is he going to prove to see if
Philip's faithful and trust him? He's proving to Philip that Philip
has no power and no wisdom. And he's got to teach him this.
And he's teaching him this. Look, Philip answered, 200 penny
worth of bread is not sufficient for them that every one of them
may eat a little. Philip went to look into his
wisdom immediately. We're going to have to go out
and spend a whole bunch of money to get enough bread to feed these
people. And one of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother,
said unto him, there's a lad here which has five barley loaves
and two small fishes, but what are they among so many? These
little foolish things right here, you can't feed thousands through
these little foolish things. When Christ is the power and
the wisdom, He can feed thousands through foolish things. Yes,
sir, He can. And that's what Philip had to
learn. He had to learn. Think how foolish Philip thought
of himself whenever he saw Christ take these foolish little things
and feed multitudes through them. because Christ is the power and
Christ is the wisdom. That's what he taught Philip.
He taught Philip he's the bread, he's the power, he's the wisdom
and he revealed to Philip, Philip you don't have any wisdom and
you don't have any power. Now that's me and you, that's
us, that's what we have to be taught before we'll believe on
the gospel and before he'll send us forth and use us. has chosen
foolish things to confound the wise. He's done it so that we
see that the wisdom is of God, the wisdom is Christ, and the
power is Christ, and it's not us. That's what we have to be
taught, and Christ is still feeding multitudes in this day with foolish
things. Me, and you, and this gospel
we preach that men call foolish, He's still doing it. Then look
at this, on another occasion, John chapter 12. On another occasion,
You remember those men came to Philip and they said, Sir, we
would see Jesus. And these were Greeks, these
were Gentiles, so was this Ethiopian eunuch. And I think that's important
to note because Philip acts completely different with this Ethiopian
eunuch than he did right here with these folks that came up.
They came up and said, Sir, we would see Jesus. Well, what would
you do when you just go to Christ and say, here's some fellows
that want to talk to you? Philip didn't do that. Philip went to
Nathanael. Philip looked to his own wisdom
and he went to Nathanael and said, Nathanael, what should
we do? Why? Why did he do that? Because at
that time, the enemies were saying they wanted to kill Christ and
they wanted to kill anybody associated with Christ. And Philip didn't
want to see Christ die. That was his wisdom. That was
what he wanted. He did not want to see Christ
die. And he didn't want to die. And
so when he came to Christ, this is what Christ taught him. John
12, verse 25. Christ said, He that loveth his
life shall lose it. And he that hateth his life in
this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve
me, let him follow me. What's Christ doing? He's going
to lay down his life. And he said, if you're going
to follow me, you're going to have to lay down your life. Not preach
what you want to preach, not try to avoid confrontation, not
try to avoid being rejected, not trying to avoid persecution
and a cross and death. You got to lay down your life.
And where I am, there also my servant shall be. If any man
serve me, him will my father honor. We must be taught that
to follow Christ we have to lay down our life just as Christ
laid down His life for the sheep. I don't want to do it this way.
I got to lay it down. Well, if I say this, I know that
I'm going to get it right back in my face. I got to say what
God says. We got to learn to lay down our
life. We must love Christ and His truth
more than mother and father, sister or brother, son or daughter,
even our own selves. Why? Because if we don't, here's
what we'll do. We'll twist the Word of God.
twist the Word of God, try to find some way that mama or grandmama
could be in heaven, though they live like hell and hated God
with every fiber of their being and never even once gave a lip
service to the truth of God. We'll find some way to get them
in hell and sabotage God's Word to do it. Or we'll change the
Word of God to get men in a pews or whatever. We got to lay down
our life and just preach the truth. And then on another occasion,
in John 14. Look at John 14. Christ taught
Philip this same lesson again. John 14 verse 6. Jesus said unto
him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. If you had known me, you should
have known my Father also. From henceforth you know Him
and have seen Him. Here's Philip. Philip saith unto
him, Lord, show us the Father, and we'll be satisfied. Just
show us the Father. Jesus said unto him, Have I been
so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen
the Father. And how sayest thou then, Show
us the Father? Believest thou not that I am
in the Father, and the Father in me? Now watch this. Now pay close attention to this.
The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself. But the Father that dwelleth
in me, He doeth the works. Christ is saying, I'm speaking
what the Father would have me to speak. Because He's serving
the Father. He's laid down His life, He's serving the Father.
He's preaching what the Father would have Him to preach. Watch,
verse 11. Believe me that I am in the Father,
and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very work's
sake. Now, verily, verily, I say unto you, this is very important,
He that believeth on me, He that believeth on me, you see, Christ
believed the Father, He trusted the Father. Now, He that believeth
on me, the works that I do, shall He do also. That's what He just
said. He said, I speak not of myself,
but the Father dwelleth in me, He doeth the works. And He says,
now if you believe on me, I'll dwell in you. And He says, and
the works that I do shall He do also. Through faith, everything
Christ did when He fulfilled all righteousness and obeyed
God and laid down His life for God and for His people. Through
faith, every work Christ did becomes our work. Through faith,
through simply trusting Him. And look at this, and greater
works than these shall He do because I go unto my Father. What does that mean? Now that
Christ has gone to the Father, just as the words that Christ
spoke were not of Himself, but the Father dwelled in Him, and
the Father worked through Christ, so Christ dwells in His witnesses. And as we preach, the words come
forth in power into the heart of His people, not by us, but
by Christ. And the greater works that we
do is the miracle of grace that He works in the hearts of His
people when He speaks in power and wisdom into the heart. And
so we have to be taught Christ, He's God. He's God. He's God
in power. He's God in wisdom. And just
as the Father worked through Him, He's working through His
people. So back in our text now. Having been made to know that
Philip's wisdom was foolishness and that Christ is the power
and wisdom of God, now Acts 8, 26, when the angel of the Lord
spake unto Philip saying, Arise and go, verse 27 says, he arose
and went. He arose and went. He didn't
say, the desert? You want me to go out in the
middle of the desert? No, he just went. He just went. How shall they hear without a
preacher, and how shall they preach except they be sent? And
this glory of sending them belongs to Christ. When He ascended,
He gave gifts unto men. He gave some apostles and some
evangelists and prophets and pastors and teachers for the
perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for
the edifying of His body, and He'll keep doing it till we all
come, every elect child, unto the unity of the faith, unto
the knowledge of the Son of God. He'll keep doing it. And he only
sends them after we know that we have this treasure in earthen
vessels because the excellency of the powers of God, not of
us. Now that's the first thing. He's able to send his preacher.
Now the second thing. By his knowledge and power, Christ
shall justify each of his redeemed through faith because he's able
to send his gospel directly to his lost sheep. Look at verse
26. 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 it says here, And he arose
and went, and behold, a man of Ethiopia. A eunuch, it means
an officer. And here it tells you what kind
of officer. An officer of great authority under Candace, Queen
of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, who
had come to Jerusalem for the worship, was returning and sitting
in his chair reading Isaiah the prophet. Have you ever seen the
old roads that the new roads bypass? You know, the old roads
are the roads that curve around and take you all through the
country and take you around the long way to get there. And the
new road just bypasses all that, takes you straight there. That's
this world's gospel. It's a new thing. They're going
to try to get you right there, right in the kingdom. God doesn't
take His people that way. When He brought Israel out of
Egypt, He didn't take them straight into the Promised Land. He took
them all around in the wilderness. And that's how He's going to
take His people. But this is what I want you to see. There
were two roads to Gaza. There was a new cut road that
went straight to Gaza and there was the old road that went to
Gaza. Now the new road went straight. The old road went south from
Jerusalem and then it went west to Gaza. And look what the Spirit
tells him. Great detail. Go toward the south
unto the way that goes down from Jerusalem unto Gaza which is
desert. He gave him specific directions
on where to go. Now by his power and knowledge
Christ moves His messenger and moves His lost sheep so they
meet right where Christ would have them meet at the time He
would have them to meet. This is what Christ does. I gave
you the example of the Philippian jailer on Sunday. That jailer,
he thought he was moving up in the world just to be moving up
in the world and just to get more money for his family and
more prestige among the people. And he didn't know that Christ
was putting him right where Christ wanted him. And when those men
were yelling and screaming and rebelling against the gospel
and they laid hands on Paul and they bound him and they threw
him in prison, they didn't know that Christ was using them to
put Paul exactly where he'd have Paul to be. And Paul preached
the gospel to that jailer and saved him. Christ saved him.
Same thing with Lydia. Paul wanted to go somewhere else.
Two times the Spirit of the Lord forbid him to go somewhere else
and sent him down there to this riverside where Lydia was. She'd
come down there to sell some purple because she was a seller
of purple. And when Sunday rolled around, or Sabbath, the Sabbath
rolled around, it was a Saturday, she wanted to go out and worship
the Lord. So she went out by the riverside. And Paul came
down there and preached the Gospel to her and the Lord saved her.
And that's Caesar's household. They did all that with Paul.
Put him on the armed guard and carried him with the armed guard
all the way to Rome. Got him there. Paul preached
the gospel and Christ called out some in Caesar's house. He
always calls his people with his gospel and he's able to get
that gospel to his people. God the Father predestinated.
He predestinated that all his elect shall receive the adoption
of sons at the appointed time when God had appointed it. That's
what we saw in Ephesians 1.5. It says, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto Himself
according to the good pleasure of His will. And it says, wherein
He abounded toward us in wisdom and prudence, making known unto
us His will, His gospel, His truth. And this is why Christ
died. That's what Galatians 4.4 says. When the fullness of time was
to come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the
law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might
receive the adoption of sons. And because you're sons, God
has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father, wherefore you're no more a servant but a son,
and if a son, then a joint heir with Christ. And he works this
through Christ because he's God able to do his will. Whatever
his purpose, he's able to do that. He said there, in whom
we have obtained an inheritance being predestinated according
to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel
of his own will, that we might be to the praise of him that
first trusted Christ. You see, He's not hindered by
sinners. He calls His people with the
gospel, sending that gospel directly to them wherever they are in
this world. Now this is the Christ that I believe. Is this the Christ
you believe? Either we believe that Christ
is able to call out His people and do what is pleasing to God,
what is pleasing to Him, or He can't do it. It's one or the
other. Either He's able to do it or
He's helpless and He can't do it. Which one is it? I believe
He's able. I believe He can do it. This
is His resurrection glory. If your sovereign Savior is not
sovereign to save, if He's not sovereign to save in the manner
that pleases Him, then He's helpless. That's just so. He pleased to
do it this way because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and
the weakness of God is stronger than men. And he chose to do
it this way because God's going to bring to nothing those that
think they're something. And He's going to use despised,
foolish things to do it. That no flesh or glory in His
presence, but all the glory in Him. Because it's all of Him.
It's all of Him. Here's the third thing. By His
knowledge and by His power, Christ shall justify His people through
faith by making the gospel of Christ effectual in our hearts
by the Holy Spirit. You see, it's not enough to just
send the preacher. It's not enough to send the preacher directly
to us with the Word. Christ has to also make the Word
effectual in our heart. Alright, look at this. He does
this work only through the truth. Look at verse 27. It says there
that this officer was from Ethiopia. He was from Ethiopia. And then
at the end of the verse it says he had come to Jerusalem for
the worship, to go through the form of worship. And he was returning. He was going back home. Now the
Lord didn't use, He didn't do this work through any of those
idol worshippers in Ethiopia. He didn't do this work through
them. He didn't do this work through the Pharisees or the
Sadducees in Jerusalem because they were lost. Paul said, my
prayer to God is, my desire for them is that they might be saved.
Now if you pray for somebody to be saved, that means they're
lost, doesn't it? doesn't it? I have had people tell me that
that means that they were just a little misguided. He says,
for I bear them record they have a zeal of God and they said that
means that they really did want to worship God. No, it means
they were lost. He said they have a zeal of God,
but it's not according to knowledge. They're ignorant of God's righteousness.
They've not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God until
a man has submitted to Christ Jesus, the righteousness of God,
who's the end of the law for all them that believe, who is
the righteousness of them that believe. He hadn't been saved
yet. He hadn't been justified yet.
He's still under his sin, under his curse. He's trying to come
to God by his works. He's got to be brought to the
saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's got
to happen by Christ. He didn't use those. Instead,
Christ did what He said He would do. He said, I'll give you pastors
after my own heart which will feed you with knowledge and understanding.
And that's what He did. Why? Why did He send Philip?
It's impossible to believe on Christ in truth if we have not
been taught Christ in truth. That's impossible. How shall
they believe in Him of whom they've not heard? Let me tell you about
Eric Lutter. He's 13 years old, and he's blond-haired,
and he walks with a limp. Is that him? You could believe that's him,
but that's not him. That's not him. The scripture says, The Lord
is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all them that call
upon him in truth. in truth. The Holy Spirit only
teaches truth. Let me show you something in
John 16. John 16 verse 13. Christ said, I'm going to pray
the Father and He's going to send the Comforter, the Holy
Spirit. And look what He says in verse
13. He says, how be it when He, the Spirit of truth, see what
He's called the Spirit of truth. When the Spirit of truth has
come, He will guide you into all truth. All truth. For He shall not speak of Himself,
but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak, and He will
show you things to come. He shall glorify Me, for He shall
receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you. You see that? Christ said He's going to speak
truth. Why? Because Christ said, I'm the truth. I'm the truth.
No man cometh to the Father by Me. Would Christ teach us a lie?
Would He teach us a lie? Ephesians 4.20 says you've learned
Christ if so be that you've heard him and been taught by him as
the truth is in Jesus. Sinners are born again only with
the truth. James said of his own will begat he us with the
word of truth. Peter said being born again not
of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the word of God which liveth
and abideth forever and this is the word by which the gospel
is preached unto you. Without the truth, there's no
sanctification. Christ said, sanctify them through
thy truth. Thy word is truth. Without belief
of the truth, there's no salvation, period. Without truth, there's
no entrance into heaven, period. Nothing will enter there that
maketh a lie. Look at 2 Thessalonians 2. Let me show you something. 2 Thessalonians 2. I'm telling
you this because a lot of folks think that you can be saved through
a false gospel. A lot of folks think you can
be saved through somebody telling you that Christ is helpless and
weak and impotent and your God and your power and all your will
is what's going to be the determining factor of you being saved. And
that's a lie. That's a lie. That man will meet
God one day saying, didn't I do? Didn't I do? Didn't I do? And
God will say, yeah, that's the problem. You did. You did. You never submitted to my son
and trusted what he's done. You got to hear the truth. Look
at this. The very thing that distinguishes faith from delusion
is that faith believes God's truth, while delusion credits
Satan's lies. Look here. 2 Thessalonians 2.10. He says in the second part there,
they received not the love of the truth, that they might be
saved. And for this cause God shall
send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that
they all might be damned who believe not the truth but had
pleasure in unrighteousness. So truth's important. That's
why the church is called the pillar and ground of the truth. The truth. So what did he teach
him when he got there? Let's look at this. Verse 28. The eunuch, Acts 8, 28. The eunuch
was sitting in his chariot reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the
Spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot.
And you know, last time when the Lord, when they came and
said we would see Jesus, you know what Philip did? He went
and consulted with Nathanael. But this time look what he does.
And Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet
Isaiah. He obeyed. And he said, Understandest thou
what thou readest? What do you think? What's the
answer you get when you ask folks that question? You know the gospel? Oh, this is what I think. This
is what I believe. And come up and tell you some
outlandish thing that is not even in the Word of God. Oh,
but this is what I believe. And you'll sit there and show
them in the Scriptures. And they'll still say, but this is what I
believe. This is what I believe. Look what this man said. Verse
31, and he said, How can I accept some man She'd guide me. And
He desired, Philip, that he would come up and sit with Him. Only
the Holy Spirit can give a man this kind of willingness. Give
him a teachable heart, a teachable spirit to desire to be taught
by God's man, by God's preacher. We've got to be brought down
to be willing to be taught. Most folks aren't willing to
be taught anything. This is the first step. We've
got to be brought down and made willing to be taught. Now look
at this. Verse 32. The place of the Scripture
which he read was this. He was led as a sheep to the
slaughter, and like a lamb done before his shearers, so he opened
not his mouth. In his humiliation, his judgment
was taken away. And who's going to declare his
generation? For his life is taken from the earth. Who's going to
preach his gospel? Who's going to tell what he did?
He's taken from the earth now. he's going to send forth his
preachers. That's what he's doing right here. And the eunuch answered
Philip and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet
this? Of himself or some other man? You see, what if Philip,
what if this man had never heard the gospel and he went through
his whole life thinking Isaiah 53 was about Isaiah? And he met
God saying, well, I was trusting in Isaiah. He would have been
cast into hell. So God sent him a preacher to
tell him the truth. And so then Philip opened his
mouth and began at the same scripture and preached to him Jesus. I
went on the website today and looked because I knew we'd been
in Isaiah 53 a while. I thought it'd been a couple
of months. We've been in Isaiah 53 since August. And Philip opened
his mouth and he taught this man what we've been looking at
in Isaiah 53 since August. He told him Christ is that root
out of dry ground. He said this is the Messiah that
God said was coming. He's that one that has no form
that makes men desire Him. There's nothing about Him. The
substitute of God's elect is who this one is. The Scripture
says He's wounded for our transgression. He's bruised for our iniquities.
With His stripes we're healed. The Scripture says all we like
sheep's gone astray. And the Lord laid all the iniquities
of all His elect people upon Him. And it says that He's the
righteousness of His people. It pleased the Lord to bruise
Him. It pleased the Lord. It brought satisfaction to God
through His holy justice to bruise Christ in place of His people.
And He made His soul an offering for sin. And He shall see His
seed. And He shall prolong their days.
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He's
going to see the travail of His soul and be satisfied because
it's by His knowledge, by this gospel you're hearing right now.
that He's going to call His people out and give them a heart of
faith and make them to know Him. And He's going to get the glory
from the beginning of this work to the end of this work. It's
all Christ Jesus. He's the author and finisher
of faith. From the one who accomplished the justification of His people
so that we would have a reason to believe Him and the one who
brought the gospel to us and made us understand what it is
we are believing. He gets all the glory for it. And Christ made the word effectual.
He always does. He calls the Holy Spirit and
the Holy Spirit comes forth and He makes the word effectual in
the heart of His people. And here's the result of it. Look
at verse 36. And as they went on their way,
they came unto a certain water. You know, you don't see any statement
in here made about the eunuch, you know, making rebuttals and
trying to throw up his arguments and all that. He just listened.
He just listened. And as he listened, you know
what happened? Christ saved him. Christ entered into his heart.
Christ gave him a new heart. Christ gave him faith to believe. And the eunuch said, see here's
water, what does hinder me to be baptized? I bet you Philip
told him, he had to tell him about baptism. I bet you Philip
told him that baptism, the reason we're baptized is because Christ
was immersed. He was immersed in the judgment
of God. And he was immersed in death. He went into the grave. And he
buried our old man completely. And he came up out of that grave
a new man. And we came up out of that grave
a new man in him. And now we're seated with him
at the right hand of God. And God will never again charge
one for whom Christ died. And Philip said, I believe him.
And Philip said, I believe that, I believe that man. And he says,
what does 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. I believe everything
you've been telling me about Him. I believe He's all my righteousness,
all my acceptance with God. You know what happened to this
man? In Ezekiel 16, remember that child polluted in the field,
in the blood and all that? The Lord said, When I passed
by thee, and I looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time
of love. This eunuch experienced the time
of love. And I spread my skirt over you,
and I covered your nakedness, and I swear unto you, and I entered
into a covenant with you, saith the Lord God, and you became
mine. That's what happened in the heart
of that eunuch right there. He covered him in his righteousness
and he made a covenant with him and said, all things are already
ordered and all things are sure and I'm all your salvation. And
that eunuch said, that's the best covenant I've ever heard
in my life. You mean I don't have to do anything? You just
trust me. That's all. Trust me. He said,
I believe him. 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. If Christ works
this work in your heart, then you're going to do what this
eunuch did. This eunuch repented from Jerusalem, from his former
religion, from his former works, from his former wisdom, from
his former knowledge, from his former refuge, from his former
confidence. He repented from himself. And
he believed in that new heart that God had given him. He believed
on Christ unto righteousness. and he confessed him with his
mouth. I believe he's the son of God. And he obeyed him. And
the first evidence that he was now a servant of righteousness,
a servant of Christ was, he said, I want to follow him in obedience
and be baptized, confessing him. And that's what you'll do if
Christ speaks in your heart. I guarantee it. I've seen it
happen. Verse 39, And when they were come up out of the water,
the Spirit of the Lord called away Philip, that the eunuch
saw him no more and he went on his way rejoicing, the eunuch,
but Philip was found at Azotos and passing through he preached
in all the cities till he came to Caesarea. Philip was called
away by the Spirit because Christ had some other places for him
to go preach. What happened to the eunuch? What happened to
the eunuch? The scriptures doesn't tell us
but according to Dr. Gill, John Gill and some historians,
That eunuch preached in Africa. He was a preacher. He preached
in Africa and several churches were established through his
preaching and he preached right up until the day he was killed
for preaching the gospel. According to that. So take that
for whatever it's worth. But he wasn't cut off, I can
tell you that, because Isaiah 56.3 says, Neither let the son
of the stranger that hath joined himself to the Lord speak, saying,
The Lord hath utterly separated me from his people. Neither let
the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the
Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my Sabbaths and choose the things
that please me and take hold of my covenant. And the eunuch
did all that through faith in Christ. This is what God says
I say to them. Even unto them will I give in
my house and within my walls a place and a name better than
of sons and of daughters. I'll give them an everlasting
name that shall not be cut off. You know what that name is? The
Lord our righteousness. This is the name wherewith he
shall be called, the Lord our righteousness. This is the name
wherewith she shall be called, the Lord our righteousness. If anybody hears this and you
don't believe Christ does this work, why not? This that I've
said tonight gives Christ all the glory and all the preeminence
in all things. It does not leave it to chance
whatsoever. It says God's in absolute control.
Christ is working the will of the Father in all things. The
work was finished of justifying His people on the cross, but
there's a work of bringing them all in to hear the gospel and
to be justified through faith. And that work is Christ too.
So then, do you or do you now want Christ to receive all preeminence? That's the question. This message
is giving Him all preeminence. Do you want Him to have it or
not? And I'll leave that question with them. Do you want Him to
have the preeminence or not? I do. I do. Amen.