This is a familiar story to nearly
everyone in here, the story of a man of Ethiopia called a eunuch. And this man had come to Jerusalem
to worship. He was obviously a true seeker,
it says he came to worship. Although he really didn't know
the true way to worship, he heard that the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, the true God, was found in Jerusalem. And somebody told him that you
have to have a high priest and a tabernacle and a sacrifice,
and so he went where it was. He'd come to the right place. And it says, verse 28, he was
returning after it was all over. He was going home and sitting
in his chariot. reading Isaiah the prophet. He
had a Bible. That tells me he was interested.
He'd come to Jerusalem, the place to come, and he was seeking,
wanted to worship. And he was going home, and he
was reading his Bible. Now, faith cometh by hearing. and hearing by the word of God.
He does. But Paul also said in that chapter,
how shall they hear without a preacher? So this fellow was reading. That's
a good thing to do. He was reading a good place.
Isaiah 53. He couldn't have read a better
chapter. But he didn't know what it was all about. or rather who. And he said, look at verse 29,
the Spirit, the Holy Spirit said to Philip, the Spirit of God
called the preacher, and sent him to a particular
fellow who needed to hear the gospel. And he said, go join yourself
to this chariot. to him and heard him reading
the prophet Isaiah. I'm reading verse 30 here. If
you're looking at your Bible, look at it. Philip heard him
reading. The fellow was reading out loud.
He was sincere, wasn't he? Reading out loud. Isaiah 53. And Philip said to him, this
is Philip the deacon. It's just a plain, ordinary deacon. And Philip said to him, Understandest
thou what thou readest? Do you understand what you're
reading? I can see this picture. There's a chariot that was going
along, and Philip was running alongside the chariot. The fellow
was reading out loud Isaiah 53, and Philip hollered and said,
Do you understand what you're reading? And verse thirty-one, and Eunuch
said, How can I, except some man should guide me? I need somebody to help me. Would
you help me? Stop the chariot, he said to
his driver. And he desires it. Philip, what's
your name? Philip. Well, my name's Eunuch. Would you come up here and help
me to understand what this is saying? I'd be delighted to. That's why I'm here." So Philip got up in the chariot
with him. Now, look at it. The place of
the Scripture, verse 32. The place of the Scripture which
he read was this, Isaiah 53. We read it a moment ago. He was
led as a sheep to the slaughter, and on it goes. And the eunuch, verse 34, skip
down there, the eunuch answered Philip and said, I pray thee,
would you please tell me, of whom speaketh the prophet? of himself or of some other man? Ah, that's a good question, isn't
it? You want to know whom? You'll know whom. Salvation is
in a whom, the prophet speaks. Now I want you to, so Philip
began, verse 35, it says, Philip, verse 35, opened his mouth and
began at the same scripture. and preached unto him, Jesus,
the man. Now, I go back to Isaiah 53. Let's go back there. Now, he
didn't, Philip just didn't merely preach from those few verses
that was quoted there in Acts chapter 8. Philip preached the
whole chapter, Isaiah 53. All right, hold action there.
We're going to come back in a little bit and turn to Isaiah 53. You got it? All right, it says
in verse 1, here's how Philip began. He began with verse 1. Who hath believed our report? The testimony, the record. Mr. Eunick, myself and some other
fellows called apostles. There's one named Peter, and
Andrew, and James, and John, and on and on, Bartholomew. We're
going all over, and there's deacons like myself. We're going all
over the world preaching, telling everybody about somebody, a report. We're giving the report. I've
got a report. And I'm looking for believers. I'm looking for
someone who believes this, the doctrine, the record of God's
Word. And what it's about is about God's Son sent to earth. You've heard of this Jesus of
Nazareth? Well, that's none other than God Almighty who comes to
earth. That's who he is. But not everybody
believes this report. God said it from heaven, this
is my son. And Jesus Christ himself said,
my sheep, they'll hear my voice, they'll believe the report. And
he said, to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? He said, you
know, Mr. Enoch, but everybody doesn't
believe it because it's a revelation. It has to be revealed to them. God's not trying to get everybody
to believe, no, but he reveals his Son to some people, his people,
his church. He said he had a people. That's
who I'm looking for. I'm looking for his sheep. In
verse 2, it goes on, And the Son of God, the Lord Jesus of
Nazareth, came, he grew up before God as a tender plant. You see,
he became a man. grew up as a boy, born of a woman,
a virgin woman. He had to be. Because in man
is a seed of sin. Well, he was born without a man.
That makes him the only son of God, that sin. He was born of
a virgin. You've heard the story, I'm sure, that he was born of
a virgin. Not everybody believes it, but he had to be. He was. Ask Mary. Ask the others. That's the wise man. They grew
up as a tender plant, as a root out of a dry ground. He came,
he grew up, and he was born in Bethlehem, of which the Scripture
says the Christ shall be. He was born, he was raised in
Nazareth, and then he went over to Egypt, just dry, barren wilderness
ground, with all the roots. He said, This is the cry of the roots
of David, a root out of dry grass, but he didn't have any form or
color. He wasn't pretty to look at. When we see him, there's
no beauty that we should desire in him. He looked like an ordinary
man. He dressed like an ordinary man. He didn't talk like an ordinary
man, but he looked like an ordinary man. He was just a Jew, and nobody saw anything special
in him, but he was God. We didn't see anything special
in it until he revealed it unto her, until he peeled James. Peter
and John went up on the mountain one day with her, and he peeled
back his flesh, and they saw God, a consuming fire, and heard
God say, This is my Son, Mr. Enoch. This Jesus of Nazareth,
though he just looked like a common man, Just though he looked like
a root out of dry ground, oh, he's the tree of life. Oh, he was despised, look at
it, verse 3, he was despised and rejected, is despised and
rejected. He still is. Despised and rejected
of men, oh, men turned thumbs down on him. God turned thumbs
up. You see, it's not whom men approve
of, it's whom God approves of. And the same goes for us. Only
if God approves of this man, will we be approved of. Or else
God will turn thumbs down on us. Men turned thumbs down on
us. They despised and rejected him.
He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And everybody, us
included, hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised
as not worthy of our recognition. We esteemed him not. He's nobody
special. But you see, the thing that men
despised about him, the thing that men rejected and disesteemed
about him, was his doctrine. It's what he said. He came down here and he said,
and he told everyone that heard him, that man needed saving,
that man was under the condemnation of God already, that man was
in darkness. And he said he was the light.
He said man needed saving. He said, and all power and authority
was given unto his hands. All judgment was given unto him,
this man, Jesus. You've heard of him? that God Almighty was his Father
and he'd come down from above. He said he wasn't from down there,
he said he's from above. And he said, if you don't believe
I am, you'll die on your sins. And that's what men hated about
him. He said he came to give eternal
life to as many as God had given him. He said he's the one who
decided who got eternal life or not. That's what men and women
hated about it, and despised and rejected about it. He said
he was the only way, the only truth, and the only life, and
that nobody was going to get to God but by him. And so, men hated him, despised
him, and rejected him. They didn't like what he said,
and so they took him And they took him to a kangaroo
court. You know the story. This thing
wasn't done in a corner. You've heard the story. He was
taken to a kangaroo court by the Romans and the Jewish leaders,
the religious leaders, and they crucified him. You know, you
know the story. They crucified him. They took
him and nailed him to a tree. But you know what? He'd been
saying that all along. He'd been saying that's what
was going to happen to him. He told all his disciples long
before it ever happened, he said he must suffer. Why, he foretold
his death the very day, everything that would happen to him long
before it happened. He said he would be taken into the hands
of wicked men and suffer many things and die, and the third
day he'd come out of that grave. Have you heard about this? Why? Why did he do all that? Who was he? Why was he here?
What was he doing? Do you know? Mr. Enoch said, I don't know. Well, I'll tell you why. Look
at verse 4 and 5. Surely he hath borne our griefs,
and carried our sorrow. We did esteem him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. You see, man is guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty, condemned by God. There's none righteous,
no, not one. There's none that doeth good.
They've all gone astray. They've all together become filthy,
God says. The soul that sinneth must surely
die. He didn't have any sin. He didn't
have to die. He wasn't guilty. He was innocent.
But I was, and you are. So God sent His Son down here. As a substitute, Mr. Ewing, a substitute. You know a substitute? You know
when they play bowling wrong, don't you? There's a fellow in
there and he ain't getting the job done and the coach jerks
him out and sends in a substitute wanting his place. Jesus Christ came down here in
my place, condemned his spirit. In my place, I wasn't fulfilling
the law of God. You're not fulfilling the law
of God. None fulfilling the law of God.
Jesus Christ came and fulfilled the law of God perfectly. He was doing it for me. But wait
a minute now, God's holy, God said you're going to have to
die. I deserve to die. You deserve to die, Mr. Unit,
Miss Unit. You deserve to die. God doesn't
love everybody and smile on them. God's angry with the wicked every
day. And the only hope is that you've
got a substitute. He was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquity. The chastisement of our peace
was laid on Him. He took my whip. He took my whip. and the whipping
of every single believer, every one that God gave to him to take
care of their whipping. Mr. Eunick, he took their whipping. He took what they had coming
to them, and they took what he had coming to him. Substitution
and satisfaction. But I'll get to that in a minute.
Substitute. Do you believe that? That's a
report. Hey, Mr. Eunick, Are you listening? See, with his stripes we're healed. Blood. We all like sheep, you see, have
gone astray. Gone astray. We've turned every
side, gone to his own way. Oh, there's a way that seems
right to man, but the end is death and destruction. If God
leaves you alone, Mr. Yannick, if he left me alone,
We'd have gone the bald road with this whole world going down,
and the end is death and destruction and getting what they deserve.
God's going to burn this planet up because they deserve it. Me too, unless, unless He did
this for me, unless I got a substitute, you see. The Lord hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all, laid the whole burden on him of our sins,
made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in him. And look at it, verse
7, he was oppressed and he was afflicted, but he opened not
his That is a lamb to the slaughter, and his sheep before her shearers
is done. So he opened not his mouth."
Did you hear the story of how that when Jesus of Nazareth was
in the hall of Pilate, and Pilate was laying all these things at
his charge, and all of the Jewish religious leaders were laying
all these things at his charge, and he was innocent of all the
charges. He hadn't done any of these things. But everybody was
falsely accusing him of all these things. And do you know what? He never denied one of them.
He never stood up and defended. He never spoke. He didn't say
a thing. He didn't open his mouth. Why? Because he was me, Mr. Young. And if you believe, he
was you. You're guilty, and every charge
that can be brought against you is brought against you by the
law, by the world, by Satan. My sin, myself, is brought against
you, and if you're guilty, you can't say a thing. Guilty is
all you can say. He must substitute. Taken it
all. Laid on Him the iniquity of us
all. That was me standing there. I should have been crucified. And then they took him and put
him in prison, verse 8. He's a lamb. He's a lamb, Mr. Unit. Did you hear a fellow named
John the Baptist preaching about the Lamb of God? He went to Jerusalem
just now. Were they sacrificing any lamb? Was blood being shed? This is God's Lamb. The only
one, there he is, that actually put away the sins of a human
being. It's not possible that the blood of those lambs would
put away sin, but this man, after he'd offered one sacrifice for
sin forever, put it away. Put it away completely. That's
all that he died for. We're going to say they took
him, put him in prison, took him from judgment, from the judgment
seat. Pilate, Paul, Herod, and Pontius
Pilate, and all of them were gathered together. And he was
killed, he was cut off from the land of the living. Why? His name is Jesus. Do you know
what that means? God gave him that name. Mary
didn't give it to him. His biological mother didn't
give it to him. Joseph didn't give it to him.
The angels announced it long before he was born. And he said,
Call his name Jesus. Why? For he shall save my people
from their sins. The transgression of my people
was he stricken. He died for God's people. In
verse 9, he made his grave with the wicked. There were two thieves. When he was being crucified,
there were two thieves, murderers, one on each side of him. Bless God, one of them. They
were both cussing him. None of them, neither one of
them believed him, but oh, the arm of the Lord. He didn't say,
but I believe he's on the right arm. I believe the thief is on
the right hand, the right arm. All of a sudden that, he turned
to him, the Lord, this Lord of glory, turned to him and revealed
himself to him. And you know that old thief, they said, he said, Lord, remember
me. He died with those fellows, laid
his grave with the wicked. They called him an evil man,
and he made his grave with two evil men, and one of them he
made holy. And with the witch and his death,
he didn't see, he hadn't, the Son of Man didn't have where
to lay his head. Foxes had their holes, birds
had their nests, but he didn't have a home, had one robe, one
pair of shoes, and he was buried in a borrowed tomb. He didn't
really need it long anyway. The barred tomb, a rich man loaned
his tomb to him out, where he had no man that ever laid. And
they buried him in this barred tomb. He'd done no violence,
though, and he was in the deceit in his mouth. Oh, my! Violence was done to him, but
he'd done no violence. No deceit in his mouth, but all
the deceit and the lies told against him. But you know what,
Mr. Unit? You know who did this. You know, wicked men took and
crucified Jesus of Nazareth who was the Lord of Glory. They did
exactly what they wanted to do. But you know who really did this?
That's what I've been saying all along. God did this. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. God put him to grief. Why? Because
that was me. He was taking my place. It's
God's who's been offended. God's won't have to be satisfied.
Somebody's going to have to please God. Somebody's going to have
to appease God. And please the Lord to blues
him. He hath put him to grief. He made his soul an offering
for sin. When he was hanging on that cross,
he cried out, Eli, Eli, I'm a Samaritan now. Which means, my God, my
God, why art thou forsaken? What he did was he was making
his—God was putting his soul through hell. God forsook him,
because that's exactly what God's going to do to every unbeliever
in this world. He's going to turn his back on
them. That's where hell is. That's
where God is not. And it's eternal misery. Turn his back on them.
But please the Lord to make your soul an offering for sin. But bless God, he shall see his
seed. Because God saw his son crucified,
God sees me as his son. Because God killed his only son,
he now makes me his son, he said. He can now accept me in the Beloved,
in his only begotten Word, Beloved Son. He's going to see his seed. Christ was as my mother. He was
like my mother in travail. Look at it. You'll see his seed.
He travailed, verse 11. Christ was giving birth to a
people there by his blood. His seed they're called. And
he shall prolong his days." He died, they took his body down
from the grave, from the cross, and put it in a grave, and he
laid there three days. So he would. Scripture said he
would. Jonah, you ever read Jonah? That's
what that book's all about. And Genesis, and Exodus, and
a lot of books. That's what Jonas is about. Christ
kept saying that as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three
days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart
of the earth. But he's not going to stay there. If he'll just
stay there, Mr. Enoch, he's just a man. If we
can find no bones of Jesus or Nigel anywhere in Jerusalem,
anywhere, then he was just a man. But they never found any bones,
and they never will. Because over 400 people saw him
alive at one time. He came out of the grave. Ah,
he prolonged his days. How long did he prolong them? The end of his government, there'll
be no end. If you want to read that, it's
over in chapter 9 of Isaiah. You can read that later on. It's
all about him. Isaiah wrote about him all the
way through. Well, he prolonged his days in the pleasure of the
Lord. You see, it pleased the Lord to make people like me and
maybe you, I don't know, his people, old rotten, no good sinners. It pleased the Lord to make sons
of Adam like us, no good worms, into his sons. It pleased the
Lord. The only way he could do that
is through the Lord Jesus Christ doing what he did. And Mr. Hunick, bless God, he prospered. The pleasure of the Lord, what
the Lord had purposed to do, Jesus Christ did it. The Lord
put it all into his hand, my salvation, and bless God, he
prospered. He did. He saw the travail of
his soul. And God satisfied. That's the reason hell is forever,
because God's not satisfied with the punishment of human beings.
It's not good enough. Sin against an infinite God.
But when Jesus Christ went through hell for many, it's enough. God
said, I'm satisfied. It's done. He's satisfied. And
by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many. You see,
Mr. Ewing, it's not so much me knowing
him. I now know him and believe him.
But my salvation started when he knew me, when he foreknew
me, when he set his love on me and decided to make me his bride. Though I was a harlot, he decided
to marry me. And in salvation, not by us knowing
how to keep God's law, I tell you, we don't know God's law. Ask Apostle Paul. Well, Paul
wasn't around yet, but ask Peter and the rest of them. They'll
tell you, if you're keeping the law, but by his knowledge, now,
he knew the law. Jesus Christ knew the law. God's
Son knew the law perfectly. Every jot and till of it, and
he said he kept it all. He said, if I just come to it,
and believe him and trust him that he's kept it all, that God
would accept me. Why? I believe. Well, he said, then you're justified
from all things that are written in the book of the law against
judgment, which you cannot be justified by the law. He bore my iniquity. Verse 12. And God said, because he did
this, God said, I'll divide him a portion with the great. God
gave him a name. He is right now seated on the
throne of the majesty on high, reigning and ruling. He's looking
on us right now, this Jesus of Nazareth. He's not Jesus anymore,
not just Jesus. He's the Lord Jesus Christ, city
king of kings and Lord of lords, sitting on the throne of glory,
the keys of hell and death. But he'll take everybody kind
of turn. It took me. And God's given him a name which
is above every name, and it's the name of Jesus. Every knee, bow, and every tongue
confess that he's Lord to the glory of God the Father. And
he divides the spoil, all the unsearchable riches of Christ. He divides it up for those who
believe. Oh, I hadn't seen, you hadn't
heard, neither had I entered into the heart of things. A man
of things that God had prepared for him that loved his son. God gives it all freely. He that
delivered up his son, he that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not? Because Christ did it. Because
everything Christ did. Mr. Eunick, my salvation and
yours if you believe this report, if you have now the arm of the
Lord, the salvation of the Lord, the glory of the Lord, the Son
of God revealed to your heart right now, Mr. Eunick, You know and believe that your
salvation is 100% because of Him. Because He did it. And He was numbered with the
transgressors. And right now, He's bearing. He bore the sin
of many. Not all, but all of His people
bore it all away. And He's right now ever living
to make intercession for transgressors. See, I'm still a sinner. You
think, Mr. Enoch, because that I'm a deacon,
that I'm without sin? Oh, no. Nothing could be farther
from the truth. I'm the chief of sinners. I don't
feel like I'm any different than I was when the gospel was revealed
to me. But I believe. I'm still a sinner, and I'll
never be anything but a sinner. Neither will you. But blessed God, I believe, and He
said, now you're just that. Turn back to Acts 8. Acts chapter 8. And so, in Christ, this is something
else that Christ told us. Right before He went back to
glory, Mr. Enoch, He said, Go into all the
world and preach this gospel. It's not but one gospel, and
it's the gospel of God's Son. It's all that I've been preaching
to you. And He said, He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved. He that believeth
not, and is ashamed to be baptized and confessed, and doesn't believe
and won't confess it, God won't confess them either. You see,
Mr. Hewlett, Christ gave us this
ordinance of baptism in the Lord's table. I'll tell you about that
later. But baptism, all it is, is a
symbol that you believe what Jesus Christ did. Like in baptism. You remember
Noah and the ark going down in the water? Peter will tell you
about that. But baptism is someone saying,
I believe Jesus Christ, when He came, He lived for me. And
you go down under the water, you die and you're buried. He
took me, He put me, my sins and me just out of sight, out of
God's sight. Dead, I'm dead, I'm crucified
with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. I'm raised
by his power. The walking notice of life. That's
what baptism is. Confessing before everybody.
It's public. You get in a river, you get in a lake, you get in
a pool, you get wherever there's water, and you be baptized before
the world saying that, I believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the
Christ, the Son of the living God. I'm a sinner, a no-good
sinner, but I believe he's a saint, and I need him. I confess him."
Mr. Eunick, that's what you do. Well, verse 36, they went on their way. They
came to certain water, and Eunick said, Wait! Stop! I don't know where they were.
They saw some water, a bunch of water, and said, Here's water. The eunuch said, Here's water.
What doth hinder me to be baptized? Is there any reason why you can't
baptize me right now? I'm a eunuch. I don't know much. All I know is what you just told
me. You said, believe and be baptized. Here's water right
here. Can we, can you baptize me right
now? Philip said, well, if thou believest with all thine heart,
thou mayest. Yeah, I can baptize you right
now. If you believe with all your
heart. Believe what? The record. the record concerning God's Son. Not believe, well, you've got
to believe you're the worst sinner. Ain't nobody ever. They don't know. You don't know. You'll never
be the worst sinner. Well, you've got to believe that
you're, you've got to feel like it. No, that's not what he said. You've got to really feel like
doing it. That's not what he said, did
it? If you believe with all your heart, believe what? The record. What record? What it just said. Who Jesus Christ is. With all
your heart. He's the Christ. I'm a no-good
sinner. He's got salvation. I need it. He has it to give and gives it
to all that believes Him. What do you and it do? I believe
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." Philip said, stop cheering. What'd you say? I believe that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Stop the cheering. Stop the service. And they went down in the water. And he baptized them. It says, when they came out of
the water, the preacher left, or the eunuch went on his way
rejoicing. Went on his way rejoicing. What
does hinder you to be baptized? The eunuch didn't go home and change
clothes, did he? Philip didn't say, really? Do you believe with all your
heart? Here's water. We got water. Never done this before. There's water. Do you believe? He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved. Christ said, let me tell you
something. He said, believe me and you'll
see the glory of God. Believe him? You believe him?
I think I do. I hope I do. Yeah, I do. We'll
show you more glory. How much did believers, you older
believers, how much did you know Christ? You feel like you don't hardly
know him at all now? How bad a sinner were you? How
bad are you? Have you gotten any better, Henry?
Do you feel better about yourself now? You never will. Do you believe Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God, your only hope? Huh? Here's water. And I'll baptize
anybody that comes this morning. All right, Brother Joe, you go. Three twenty-seven. One twenty-seven. One twenty-seven.