All right back to Acts chapter
eight now. Tonight we have the blessed privilege
of once again. Witnessing someone confess Christ
and believe that. Amy Paul. comes publicly confessing
the Lord Jesus Christ as her Lord, Master, Savior. And she also—I speak for her
now—she also wishes to publicly identify with and join with this
assembly of believers. All of you who rejoice in that,
men and women, say with me right now, And once again, I thought it
would be good to bring a message on the subject of baptism tonight. And perhaps after this message,
if there's any others, we'll find you some clothes and you
can get in. Don't make me empty the pool again or fill it again. I haven't had much success with
this pool. At any rate, we'll leave the
water in it, and we'll find you some clothes tonight if you feel
necessity is laid upon you, men or women, or else we'll leave
it in there and you can come back again the next service.
After tonight's message, maybe you will say with the Ethiopian
eunuch, here's water. What does it hinder me from being
baptized? The hearing and believing of
the gospel is no common occurrence. It's no small thing. The hearing
and believing of the gospel is no small thing. It's a supernatural
work of God the Holy Spirit. It's no less a miracle than the
Ethiopian eunuch here in our text in Acts chapter 8. It takes
the same supernatural work of God's Holy Spirit for someone
to hear it now and believe Christ now and confess Him now. Same
work, same Spirit. It's no less a miracle. There's
so few today truly seeking the Lord. There's so few truly preaching
the true gospel. There's so few places where it's
heard that it's a miracle when someone does hear the gospel. and believe the gospel which
is despised by most. The gospel now is despised by
most people. The Christ of Scripture is despised
just like he was when he walked this planet. He's still despised
by the masses. The God of Scripture is still
despised, so it takes no less a work of God and the Holy Spirit
to make someone believe this gospel now. and confess him now
in this gospel, the gospel, the true gospel, the God-honoring,
man-abasing, Christ-exalting, Christ-only gospel, this gospel,
no less a work of the Holy Spirit. All right, let's look at it again.
Are we ready? Let's look at this story, verse 26. Now, endeavor
to be brief. Verse 26 of Acts chapter 8. It
says, The angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, go
toward the south, unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem
unto Gaza, which is a desert plain. Go south. The Lord God
calls His preachers as He did here. They do not call themselves,
they do not send themselves, they do not up and decide, I
think I'll go here, I think I'll go there, I think I'll be a preacher.
Never has been that way, never will be that way. Always has
been this way. God raises up his preacher, teaches
him the gospel, not in the school, but the school of the Holy Spirit,
and sends that preacher with a particular message to a particular
place, to a particular people who are going to hear it and
receive it. God calls his preacher. And he
told Philip here to go south. Now, if I were Philip, I'd be
thankful for that calling, a southern calling, not go north. Go south. But often the disciples,
the apostles, the Scripture says they assayed to go somewhere.
They intended to go somewhere, particularly Paul, of whom is
spoken more than any other the acts of the Apostle. Paul quite
often would have say to go somewhere and the Holy Spirit would say,
no, no, you're not going there. You're going here. That's the
way the Holy Spirit worked. That's how God worked. What God
opens, no man can shut, you see. The man doesn't have to open
it with tricks and gimmicks and this and that. God will open
the door, and the only thing the man uses when he goes in
the door is the preaching. The preaching. He doesn't send
ahead a soul-winning team to open doors. God opens the door,
and a man just comes declaring the Word of God in people. But
what God shuts, no man can open. No man can open. And that's a
good, a perfect picture of man's heart, isn't it? Man's heart. No man can open the heart except
God Almighty. Often the apostles would intend
to go somewhere, and the Holy Spirit would prevent them and
send them somewhere else, like in the case of Lydia, you remember.
I love to tell that story of Lydia, how that she was from
Bithynia up in Asia. That's where Lydia was from. And she was a businesswoman,
a seller of purple, or a cloth salesperson. And she was away
from home. She was away from Asia at the
time, down in Macedonia, on business. Well, I said it was going to
be brief, but I've got to tell this. I love this story. The
Apostle Paul assayed. He wanted to go to Asia to preach. He wanted to go up in that direction,
but the Spirit said, No. You go down to Macedonia or Philippi. You go down there. Paul didn't
know why. But he went down there. You know
why he went down there? Because one of his sheep wasn't
home up there. She wasn't in Asia at the time.
She was down in Macedonia. That's how the Lord moves, you
see, for one sheep. The Lord, the Scripture said,
he must at least go through Samaria on his way to Galilee. Why? That
wasn't the shortest route, necessarily. Christ had to go through Samaria
because there was a woman waiting for him at the well. She didn't
know it, but he knew it. He had her sitting there waiting
on him. And the same thing with this eunuch here in this text. This man, the Lord God brought
him into the desert. Look at verse 27. And brought
a man to preach to him, verse 27, and he arose and went, and
behold, a man of Ethiopia. Now this is a desert, Peter.
A desert. Hundreds, I don't know how many
miles. hundreds and hundreds of miles of desert wasteland.
But Gaza Strip, you've heard of that today? It's still there
today. It's a desert land, and it's
hundreds of miles, all right? At least hundreds of miles long.
At any rate, Philip left and went, and behold, he went into
the desert. Where do I go, Lord? Just go
in the desert. Just walk. Don't worry about
it. And a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch
of great authority under Candacy, queen of the Ethiopians, who
had charge of all her treasure, had come to Jerusalem for the
worship. He was returning from Jerusalem,
sitting in his chariot, and reading Isaiah the prophet. Now, here
comes Philip out in the desert, and here comes this eunuch out
in the desert. You know what? so to speak. The chances are
of these two just crossing paths in the desert. Well, wasn't this lucky? Wasn't
this Ethiopian eunuch lucky? This was his lucky day, wasn't
it? I'm being sarcastic. There's
no such thing as luck. This was God Almighty's sovereign
purpose and direction in bringing these two to their paths to cross.
Philip didn't know where he was going, but he went. The Ethiopian
unit was going home, and he was traveling through the desert,
all these miles of desert wasteland, and they met. They met. My boy. In the desert. in the midst of the desert. This
was God's sovereign providence in bringing them together. All
right? It says that this man was a eunuch and he came to Jerusalem
to worship. Jerusalem was a mecca of sorts for all sorts
of religion. This is where all sorts of religions
came. If you remember the time of Pentecost
when they all came, the Medes and Persians and so forth came
to Pentecost, and even today it's still a diversification
of religions that meet in Jerusalem. There's an Islamic dome of the
rock, you know, a mosque there, where they come to worship and
all. Well, they all came to Jerusalem, and perhaps this was one of those
feast times, one of these two- or three-day feasts. It doesn't
say, but perhaps it was. And this man was returning from
Jerusalem, and it says he went there to worship. Now, that's
significant. He went there to worship. He
didn't go there to play games. This was not a man who was just
making a show of religion. This man went there to worship.
That's significant because the Scripture says that, seeking
me, you shall find me. When you search for me, with
all your heart. True seekers. He said, Seek and
you shall find. Ask and you shall receive. Mock
and you'll be opened. Seekers. Find. Those playing
games don't. They don't. Nathanael was a man,
as Scripture says, that had no guy. No guy. A sincere man. You know who he ran across, don't
you? All right, this was a true seeker. Verse 28. He was returning,
sitting in his chariot. reading Isaiah the prophet, returning
from Jerusalem, reading his Bible. And he was reading Isaiah. Perhaps
he heard someone mention this passage of Scripture in Jerusalem.
Maybe one of the Pharisees had opened and read it in the Hebrew,
or something like that. And this man didn't know what
it was all about, and he was reading it for himself. Maybe
somebody preached on it. and didn't do it justice. And
he was greedy, and he just didn't understand. At any rate, he was
reading there. He turned to it and began reading
this on his journey home, sitting in his chariot. Verse 29. Then
the Spirit—notice how the Spirit is directing this whole thing.
The Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is leading this whole incident.
There's nothing left to chance. It's not left to man's will.
It's not going to be left up to Ethiopia unit's will, or Philip's
good sense of direction. Now, Holy Spirit, salvation of
a sinner is by the divine operation and direction of God Almighty's
Holy Spirit, sending a preacher to a particular chosen vessel. All right? The Spirit said to
Philip, go near and join thyself to this chariot. As I said, salvation
of a sinner is by the direction of God's Holy Spirit. A wind
bloweth where it listeth. A wind bloweth where he decides. And right here the Holy Spirit
said, right there, Philip, right there. Go right there to that
fella. He's one of mine. Right there. Just like the Holy Spirit said
many places, different one. That's one of mine. Go to him.
Don't go to them. Go to him. Him. I saw, and some of you may have
seen this ridiculous sign on a church billboard in the church,
on a billboard of a religious organization in Boone's Mill. And I thought I had been shocked
before, but this one beat it off. You saw it. The sign says, God only intervenes
by invitation. I wanted to get a can of spray
paint so bad. or a sledgehammer or something.
It shocked me. It made me mad. It made me mad.
God only intervenes by invitation. That's the most blasphemous,
that's the most untrue, the most ridiculous, most absurd thing
I've ever heard of. Maybe their God does, and therefore
none of them are saved. But that's not so with all, all,
A-double-L, every single conversion you'll find in the Scriptures.
You'll find every single person saved by God that God intervened. God intervened. They were doing
something, we're going to read in Isaiah 53, it says, we all
have gone astray. We've all gone our own way. Ain't
nobody asking, rejecting Him. going our own way. That's the
opposite of God. And here's salvation, God intervening
and saying, stop, turn around, you're mine. It was so with the
apostles. Were any of the apostles asking
Jesus, let us follow you? Was Saul of Tarsus believing
on Jesus? Huh? God intervened, didn't he? stopped him, his wild career
stopped him on his road to hell. Ask Lydia. Ask the jailer. Ask Lazarus. Ask this eunuch here. Everyone
in here could attest to the same thing. Salvation is just that,
God intervening. and saving us in spite of our
will and our purpose and our way. That's salvation, isn't
it? God Almighty stopping our wild
career and saying, give it to him, have you come? No further.
Now turn. So the Spirit said go to Philip.
Verse thirty, Philip ran thither to him. and heard him," this
is the Spirit intervening, stopping this man's chariot, isn't it?
Huh? The eunuch wasn't hollering,
is there a preacher out there anywhere? Verse 30, "'Philip
ran further to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah.'"
Now, I don't know if the chariot was still going or not, but at
any rate, this man, now this man was serious. He was reading
out loud. He was reading his Bible, and
he was reading it out loud. That's how serious he was. And I don't know if he was still
traveling or not, but Phillip was running alongside him, listening
to him. And the man was so engrossed,
I don't think he saw him standing there, or running. And Phillip hollered up at him,
Do you understand what you're reading? Do you understand what
you're reading? And then he said, well, of course
I do. I'll have you know that I'm an educated man. I'm no dummy.
Well, I'm no illiterate fellow. I can read. I have some education. I have some Bible knowledge.
I go to church. I read my Bible. I can figure this thing out.
I don't need you. Who do you think you are? Is that what he
said? No. Here is the response of a
true seeker. a meek, humble, childlike vessel
of mercy which God hath prepared," and James said, "...to receive
with meekness the engrafted word." That's the only way anybody's
going to receive the Word, and that is with meekness. Know-it-alls
don't find anything at all. If any man thinks he knows anything,
Scripture said, he knows nothing, yet is he ought to But those who know nothing, they
have it all revealed to them, Christ who is all. So this man
says, here's his response to that. Do you understand what
you read? Verse thirty-one, the man said, How can I? How can
I accept some man should guide me? Would you come up here and tell
me what this passage of Scripture means? I don't know. I've been reading it. I've heard
people quoting it, and that fellow's trying to preach on it, but I
don't know. I'm still in the dark. Do you have some light
on this thing? I'd appreciate it if you'd come
up here and reveal it to me, because I'd like to know. He's about to find out, isn't
he? How can I accept some man guide
me? Everyone who hears the gospel
eventually hears it through a man. Everyone. That's the way it was in all
the Scripture from the very beginning. Why? It's a good question. Why? Why does God choose by the
foolishness of preaching or by a foolish instrument like man?
Well, to humble us. You see, the proud won't sit
and listen to a man preach what is supposed to be or what the
Scripture says is a revelation. It's a revelation. We don't figure
this thing out on our own. Can a man, Job said, by searching
find out God under perfection? No. Not by wisdom, the Scripture
says. Not by might, no, by wisdom,
but by my spirit, saith the Lord. By my spirit. The natural man
receiveth not the things of God, if foolishness unto him, neither
can he know them. They are spiritually discerned. And the same passage in 1 Corinthians
2 says that God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. Because no man knoweth the things
of God, save the Spirit of God, and reveal it to that man. And
this humbles us. We all are in the same boat.
We're all in the same position. There's none higher. In other
words, if salvation were only found or had by the educated
or by the knowledgeable or by those with a good intellect,
a high intellect, there wouldn't be many of us saved, would there? But you know, really, it's the
other way around, mostly. The Scripture says, not many
wise men after the flesh are called. Not many. It doesn't say not any, but not
many. And God hath hid these things
from the wise, the worldly wise, and the prudent, and revealed
them unto babes. Babes who say, I don't know, show me. And he
shows them. It humbles us. You see, that's
the first thing that has to be done to sinful flesh, is to bring
it down. The mind has to be cleared of
all this intellectual rubbish. Knowledge. Paul said the things
I used to know, I count it, but horse manure. For the excellency
of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, whom I didn't have a
clue who he was until the Holy Spirit revealed him. And we're
all in the same boat, you see. It'll level. Grace is the supreme
leveler. It brings us all on the same
level. How's that? In the dust. Nothings, nobodies,
from nowhere, knowing nothing, having to be taught, having to
be spoon-fed. To humble us. Secondly, why does
God send it through a man? to keep us coming to hear it
from a man. Right? To keep us coming to hear
it. If we figure this thing out on
our own, you won't sit and listen to somebody. And I know a lot
of those. I know a lot of those self-proclaimed
theologians, self-taught theologians, self-saved saints. I know a lot of them. And they
can't sit and listen to a preacher for five minutes. They know too
much. That's not the way it is. It's
not the way it is. This eunuch was an intelligent
man. This eunuch was a man of great authority. This eunuch
was a man with great responsibility. This eunuch was a powerful man
in a powerful kingdom. And chances are he probably had
a lot of education. But what he said was, you have
to show me. You have to show me. And listen,
the prophets were men, weren't they? Prophets? They weren't
educated men either. Now, I'm not just apologizing
for my lack of education. I got a little bit, don't I?
A little bit. I took some night classes at
ACC. I have English 101 and English
102. I have word processing. God became a man. God became a man. He was a preacher,
and all those wise scholars said, we don't listen to you. Where'd
you go to school? They said, that's the Son of
God, Joe. Where'd you learn letters? We
went to the University of Mesopotamia. The Son of God became a man and
was a preacher. and they despised him. He said,
We don't listen to you. We don't listen to you. The apostles
were men. They were all men. Well, this
man was no know-it-all, and he asked some questions. He got
some answers. You know, we try to teach our children that, don't
we? If you'll ask questions, you'll learn more. If you'll
quit talking so much and be quiet and listen, you'll learn. And
if you won't be too embarrassed to ask questions, you'll learn
something. Right? Isn't that good advice?
If you won't be too embarrassed, if you just get by the fear of
everybody thinking you're a dummy, and ask some questions. You see,
everybody else is a dummy too, but they're ashamed to ask questions.
Right, girls? And nobody else in the class
knows the answer either, but they're ashamed to ask. You ask,
and you'll get the answer. Christ said, Ask, and you will
receive. This man said, Show me. The Lord
showed him. The Lord showed him. Well, he
was reading in Isaiah. Look at verses 32 and following. The place of the scripture he
read was this. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter. Like
a lamb done before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth. Verse
33, "'In his humiliation his judgment was taken away, and
who shall declare his generation? His life was taken from the earth.'
And the eunuch answered Philip and said, "'I pray thee, of whom
speaketh the prophet this, of himself or of some other man?'
Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture
and preached unto him, All right, let's turn back there
to where Philip was preaching to this man. Isaiah chapter 53. Let's turn back there and see
what this man was reading and what Philip preached to him. And just two verses were quoted
there in Acts 8, but we can be certain of this, that that's
not all Philip preached to him. He preached to him the whole
portion of Scripture. You see, for the sake of space,
the Holy Spirit didn't put it all down. It's all there for
us to read anyway. OK? But you can be sure that
Philip began at the beginning of Isaiah 53 and preached unto
him the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is how it goes. Isaiah
53, verse 1. Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed?" Mr. Eunick, the report of the prophets,
the report that Isaiah is talking about here, is the coming of
the Messiah. You see, all of the prophets
in the Old Testament, all they did in writing their prophecies
were, was to tell of the coming Messiah. Moses' books were of
the Messiah. Jesus of Nazareth, the man who
came, he said, Moses wrote of me. Moses was writing of this
man named Jesus from Nazareth, whom the scriptures proclaim
he's the Messiah, the long-awaited Christ who should come. That's
the report of whom all the prophets give witness of, the report.
He's coming. Somebody's coming, Mr. Ewing.
And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? You see, Christ
is a revelation. You asked me to come and sit
in this chariot. You asked me to come up here
and expound to you this passage, you said. You see, the man cannot
figure this thing out on his own. It has to be revealed by
the Holy Spirit of God. You know, the Holy Spirit told
me, Mr. Eunice, to come right over here to you and preach to
you. He sent me right here. He said, go be somebody I need
to preach to. I didn't know who it'd be. And here you are. And
you ask me to come up? Now here I am. And he sent me. To whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed? The arm of the Lord is the right hand of God, the
right hand of His majesty. It's the Christ who sits at the
right hand of God. It's the salvation of God. Who
is this salvation revealed? Who is this Christ revealed to?
Mr. Yannick, it could be you. This
very day. God sees the revelation. He reveals
it to his children. All given by the Father will
have revealed Christ to them. What is this report? What is
this thing we need revealed to us? Look at verse 2. He. It's not a what. It's a he. The report, as I said, of the
prophets, the report of us apostles, The report of all holy scriptures
is of a person and his work, his divine work. The Christ who
came to do a work given him by God the Father to do for a people. He, he shall grow up before God
as a tender plant. There was a young boy, there
was a baby born in Bethlehem of a virgin. Not the seed of
man, but of a virgin. Born in Bethlehem, that's what
the Scripture says, that God's Son would be born in Bethlehem. That's who that was, born of
a virgin. If you'll ask Mary, she'll tell
you she never knew a man. God the Holy Spirit overshadowed
her. Ask Joseph, he'll tell you he never came near her. This
was a miraculous conception, this child born of a virgin.
He shall grow up, and he grew up. He grew up, he came out of
Egypt, he grew up in Nazareth. He's a Nazarite under the law.
He grew up as a tender plant, a boy. Asked the doctors and
lawyers when he was twelve years old, he was asking them questions
they couldn't answer. Grew up as a tender plant, as
a root out of dry ground. Verse 2, look at it. He hath
no form nor comeliness when we shall see him. There's no beauty
that we should desire here. He was just a plain, ordinary
fellow. Or as I like to say, a plain
brown rapper. A Jew. Just a Jew, you know,
with a Jew's nose and a Jew's hair and a Jew's eyes, he looked
like any Jew would look. Just a plain man. And the Scripture
says he wasn't beautiful to look at. This here says he had no
form, no comeless, no beauty that we should desire him. That
wasn't what drew people to him. Not the outward, but the inward. And he could have stopped right
there and talked about that tabernacle in the wilderness, couldn't he?
Huh? That tent in the wilderness that wasn't much to look at on
the outside, but oh, on the inside, it was the shekinah glory of
God. He could have stopped. This sermon, it could have gone
on for three hours. I'm not, but it could have. And we could too, couldn't we?
Huh? No beauty that we should desire in verse three. Well,
this same Jesus, He grew up and became a man. And he's despised
and rejected of men. Everybody turned thumbs down
on this Jesus. Everybody. A man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces
from him. I did the same thing. Everybody did the same thing.
We saw this man. We heard what he was saying.
He was saying he was God. He was saying He was the Messiah.
He was saying, except you believe in Me, you shall die in your
sin. We all said, throw it on there. Well, you're just a man.
We don't have a man reign over us. We all hid, as it were, our
faces from Him. We all rejected Him. He was despised by us all. Nobody
esteemed Him. I didn't esteem Philip, say,
when I first heard about him. I didn't esteem him. Nobody esteemed
him. He's highly esteemed by the Father.
God said it from heaven. I'm well pleased with this man. Verse 4, well, why was all this—why
did it happen? Verse 4, "...surely he hath borne
our griefs." He's a man of sorrow acquainted with grief. He was
bearing what we would have had to bear—infinite, eternal grief—the
punishment of our sins. He bore it from the cradle to
the grave. He had it on his mind. Hell. Separation from God. That's the
grief that men and women have to endure for an eternity in
hell. And we would have, all of the
people he did this for would have had to endure that grief
except he did it for us. He has surely, surely our surety. He's our surety. Surely he hath
borne our grief and carried our sorrow. There's no sorrow like
unto his sorrow wherewith the Lord hath afflicted him. Jeremiah
said that. Yet men foolishly, ignorantly,
did esteem this man stricken and smitten of God. The Pharisees
and everybody that walked underneath the cross, you see, was crucified
on Calvary's tree. as a common criminal, and then
everybody that walked beneath the cross sneered at him and
spewed their venom at him and said, God's doing this to him.
He's getting what he deserves. No, he ain't getting what he
deserves. He's getting what I deserve. He's getting what sinners deserve.
He was a substitute. He was doing this for the undeserving,
doing this for the unworthy. He who alone is worthy of God's
recognition was doing it for the unworthy. He didn't deserve
any of this, but we did at the hands of God Almighty. And we
thought God was smiting him and afflicting him for something
he had done. God was smiting him and afflicting him for what
we'd done. Verse 5, he was wounded for our
transgressions. You see, he didn't have any transgressions,
but God laid on him. Look at it. He was bruised for
our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. I've preached this so many times.
I wish I could preach it. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities,
the chastisement or the whipping that we deserve. You get a weapon
when you're young? Huh? I had my... I was putting my
belt on this afternoon, and Hannah came walking through, and I kind
of took a swat at her, you know, playfully. And I said, you know,
my daddy used to hit men with one of those. Not cruelly, not
maliciously, not enough. But he did used to hit me like
that. Did your daddy? Yeah. Well, they'd have hauled him
to jail today, wouldn't they? Well, you see, the chastisement
of our peace, or the whipping that was necessary to make peace
with God Almighty, whom we have offended, whom we have sinned
against, with his stripes we're healed. He took my whipping. He took our weapon. And not just
the cat of nine tails, the thirty-nine strikes, save one, forty, save
one, thirty-nine strikes. Not just the physical weapon,
but spiritually. He took my weapon, if I have
time to tell you. Best illustration I've ever heard
of this, of that verse there. Father gave this illustration
years ago. You've heard it here. You've heard it before, but maybe
somebody hasn't. There was a backwoods, rough,
one-room schoolhouse up in the hills of West Virginia years
ago. Back in those old one-room schoolhouses, Brother Henry came
out of one of them. Some of you did. Older children were in with younger
children. kindergarten on up to high school,
the same room. And as you might well know, you
know, you have older boys in there like you're going to have
trouble. And this little school room was rough, and there were
some rough boys in there, farmer boys, coal mining kids, and they
were rough. And they ran out nearly every
teacher that had come there. Well, somebody sent a little
fellow up there to be a teacher. And he saw, his first day, he
saw this rough bunch, and he didn't know how he was going
to get law and order in this schoolhouse. So he thought and
thought, and finally he came up with something. He said, all
right, kids, he said, I'll tell you what we're going to do. He
said, we've got to have rules, or we just couldn't carry on
the school. We've got to have some rules here. And so he said,
what I'm going to do is I'm going to let you all make the rules
around here. You all make the rules. And there's
got to be punishment for the breaking of those rules, unless
the rules aren't any good if there's no punishment. Right?
I'll let y'all, and they all like that. Hey, that's pretty
good. So somebody speak up and raise your hand and say, no cheating.
No cheating. No cheating. That's good. OK.
What's the punishment for no cheating? Stay after school for
An hour. Okay. Anybody else? No lying. No lying. That's good. What's the punishment
for that? And they went on and on and somebody, and somebody
raised his hand and said, no stealing. No stealing. He said, no stealing. That's
a good rule. He said, what's the punishment for stealing?
The fellow said, ten strikes across the back with a rod. The teacher said, it's kind of
severe, isn't it? Ten stripes? Yeah, bareback.
You've got to take your shirt off. Are you sure about that? Everybody prepared? Yeah, everybody
agreed. Okay, so they wrote the rules
down. Well, little time went by. And one day, there was a
big old brawny son of a coal miner who came up to the teacher
one day. His name was Billy. And Billy said, teacher, somebody
stole my lunch. The teacher said, OK, Billy,
I'll deal with it. So he said, go sit down. And the teacher
had the whole class in front of him. He said, now, something
has come up, stolen. He said, somebody stole Billy's
lunch. Now, who did it? Who did it? Nobody admitted it. Who did? And finally, one little
fella named Tom broke down crying. He broke down crying. He said,
Teacher, I did it. Just come up here, Tom. And Tom
stood there in front of the teacher. The teacher said, Tom, you know
the rule. No stealing. And you stole. And you know the punishment too,
don't you? Everybody made the punishment. Tom, take off your
coat. This little skinny fella, all
he had on was a coat and one of these old pea jackets, you
know. And he said, teacher, don't make me take off my coat. He
said, take off your coat. And he took it off and all he
had was galluses on, you know. He didn't have a shirt. Too poor. His ribs showing. He said, bend over the desk,
Tom. The teacher took a hickory rod.
He said, you knew. You knew better. And he rode
back to hit old Tom. And all of a sudden somebody
said, stop! And it was Billy. And big old Billy came running
up and said, don't you touch him. I'm going to take his weapon
for him. And he took off that shirt of
his and laid those muscles bare and the teacher hit him and hit
him and hit him and finally the rock broke and the teacher broke
down and everybody else did too. Billy took Tom's weapon and old
Tom after that was over grabbed old Billy around the neck and
said, Billy, I'll love you forever for taking my weapon. And the chastisement for our
peace was laid on him, and by his stripes were healed. God laid on him the iniquity
of us all, and beat him with the rod of his justice, till
divine justice, the rod, broke. It broke. And now all of God's
people, they love him forever for taking their whipping for
him, taking their whipping. Like she, verse 6, have gone
astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He
was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.
Why? Why didn't Christ speak up? They
wrongly accused him, didn't they? They called him a sinner, they
wrongly accused him, said, You've done this, you've done... Why
didn't he speak up in his own defense? Why? Remember that,
when he didn't answer a word? Why? He was me. He became his people
who were guilty. And they couldn't. They couldn't
say anything. They were guilty. And he had
become us. He didn't open his mouth. Verse
8, it says he was taken from prison and from judgment. And who shall declare his generation?
That means he was killed. He was cut off the land of the
living. Why? For the transgression of my people.
the sins of my people." Was he stricken? Was he killed? He made
his grave with the wicked. He was crucified between two
petty, common thieves, a murderer, one of them. Crucified between
the worst. Saved one of them. With a wrench
in his death, he'd done no violence, no deceit in his mouth. Yet,
you know who did this, Mr. Eunick? Verse ten, it pleased
the Lord to bruise him. The Lord's the one that did that.
God put him to grief. God made his soul an offering
for sin, because God said the soul that sinneth must surely
die. God made his soul an offering for sin. Why like this? But he shall see his seed. He
didn't stay dead, Mr. Young. He didn't stay dead. He went to the cross to die for
his people, but if he'd stayed dead, he couldn't have saved
anybody. He had to arise from the grave, like that Old Testament
priest come out of that tent and say, God accepted the sacrifice.
He had to come out of that grave, and he did, Mr. Enoch. Three
days later, he walked out of that tomb. A lot of people saw
him. A lot of people saw him. I saw
him. I saw him. He shall see his seed,
his people. God prolonged his days. He didn't
stay dead. He raised him from the grave.
The pleasure of the Lord, it prospered in his hand. See, it
pleased the Lord to make you his people. And he gave a people,
like you, Mr. Hewitt, to this Christ to do
this work for. And he did it. He saved his people. He did this for them. He shall
see of the travail of his soul. Like a woman giving birth, he
has no stillborn children. They're all born alive, but not
kicking. Not kicking. Alive and submissive. He sees the travail of his soul,
and he's satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant Christ, knowing the character of God, the requirements of God's
law, he justifies many. He shall bear their iniquity.
Therefore, God says, I will divide him a portion with the grave,
give him a name which is above every name, that at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess he is
Lord, because all things have been given into his hands. He
is now seated at the right hand of the majesty on high, Mr. And
we are in his hands. I'm not asking you what you'll
do with Jesus. I'm telling you, we're in his hands to do with
as he pleases. And as he pleases, he poured
out his soul unto death, he was numbered with the transgressors,
he bare the sin of many, and right now he's making intercession
for those very people he died for. God's land. Turn back to Acts
8 now. Back to Acts chapter 8. So that's
what Philip preached. And more. Much better, I'm sure.
Much better, I'm sure. But that's what he—that's who.
That's who Philip preached to this Ethiopian unit. And apparently,
obviously, Philip said something to him about baptism. He said,
Now, if you believe anyone who believes this Christ, this Jesus
of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son of God, and trust him and
desires that he did this for them, anyone who believes that,
who believes he is the Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah who
wants to come, and whoever lives now, and submit to him, bow to
him, feels their need of him, anyone who does that, they confess
him. They publicly confess Him because
the same Jesus Christ said, if you deny Me before men, I'll
deny you before God. If you confess Me before men,
I'll confess you before God. And how we do this is we go through
this ceremony called baptism. You remember John the Baptist,
maybe? A fellow dunking people in mercy water. Christ is the
one that gave that, that told us to do that. That's a symbol
of being crucified with Christ, buried, but rising again. And now a new creature. You go
down in that water of his blood, your sins are washed away, you
come out of there, a new creature in Christ, and now you go, you
walk with him on that day of old. They rode along, and verse thirty-six
says, as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water.
They rode a little while, and Eunuch was thinking about what
he had just heard preached. You know, people need to think
about this thing. Don't they? They need to think about it.
They need to think about it. We don't ask for spur-of-the-moment
decisions here. I'd rather people go home and
think about it. I'd rather people put this thing off a while and
decide, you know, come to a real heartfelt conclusion about this
matter, like Amy has done. She says she told me she'd put
this off and put this off and tossed and turned it over in
her mind and over and over and thought about it and finally
she just had to do this. I was the same way. I was the
exact same way. They rode along a little while
in the eunuch. They came to a river or a lake there, and Enoch said,
Here's water, here's water. What does hinder me from being
baptized? I want to be baptized. And Philip said, Well, there's
only one requirement. Verse 37, If you believe with
all your heart, Now, not just believing in your head, not just
believing the facts I just told you, but with your heart. You
see, you believe this Christ, this One who came is the Son
of the living God, who is God. And you see your need of Him.
You see your need of Him, and believe in your heart. You're
not just playing games now. You're sincere about this thing.
You're sincere. And the eunuch said, I believe. I believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God. Philip said stop the chariot.
Stop the chariot. And I'm going to stop this service.
And we're going to go get in the water. Is that what you believe
in? Is that who you believe? Is that what you heard? That's
who you heard and that's who you believe? And this is what
you do. This is how you do it. You say,
I believe. Yes, I believe all that. preacher. I believe him. This is the cry
I believe, and I want to confess him to. All right. Brother Joe, if you'll come up
and lead us in a hymn while we're preparing. What number did I
tell you? 477? Sherry, you'll come up and
play. Yeah, let's sing, if you don't
mind, three verses. First, second, leave out that
third verse, all right?