Sang that hymn. Back to Acts chapter 26, or excuse
me, chapter 8, verse 26. I've entitled this message, An
Evangelism Kit. I've always liked the idea of
a kit. You know what a kit is? It's an assembly of things, and
at least if you buy one, Whatever advertising there was about it,
it would be, say, contains everything you need. I believe I was nine years old
when my parents thought I was old enough to have my own bathroom
equipment. And they got me a little kit.
It came in a wooden box. And to me, that was as cool as
the stuff in it. I mean, you know, this wasn't
just a bag of things. It was an official kit. And you
opened up that box and there was a brush, hairbrush, a comb,
a little glass bottle of shampoo, I believe in a bar of soap or
something like that. And I guess they figured, you
know, it was at night, it was time to learn. appropriate hygiene
without being told. Now, I don't think I ever did
much with the brush or the comb. For one thing, my dad cut my
hair and he really didn't leave enough. He was a Navy retiree,
remember. He didn't leave enough hair on
the top of my head that a comb was going to do much to it. But that bottle of shampoo fascinated
me. And I always thought it was cool,
you know, it was time to take a bath. And I took more baths
than usual simply because I knew the kit was up there. And I poured
that thing out and washed my hair and I felt so grown up and
of course I ran out. And I thought I learned something.
I found out if you filled that bottle up with water, it still
gets sudsy. And so I thought, well, this can last forever.
Well, I learned the principle of dilution. Yeah, there was
maybe one or two more times I could wash my hair out of what was
left in that bottle. But just that idea of a kit. And I've called this an evangelism
kit. Because everything you need to
do evangelism is spoken of here. It's amazing how much time and
effort is wasted by religious groups trying to come up with
some new way to do evangelism. Now, what is evangelism? Well,
of course, the root word of evangelism is evangel, and that's simply
an English version of the Greek word for good news, or the gospel. In Greek, it's pronounced euangelion. It starts with an e-u. They change the u into a v. And then, in Greek, if you have
two g's together, you pronounce them like n-g. I don't know why.
I just know that's the way it is. So what looks like Euaglion
comes out Euangelion, put a V in there, you've got Evangelion,
evangel. So evangelism is at its core
the delivery of good news. And I would go so far to say
this, no matter how much truth a man may have in his message. It's not evangelism till it's
good news. I know that in the preaching
of the gospel, we generally speak, begin with some really bad news. Just like the doctor, before
he tells you the good news that there's a cure for what you have,
he tells you what you have. You get the bad news first, And
the good news is, there's a remedy. But it's not the gospel, it's
not evangelism until good news is told. And as Peter tells us,
the word of the Lord, the word of God, is the gospel. We use word of God as a synonym
for the Bible, and it's true, the Bible, It's made up of words,
made up of words that God inspired his prophets and apostles to
record for us. But the Bible never calls itself
the Word of God. It calls itself the Holy Scriptures. Rather, the Word of the Lord,
or the Word of God that endures forever, according to Peter,
he says, it's the word which by the gospel was declared to
you. Now we have here all the parts
that are necessary for a work of evangelism. You have a sinner who doesn't know the truth. Even though he has a portion
of the Bible in his hands and he's reading it, he doesn't know
the truth. You have one who does know the
truth and is gifted by God to be able to explain it to others. Now, for a work of evangelism,
you don't need anything else. You don't need tricks. You don't
need gimmicks. You need the spirit of God because
nothing spiritual happens apart from the power of the spirit
of God. But most of the time when the
spirit of God is working through a person, the person doesn't
even know it. So as far as what we are able
to see from the outside, all that's needed is someone who
needs the gospel and someone who knows it. And you need contact
between those two. So the message, the good news,
can be delivered. You don't need anything else. Now, the way the story works
out, there was a court official of the Queen of Ethiopia, and
he evidently was what the Jews would call a God-fearer. He was a Gentile who believed
in the God of the Jews. And he had evidently been up
to Jerusalem, to the temple, to worship. Now, here's an important thing. For anyone who is concerned about
their soul, walk in whatever light you have. That's what this Ethiopian eunuch
was doing. He did not know about the Lord
Jesus. He did not know much at all,
evidently, despite the fact he was obviously an intelligent
man. He wouldn't have been put, you know, in charge of the treasury
of the queen if he wasn't an educated man. And he had a portion of the Bible
He was wealthy enough to be able to afford a scroll of Isaiah,
which would have been a very expensive thing, because it had
to be handwritten. He was reading it. He wanted
to know what it meant. But here's the thing. He had
some light. He had some knowledge. And he
was walking according to the light Don't ever reject any light and
say, well, it's not bright enough for me to know all things. I
can't, you know, I'm not going to believe. I'm not going to
entrust myself to Christ until I got it all figured out. Well,
then you're never going to trust yourself to Christ. Here I am. I'm the preacher here, you know.
And I've been preaching for 40 years. And you know what I'm
doing today? I'm walking in the light that I have. And I know
there's more light. Nobody dies knowing everything. And I don't know that there'll
ever be a point in our everlasting existence when we will say, okay,
nothing more to learn. After all, we worship an infinite
God. I don't think we're ever going
to run out of things to learn. But this man was walking in the
light that he had. And on his way home, said he
was sitting in his chariot. And this word chariot does not
necessarily mean those two-wheeled warrior carts that we always
think of with chariots. A four-wheeled wagon would have
been called one. So it was whatever mode of transportation would
have been considered suitable for a man of his rank. And later
on, Philip came and sat with him, so you could seat two people
in this chariot. And the Spirit told Philip, this
is in verse 29, go to that chariot and stay near it. One way that we do evangelism,
and we should not separate the idea of evangelism from the worship
services of God's church. All preaching should be evangelistic,
because all preaching should be gospel preaching. But we do
that here, I do that here, and Eric sometimes, and guys we invite
in, and we are according to the gifts and understanding that
we have, according to the light that we have, we are declaring
the gospel. And we pray that God will bring
people here to listen to it. But our Lord's exhortation, His
command to the disciples was not set up a church and start
preaching and wait for the sinners to come. What did he say to Philip? He says, go to that chariot and
stay near it. There is a go aspect to evangelism. Now, in our days, we have ways
of going without really doing much physically moving. We're
on radio. We're on the internet. We could publish actual hard
copies of stuff. That's a rather expensive way
to try to get information out anymore. But nothing is designed
to replace actually going person to person. outside the boundary, shall we
say, of the church and meeting those who yet live in their unbelief
and tell them the good news. So it says, Philip ran up to
the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. He said, do you understand what
you're reading? Now this is a rhetorical question. Philip knew he didn't
understand, but it was a way to get a conversation started.
Yeah, it can be difficult to find a way to start a conversation
about the gospel. But I like the way that Peter
put it. He says, always be ready to give an answer. And as we
saw a few weeks ago, that word is a defense, an explanation
of, a rational argument for the hope that lieth within you. I don't know that this buttonhole,
what I call buttonhole evangelism is good, where you just come
up to people and you're right in their face, you know, and
you stick a tract in their face and, you know, if you died right
now, do you know whether you'd go to heaven or hell? You know,
this kind of thing. I'm not saying it's never been
effective. It's amazing the things that God can overrule about what
we do and still bring to pass the salvation of his elect. But
we look for opportunities and we make use of these opportunities
to bring the conversation around to spiritual, eternal things. Well, the eunuch responded in
verse 31, how can I unless someone explains it to me? Let me just
do a little sidestep here. I have heard this verse used
to say that a man, a woman cannot be saved unless a God sent preacher
explains the gospel to them. Well, that's not what's being said
here. There was a reason this man could
not understand. He was reading the Old Testament.
And the Old Testament is a very dark and shadowy representation
of the gospel. The ones to whom the Old Testament
scriptures were sent, specifically the Jews, they didn't even understand
it. The disciples. They heard him
explaining much of the Old Testament. They still didn't understand
it. When did they begin to understand? The day of Pentecost, when the
Spirit of God came. It's not human preachers that
enlighten the hearts and minds of God's elect, it's the Spirit
of God. Not only this, you know, I've
heard people, you know, preachers say, faithful preachers, but
a man cannot be saved simply by reading the Bible. And I think
of what Paul told Timothy. He says, from a child you have
known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto
salvation. After all, The New Testament
is the explanation of the Old Testament. We do have a preacher. We have someone in written form.
We have the sermons of the apostles. We have the explanations of all
those dark and shadowy prophecies and illustrations found in the
Old Testament. They're given to us. Now, the
greatest preacher on earth can't explain anything to anybody unless
the Spirit of God works through him. And if God willed it, a man might
be spending the night in a motel somewhere, reach in that bureau
between the queen-size beds and see that the Gideons left a Bible
there. It might be he start reading it. and under the providential
direction of God, he comes upon a passage, and the Holy Spirit
opens the eyes of his understanding. But here, this one thing is true. Nobody understands God's Word
apart from somebody explaining it, and that somebody is the
Spirit of God. And whether he uses the mouth
of a preacher like me, or a mom, or a dad, or a neighbor, or if it's a copy of the Bible
in a motel room, or a tract, or a book, whatever. Something that explains in word,
but it must be joined with the Spirit of God, as the Lord Jesus
predicted of him, taking the things of Christ and making them
known. So this man, he says, I can't understand it
unless someone explains it to me, so he invited Philip to come
up and sit with him. Now here's the passage. that
the Ethiopian eunuch was reading. It's from Isaiah 53. He was led
like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before his shearer
is silent, so did he not open his mouth in his humiliation.
He was deprived of justice who can speak of his descendants
for his life was taken from the earth. And the eunuch had a good question.
I mean, he's just reading this, trying to understand it. The
thing is, he's trying to understand it
the only way that he would be able to understand anything,
and that's within the framework of the flesh, understanding something.
And so he asks a really practical question. Is the prophet talking
about himself or somebody else? Then Philip, now this is verse
35, and right here, let this be the book on evangelism. This is it right here. Everything
you need to know about evangelism is in this next verse. Then Philip
began with that very passage of scripture and told him the
good news about Jesus. Forget the techniques. Forget
the gimmicks. Forget the invitation at the
end. Forget the emotional manipulation. Forget all the preparation. Whenever the opportunity arises, turn the subject to the good
news about Jesus. When I first came here, I was kind of odd, and that for
more than one reason. That is, I was odd to the people
around here, strange, whatever word you want to use. I wasn't
from here. I didn't sound like I was from here. I didn't act
like I was from here. But most of all, I didn't preach
like they do around here. And when I would be confronted,
you know, or have an opportunity or, you know, running somebody,
and they wanted to talk about it, it's remarkable the questions
they would ask. It's that remarkable. It's the
same kind of things that people ask the Lord Jesus Christ. And,
you know, sometimes you look at the question someone asked
the Lord and then read the answer the Lord gave. It's like he utterly
ignored what they asked and just told them what they needed to
know. You see, spiritual ignorance in man is so great, not only
do they not know the answers, they don't even know the right
questions. I got questions like, well, do
you all observe the Sabbath? And now I could have taken that
question and turned it into an opportunity for gospel preaching. Or they would just ask me what
my opinion was, or what things are we allowed to do on Sunday.
And my practice generally was to give them as general and vague
an answer as I could, trying to deflect all the questioning.
And I would say, if you want to know what we believe, the
best thing to do is just come and listen. And the reason is
when people have to sit and listen and, you know, the rules of polite
society say they have to be quiet for the whole sermon. You don't get distracted because
people will interject questions trying to get you off the path
when it's a one-on-one thing. Nonetheless, you know, I would
tell them now it's going to take about three weeks before you
start to understand because that's just something I picked up. I
noticed if people came for three weeks, And this happened so many
times. It was like three weeks was the
time. They either stayed forever or left. That's pretty much how
it worked out. Somehow or another, after three
weeks, they were picking up the pattern. And it was either something
that they rejoiced in or something they said, nah, that's not for
me. But I did notice this also. If
people engaged me in a question, asked me a question, and I answered
them, I usually never heard from them again. Because they were
usually asking me a question about permission to do something.
And once I said, well, our church, you know, we don't see any problem
with that. You know, maybe back it up with
a little scripture. They got what they wanted. Because it
wasn't the gospel they were looking for, they just wanted a little
more elbow room in their lives. But evangelism, it's not about
what I am allowed to do or not do. It is the good news about
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what did he tell him? What
was this good news? Well, it says beginning at that
scripture. And so he had to tell the man
who Christ is. And the first part of Isaiah
53 goes through that. And speak of things, you know,
for example, it says he was led as a sheep to the slaughter.
Why? Why, was he just a martyr? Or was it just people didn't
like him? No, there was a reason. There
was a reason. It was a combination of the hatred
of the Jews and Gentiles for him, but most of all, it was
the result of God laying the sins of his wandering sheep on
the Lord Jesus Christ. In the opening verses there of
Isaiah 53, who has believed our report? To whom is the arm of
the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him
as a tender plant, as a root out of a dry ground. The dry
ground of Israel, the dry ground of David's household. There was
nothing to Judaism back then. The Jews were not a God-fearing
people. They had a magnificent temple.
They were doing all that stuff, but most of them were, Brother
Donnie Bell said, lost as a ball in high weeds. It says of him, there was no
beauty or majesty that we should desire. And John puts it this
way, he came into his own, his own received him not. as he was despised and rejected
of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we
hid, as it were, our faces from him, and we did not esteem him. Can you imagine that? The Lord
of glory. and we didn't esteem him. He was despised and rejected,
yet he opened not his mouth. All we, like sheep, have gone
astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way. And maybe Philip at this point
paused and said to that Ethiopian, now what were you doing in Jerusalem?
And the Ethiopian, well, you know, I've heard about the Jewish
God and I wanted to investigate it. I think maybe that's the
real God. And I went up there and tried
to see what I was supposed to do in order to enter into a positive
relationship with the God of the Jews. Well, Mr. Ethiopian eunuch, that's your
way. What must you do to enter in to a positive relationship? But that's your way. And all
of us turned our own way. We all got our own ideas, Mr. Ethiopian. You got yours. I had mine. But here's what the
scriptures say. Just like sheep, you know what
sheep are like. You don't keep them in a pen
or you don't have a shepherd, maybe a sheepdog watching them,
they'll just wander off. And they'll be nibbling grass
and all at once they're out of sight of the other sheep and
out of sight of the shepherd. And that's us. That's us. We're
too stupid to take care of ourselves. We're sinful. But the Lord. Jehovah God, who
made the heavens and the earth, has laid on this one you're reading
about here. He laid the sins of all his wandering
sheep on him. Now that doesn't mean that he
just charged those sins to him. To lay them on him meant that
he made this person you're reading about here, God made him responsible for our sin. And that's why this section here
you're reading came to pass. He was led like a sheep to the
slaughter. As a lamb before the shearers
is silent, so he did not open his mouth. Now, Mr. Treasurer, You've seen animals taken to
slaughter. You've seen a sheep. And you take them and you're
gonna kill them. They don't know it. They don't resist. He did not open his mouth. When
they accused him, accused him of things he himself did not
do, he did not defend himself. He did not say, you guys are
wrong. Now, he didn't defend himself,
because as he stood there in judgment, he was bearing all
the sins of God's wandering sheep, and therefore in the sight of
God was accounted guilty of them. If he had defended himself, he
could have made a good defense. He could have said, no, I never
did any of the things of which I've been accused. He could have. But if he would have mounted
a defense of himself, he could not have been the Savior. Because you see, Mr. Treasurer,
the wages of sin is death. The only way, the only way sin
can be paid for. The only way sin can be put away
is that the one who bears them suffer the penalty of them. And
the penalty of sin is death. Therefore, this one you're reading
about, he didn't defend himself. But he allowed himself to be
pronounced guilty not only by men, What men were doing was
simply a kind of a playing out of what was going on in heaven
in the sight of God, the judge of all. He didn't open his mouth
in his humiliation. Oh, they humiliated him. They
mocked him. They spit on him. They called
him names. They stripped him naked and marched
him through the streets. They treated him worse than you'd
treat an old dog. They laughed at him, put a crown of thorns on his
head, nailed his hands and feet to
a cross. You know what a crucifixion is.
That's what they did to him. That's what they did. And while he hung there in agony,
they mocked him all the more, saying, he saved others. himself he cannot save. Mr. Treasurer, don't be surprised
that you couldn't understand what you read. The people that
said that about this man, they were experts in the Old Testament.
And they, in mocking him, they said the dumbest thing. When
they said he saved others, he cannot save himself. He could
have saved himself, but he can't save himself and save others. He had to choose. Is he gonna
save himself or is he gonna save others? He, in obedience to his
father and out of love for God's elect, he chose to
save them and give himself over to death. He was deprived of
justice. And who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth. Now, from the view probably
of all ancient peoples, but I know of the Jews, they kind of thought
their life went on in their ancestors, you know, and to die childless
was an awful thing. Well, you know, here our Lord
Jesus claimed to be the Savior and all that, Christ, Messiah,
and here he died. He doesn't have any descendants. To the eye of the flesh, the
death of the Lord Jesus Christ was, well, it was weakness, it
was representative of an utter failure. You know, you and I, if it were
not for the Spirit of God teaching us, we couldn't see anything
good coming out of crucifixion. And I'm sure Philip went on and
said, but you know, the prophet went on to say, look, look further,
read that a little further down there. It was the Lord's will
to crush him and cause him to suffer. And though the Lord makes,
this is, if you're looking in Isaiah 53, this is verse 10,
and the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see the offspring,
his offspring, and prolong his days. Lo and behold, he died
without natural ascendance, Mr. Treasurer, but he has a family. He has descendants so great nobody
can even number them from every kindred, tongue, tribe, and nation
on the earth. And it says, the will of the
Lord. God's will prospered in His hand. Now we, His disciples, we were
looking at it, we couldn't see it, we couldn't understand it.
We saw Him die. We thought all was lost. But when He was dying and as
He died, God's will and the salvation
of His people In verse 11, and after the suffering
of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied. You see, sir, he died all right. It's like a sheep to the slaughter. But three days later, he came
out of the tomb. And by his knowledge, This righteous
servant of Jehovah will justify many, and he will bear their
iniquities, because he bore their iniquities. So you see, sir,
this man led his sheep to the slaughter. Yes, he was slaughtered,
but he wasn't destroyed. He wasn't defeated. His death
was his victory because by death, he put away the sins that he
bore. Sins that he didn't do, but he bore them anyway. And
by his death, he put them away. He no longer bore those sins.
And as the righteous one of God, death for the wicked. He's no
longer bearing sin. So God raised him from the dead.
But it's more than that, I tell you. By doing all this, he justified
many. And God therefore gave him a
portion among the great. Because he poured out his life
unto death and was numbered with transgressors. for he bore the
sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. So you
say, sir, this portion you're reading sounds awful, and it
was, I was there. It looked horrible, but it brought
out, brought about something wonderful. He is now at the right
hand of his father, and he controls the universe. Because he says,
all authority in heaven and earth, it's been given to me. And you and I, sinners though
we are, we may trust him. And if we trust him, then we
will never suffer eternal condemnation because of sin. but we will also
be raised from the dead and we will be made like him and live
with him forever. Now, I don't know that that's
exactly how Philip developed his message, but I know this. He told her about Jesus, who
he was and what he did and what that means. That's evangelism.
And I, I love this response. Verse 36,
now back in Acts chapter eight. As they traveled along the road,
they came to some water and the eunuch said, look, here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptized?
So evidently, somewhere along, in preaching the good news about
Jesus. Maybe he just told him what the
Lord had told, maybe Philip told this official here what the Lord
had told the disciples. Go into the world, make disciples
in all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit. Maybe he just said all those
who believe, in order to confess their faith and reliance upon
Christ, They're baptized. Well, at this point, evidently,
the Spirit of God had given this royal official an understanding
of the gospel, had convinced him of the truth
of it. And having heard what Philip said, he said, well, I
think to King James, what hinders me from being baptized? You say your name's Philip. Well,
Philip, I mean, from what you have just said, is there a reason
that I shouldn't be baptized? Is there yet something lacking
before I can make a full confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Now, in the New International
Version that we use, you'll notice it goes right from verse 36 to
verse 38. I don't have a lot of time to
explain how differences in scripture can come up, but there is, in
the King James, you'll find verse 37, and the answer, according
to that, that Philip gave him, he said, well, if you believe
with all your heart, and the Ethiopian said, I believe that
Jesus is the son of God. Evidently, since the time the
King James was translated, they have found much older copies
of the New Testament, and in the oldest copies, you don't
find that verse. And I'll be honest, that does
not sound like anything else that I read elsewhere. Believing
that Jesus is the Son of God, that's a good thing, but I don't
find faith being expressed simply in those terms. But whether or
not that verse belongs there, that truth is taught elsewhere. Now, baptism is just a ceremony, if you will, an observance. And as an observance, it does
not have within itself any saving power. Because nothing, nothing
that you can see has any saving power. Look over at 1 Peter 3, verse
21. And this water, he's talking
about the waters of the flood, symbolizes baptism that now saves
you. It doesn't mean that the act
of being baptized saves you. In fact, the way he put it, he
says, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also.
Saves you in the same way that Noah, going through the flood,
was saved. It's a symbolic thing. Symbolic
thing. Baptism symbolizes the means
by which God's people have been saved. Says it's not the removal
of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a good conscience towards
God. Now, pledge, no. Maybe that word could be translated
that way, but we are not saved by making a pledge. If we make a pledge, we're gonna
break it. That's just how we are. It says an answer of a good
conscience toward God. And it's the sort of answer that
a man would give if he were arraigned in court. They stand before the
judge. The judge says, you've been charged
with This crime, how do you plead? What's the answer of a good conscience?
Not guilty. Now, baptism is the answer of
one whose conscience, who's been given a good conscience in the
sight of God, because he has been made to understand that
his sins were paid for by Jesus Christ, and in the sight of God
he has no sin. Now this is bold, but if a message isn't bold,
it's not the gospel. It should be really hard to accept
that this is the truth. But if God were to appear in
our presence, right here, and we survived it,
and He said, are you guilty of sin? How do you plead? Every believer could plead not
guilty. You say, that's pretty bold.
Well, what would happen if you couldn't plead that? God says,
I will by no means clear the guilty. So if you want God to clear you,
you have to be, you have to have some reason for saying not guilty. Baptism shows what that reason
is. We're not just saying not guilty,
because we know that's the only answer that'll work. Baptism,
and you know, the Lord, the ceremonies He designed are perfect for what
they symbolize. Why can we say we're not guilty? Because Jesus Christ died, was
buried, and rose again. And Paul says, when He died,
we died. When He was buried, we were buried
with Him. When He rose from the dead, we
rose from the dead with Him. And that's why we, and we know
we're guilty, we know we're sinners, we know we do awful things, and
yet we can stand in the presence of God and say, by means of the
death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, I am not guilty. Baptism doesn't bring you into
a covenant, doesn't make you a part of the church. All that
it really does in and of itself is make you wet. But the story it tells is a wonderful
one. And I would think anybody who
had been saved by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus
Christ would be all too happy to confess that truth before
the whole world in the way that Christ said to do it. If it's an answer, says baptism's
the answer of a good conscience, well then it's not for someone
who doesn't understand the question. So that's why we don't sprinkle infants or dunk them. Why, they don't know the question.
They certainly can't give an answer. Nor would we use pouring which
some places do that. Did you notice what it says here
back in Acts chapter eight? The eunuch says, why shouldn't
I be baptized? And he gave orders to stop the
chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the
water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the
water, they went in, they came out. Now that wasn't a little
basin of water sitting on a finely made piece of furniture. They
went down, I don't know if it was a pond, a lake, a river,
or what. This was an immersion. That's
the essential meaning of the word baptized. And why was it
done that way? Simply because you cannot symbolize
death, burial, and resurrection by sprinkling water on them.
I remember Henry telling the story the son of a Methodist
preacher, and he had a cat. And the cat died. So this Methodist
preacher told his son, you got to bury that cat. So the kid
went out, and he was back in no time. Dad was thinking, well,
that didn't take him very long. So he went out there. Sure enough,
out behind the barn lay this cat with a handful of dirt on
top of him. The father came back and he said,
son, I thought I told you to bury that cat. He said, well,
I did. And he says, you can't throw a handful of dirt on a
cat and say it's been buried. And he said, well, dad, he said,
you take those infants up there and you sprinkle a little water
on them and say buried with him in baptism. I thought that was
good enough. Now, somebody miss heaven? Somebody miss the grace of God
because they don't get baptism right? Ceremonies do not save,
nor does a fault in the ceremonies condemn. But I do notice this. As soon as this man understood
what the gospel was, he said, well, what's to stop me from
being baptized? Did this mean that the eunuch
understood everything? No. It meant that he understood that
he was a sinner in need of a savior and that Jesus Christ was the
savior he needed. And this is the way the Lord
Jesus himself said, to express your faith openly. You know, the Lord keeps it so
simple and we make it so complicated. Isn't that so? Says a eunuch, did not see him
again. The Lord took Philip away. Why?
Because Philip wasn't important anymore. Philip didn't stick around for
discipleship classes. He'd been following down the
road to make sure that From that point on, he did everything right.
His work with that eunuch was done, and he was taken away.
And the eunuch went on rejoicing. One of the things that I have
noted in the ministry here, and I realize I gotta wrap this up. There are many people, particularly
in the early years, really struggled with this baptism thing. And
I think it was good that they did, because it meant they understood
something about it. They understood that while it
didn't accomplish anything, it meant something. They realized if they were baptized,
they were making a break with the past. And they were taking
sides. They were taking sides in a religious
conflict. Not only that, many of them,
because of the religion they came out with, were so full of
doubts. So, you know, they'd been told
that before you can really think that you're a believer, you gotta
have some kind of confirming experience. And they hadn't had
anything like that. They'd just heard the gospel.
It sounded good to them. They certainly wanted to be saved
by Christ and all this, but they thought to themselves, I don't
know, I don't know. I remember I preached a message
on, when the Lord told the few disciples that were fishing,
and they hadn't caught anything all night long. And he saw me,
said, well, let your nets down on the other side. And Peter,
who was a fisherman, and he certainly knew when and how to fish. And they'd been out there fishing
when they're supposed to, doing it the way they're supposed to,
and they'd caught nothing. And now this guy's standing on
the shore, and he, I guess he recognized who it was eventually,
but this guy on the shore, who as far as Peter knew, never did
fish. And he's saying, put your nets out on the other side. And
I loved Peter's answer. And I preached on this and I
said, well, Peter said, we've been fishing all night when you're
supposed to. And we didn't catch anything. Nevertheless. Oh, what a wonderful
word to put right there. Here's human wisdom. We fished
all night and didn't catch anything. We did it our way and came up
empty. And all fleshly reason would
say, take your boats ashore, clean out your nets, hang them
out to dry, and try again next night. He said, nevertheless,
at your word, I will put down the nets. Now brethren, that's
what faith is. Peter's thinking to himself,
this isn't going to do any good. I mean it. Common sense would
say it wouldn't do any good. But the Lord told me to put the
net down. And that's what I'm going to do. And he did. And they could not even get the
net in the boat by themselves, had to call for help, so full
was it of fish. After the service, that morning
service, and this is one of those things I got a picture of, you
know, I'm shaking hands as people leave. And Albert looked at me and he
said, if that's the way it is, how
come I'm not being baptized? I said, I don't know, Albert,
you tell me. He said, I want to be baptized.
I want to confess Christ. We'll set it up. And by the time
we got it set up, the Lord had been pleased to give others an
understanding enough to realize, despite all the doubts they got,
despite all the legal fears, Despite all the trepidation,
this is the truth, and at his word, with nothing but his word,
they would believe him. And they confessed Christ in
baptism. And you know, it was a wonderful transformation. It's as though in that confession of him in
baptism, The doubts rolled away. I'm not
saying they didn't come back, didn't ever have to wrestle with
them again. Give you one quick illustration
of why that's true. Bonnie and I dated for nine days,
and then I asked her to marry me. Well, I said, Bonnie dated
for nine days. I'd been dating her for about
four months. It was just a joint effort for
nine days. She said she'd marry me. I go,
okay, things are good. Well, that was in February. In November, we decided to go
ahead and get married. We got married the day after Thanksgiving. And probably like just about
every groom on that day, thinking, wow, is this the right
thing to do? I mean, you know, marriage is
pretty serious business. And I remember I walked down the
aisle. I wasn't going to back out. Part
of me was saying, run. Not because there's anything
lacking in Bonnie. It's just that's serious stuff. But the other was saying, no,
get yourself down there where you belong. So I went down there
and turned around. And then the music for the bridal
procession came up, and in she walked. And the moment I saw her, that took care of any trepidation
I had. Our Lord, I think one reason
he designed this was for our, well, everything's for our good. Saying you believe is one thing, but boldly, standing before all who are willing
to witness it, and saying by the death, burial, and resurrection,
this wretched sinner is not guilty of anything. Because Jesus Christ
died and was buried and rose again. and is at the right hand of the
Father, interceding for me. Don't let anybody make it any
more complicated than that. Just trust Him. Believe Him. Do you believe Him? Confess Him. And go on rejoicing. For if Jesus Christ is your hope,
you have what Peter called a good hope. And he, according to the scriptures,
he that trusts in him will never be put to shame. Well, may the
Lord bless you.