Read Acts chapter 8 from verse
1. And Saul was consenting unto
his death, that's the death of Stephen. And at that time there
was a great persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem,
and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea
and Samaria, except the apostles. and devout men carried Stephen
to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for
Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house and
hailing men and women committed them to prison. Therefore they
that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word. Then Philip went down to the
city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them. And the people
with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake,
hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits
crying with loud voice came out of many that were possessed with
them, and many taken with palsies, and that were lame were healed.
and there was great joy in that city. But there was a certain
man called Simon, which before time in the same city used sorcery
and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some
great one, to whom they all gave heed from the least to the greatest,
saying, this man is the great power of God. And to him they
had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with
sorceries. But when they believed Philip
preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name
of Jesus Christ, they were baptised both men and women. Then Simon
himself believed also. And when he was baptised, he
continued with Philip and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs
which were done. Now when the apostles which were
at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God,
they sent unto them Peter and John, who when they were come
down prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost.
For as yet he was fallen upon none of them, only they were
baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then laid they their hands
on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. And when Simon saw
that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost
was given, he offered them money, saying, Give me also this power,
that on whomsoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost.
But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because
thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with
money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter, for thy
heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent, therefore, of
this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of
thine heart may be forgiven thee. For I perceive that thou art
in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. Then
answered Simon and said, Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none
of these things which ye have spoken come upon me. And they,
when they had testified and preached the word of the Lord, returned
to Jerusalem and preached the gospel in many villages of the
Samaritans. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading. When Stephen was martyred, It
seems as if Saul was emboldened. If he could kill Stephen and
get away with it, what else could he do? He knew that Stephen was
one of the leaders of the church, and so he thought that this might
be his opportunity to strike and to kill many others. Many years later, this man, Saul
of Tarsus, was as the converted, Paul the Apostle, standing before
a king called Agrippa, giving some personal testimony of how
the Lord had come to him and saved him. But he looked back
over the years, and he reflected upon this time in Jerusalem,
And this is what he said of that time. He said, killing of the
killing of others. He said, which thing I also did
in Jerusalem. And many of the saints did I
shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests.
And when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. and I punished them oft in every
synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme, and being exceedingly
mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities."
He put them in prison. He brought them before judges
and accused them to their faces of things that they were not
guilty of and which they had not done. And then he put them
to death. And as they were being put to
death, he added his voice against them, causing them to blaspheme
even as they were being put to death. Can you imagine what conscience
that man had in a later day when he understood the power of the
Lord Jesus Christ? Sometimes we might do things
that we are subsequently sorry for. It is always good to remember
that there is forgiveness with the Lord that he may be feared. And if you feel that there is
something in your heart, something on your mind that you are sorry
for before God, a sin that you have committed, then be like
Paul and take it to the Lord and ask for his forgiveness. This was a time of great persecution
in the church. The Lord Jesus Christ loves his
church and loves his people. Nevertheless, the Lord Jesus
allowed this persecution to take place. He had allowed Stephen
to be killed. And we would think to ourselves,
why should that be that a man of such great ability, such great
usefulness in the church should have to be slain? But maybe it
was just to give Saul of Tarsus that boldness to go against so
many others. And the very fact that he went
against those others caused other people in the city, all of those
thousands that had been converted, to become afraid. and to leave
the city, to become refugees and to flee from their own homes
because of the violence of this man. And what happened then was
something quite wonderful because as the people started to leave
the city, they took their faith with them. As they went into
the villages and the towns, as they started to spread to other
nearby cities, they talked about the Lord Jesus. They preached
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're told that Saul
made havoc of the church. But as the believers then left
and went out to other cities, we see that them carrying the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ with them. And so the gospel
was spread. And there's another lesson there.
that in the providence of God, in the way in which God works
things in this world, all things work together for good, because
he brings good things even out of bad things. There was a great
movement of people. and they went out, all except,
we're told, the apostles. And I think it's interesting
because it's clear that the apostles had the commission that they
were to go out into all the world. And yet here they were, staying
in Jerusalem at least for this time. As the believers were chased
out of town, the apostles remained there. And I thought to myself,
I wonder why. I wonder why they stayed when
everyone else tried to escape. And I think it was for this reason.
I think that in the face of Saul of Tarsus' onslaught, They bravely
held their ground. Do you remember what the Lord
Jesus Christ said in that occasion when he was in Gethsemane and
the people came to arrest him with their sticks and their swords? He said, I'm the person you're
looking for. Let these go. And that was what
the disciples did. That's what the apostles did.
They stayed in Jerusalem. And I can't but believe that
Saul of Tarsus was so fixated with the apostles. that he let
the other believers escape out from under his grasp. So here
is a picture of perhaps the bravery of the apostles at this moment.
When the anger of the Jews was coming upon them, they stood
their ground. Maybe that just confused the
Jews for long enough for the disciples or for the other believers
to escape. One preacher that did go away
was a man called Philip, and Philip was perhaps the same Philip
that had been made a deacon with Stephen. And Philip went down
to Sumeria, and I think it's good for us to notice what he
did when he got to Sumeria. We're told explicitly he preached
Christ, and that's what he was supposed to do. Not preach about
all of the problems that were happening in Jerusalem. Not preach
about these terrible Jews that were causing so much hardship
and pain and suffering. Not to try to find other things
to mention. Simply this, to preach the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that's what he did. He preached
that Jesus was God. He preached that this one who
had come into the world was perfectly holy and that in spite of his
holiness, he had died on the cross for his people. but he
preached the resurrection as well. And he preached it through
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and his ascension
into glory, that there was forgiveness to be had for sinners with God
through faith in the work of Jesus Christ. And he preached
the joy of the Lord in the lives of men and women. We're told
another little thing in this passage here about a man called
Simon. Sometimes he's called Simon Magus,
although that's not actually a name that he's given in scripture. But he's called Simon Magus because
it was Simon the magician. And that's what the word magus
means. And for years and years, through
trickery and deception, he was a bit of a conjurer, this man.
He knew how to fool people. And for years and years, he had
fooled the people of Samaria to the point that they thought
he was some great man. But as soon as Philip came preaching,
as soon as he saw the work of God, the Holy Spirit, You know,
the fraud can tell when something is real and that's what happened
to Simon. He knew that this wasn't trickery
that he was observing here and he wanted a part of this power. So he identified with Philip
and he followed the others and became a believer and he was
even baptised. And we're told that after he
was baptised, he was like Philip's right-hand man. This was his
wingman. And everywhere that Philip went,
Simon went too. And we might think that that's
a very good thing to do, to be beside the Lord's servant, to
be a helper for the preaching of the gospel. But what we discover
is that Simon had an ulterior motive. He was trying to find
out how he could be a possessor of this power. Now the apostles
up in Jerusalem who had remained in Jerusalem, they heard that
there had been this great work going on under Philip's ministry
at Samaria. And so Peter and John went down
to Samaria. And when they got there, they
established the church, they prayed and laid their hands upon
the people and the Holy Spirit descended just as he had done
in Jerusalem. And that was a picture of the
way in which the Holy Spirit's coming came separately to different
groups of people. It shows us that the coming of
the Holy Spirit, although we speak about it as a one-off experience
in the sense of Pentecost, yet it was repeated for different
groups. We discover that the Samaritans
received the Holy Spirit. And then a little later in Acts,
we discover that the Gentiles in the sense of Cornelius, they
received the Holy Spirit too. So the Holy Spirit was showing
that he was moving to these different groups. And Simon realized that
Peter by simply praying, I brought the Holy Spirit here upon the
Samaritans. And he said, that's what I want.
I want that power. And he offered Peter money. We
have a little phrase, it's called simony. And simony is when you
try to get some religious benefit. for the payment of money and
it has been a curse throughout the history of the church. People
have thought that they could buy and sell men's souls for
position and place prominence within the church and throughout
the history of the church you can see that positions have been
bought and sold Simony is what we call it and that is from this
man Simon Magus. Peter repudiated his idea. He told him that he was deceived
in his heart and that the things that he was requesting were hypocrisy. I don't know whether Simon ever
truly repented. There is a suggestion that he
asked for prayer, but there is no expression of repentance in
what he said, just fear. And it may well be that the judgment
of God came upon him. But the apostles returned to
Jerusalem to tell the other apostles what they had seen and how that
the gospel was beginning to spread. As they went, they preached in
other towns and villages. And though there was trouble
in the church, both within the church because of people like
Simon, and without the church because of people like Saul of
Tarsus, we see that nevertheless the Lord Jesus Christ was protecting
and preserving and promoting the gospel of salvation. And though these experiences
came upon the church, Yet the church was victorious and the
church accomplished those things which the Lord set them to do. So we've come to another little
bit of the story of the opening up of the gospel and the spreading
of the church of Jesus Christ. Thank you.