Friday Night Bible Study - Acts 8

Q: What does the Bible say about evangelism?

The Bible emphasizes preaching Christ as the central message of evangelism. The Bible teaches that evangelism is centered around the proclamation of Christ. As seen in Acts 8, Philip the evangelist preached Christ to the people of Samaria, emphasizing the importance of hearing the word of God, which leads to faith (Romans 10:17). Evangelism involves sharing the gospel, which includes the doctrines of justification, forgiveness, and reconciliation through Christ, portraying the true essence of salvation.

Q: How do we know the doctrine of justification is true?

The doctrine of justification is supported by scriptural evidence that asserts we are declared righteous through faith in Christ. Justification is fundamental to the Christian faith, emphasizing that sinners are declared righteous before God through faith in Jesus Christ. This doctrine is rooted in Scripture, particularly in 2 Corinthians 5:21, which states that Christ was made sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. It is further affirmed in Romans by showing that faith is the means through which we receive salvation and righteousness, illustrating the free gift of grace from God.

Q: Why is Christ-centered preaching important for Christians?

Christ-centered preaching is essential as it focuses on the core of the gospel, leading to true conversion and joy. Christ-centered preaching is vital for Christians because it directs listeners to the heart of the gospel, which is Jesus Christ. As seen in Philip's ministry in Acts 8, preaching without Christ is not truly preaching. It is through the proclamation of the gospel that individuals come to know their sin and the singular path to redemption. This true preaching leads to understanding, faith, and ultimately joy in the hearts of believers as they recognize their forgiveness and reconciliation to God.

Q: What can we learn from Philip's ministry in Acts 8?

Philip’s ministry serves as a model for effective evangelism and demonstrates the power of the gospel. Philip's ministry illustrates the essence of effective evangelism, which involves preaching the gospel of Christ with clarity and assurance. As Philip preached in Samaria, his message was confirmed by signs and miracles, showcasing God's power at work through faithful obedience. This account teaches Christians the necessity of being equipped with the gospel, engaging with both word and deed to lead others to Christ, and relying on the Holy Spirit for empowerment and results in evangelism.

Q: Why is understanding false teachings important?

Understanding false teachings is crucial to protect oneself and the church from deception. Understanding false teachings is imperative for Christians as it guards against deception and corruption of the true gospel. The Scriptures alert us to the reality of false prophets, like Simon the Sorcerer in Acts 8, who can deceive many by presenting a false version of truth. Knowing the Word and being grounded in sound doctrine, as taught throughout the New Testament, not only helps believers discern the genuine gospel but also enables them to stand firm against manipulations that seek to lead them away from Christ.

Acts chapter 8 we have broached
the opening portions of our text as you can see the title of our
study is Saul Philip and Then Saul because as we learned last
week that we are dealing with now another subject the second
subject in our text who is Philip and Philip's story is going to
last a little while for us. We'll have two remarkable episodes
with Philip, two very instructive episodes with Philip before we
turn again to this individual antagonist, this unusual individual
who's an antagonist of the gospel, Saul, whom the Lord will convert
and bring him to become a mighty instrument by which his gospel
is spread. Last week we left off looking
at the blessing of the ministry of Philip from verses five through
eight. I'm going to read that again,
then we're going to just take up our present outline. In your
outline, you will see in the opening pages points one through
five, and then we will proceed to the other portions of it,
points one through five. We'll start at point four and
then work our way through. Let me first of all read verses
five through eight. and then we'll get at our study
tonight. 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 palsy that were lame were healed. And there was
great joy in that city, 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 a long time he
had bewitched them with sorceries but when they believed Philip
preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God in the name
of Jesus Christ they were baptized both men and women then Simon
himself believed also and when he was baptized he continued
with Philip and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which
were done." So, you guys remember what we said Philip's whole account
would be for us in this text of scripture, a parentheses.
You guys remember that? It's kind of a sort of a break
between Saul's introduction and Philip becomes for us a lesson
in both evangelism and missionary work. If you want to kind of
take away from tonight's study and next week's study and probably
the week after that, what is the overarching subject that
Philip conveys for us? It's the subject of evangelism
and missionary work. So you are now going to be able
to contemplate what it means to be a true evangelist and what
the nature of missionary work really, truly is. Philip will serve as a pristine
model of that for us. And we immediately open up regarding
Philip's preaching. And we are told over in verse
5, then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached
Christ unto them. You guys see that? He preached
Christ unto them. And without any Full development
of that proposition. I do want to state that That
is the call of the evangelist to preach Christ That you are
not preaching until you preach Christ So this is very important
for you to get because I'm not going to stay here We'll be able
to deal with this more fully when Philip meets the Ethiopian
in about a week or two but to be a preacher of the gospel you
must have the right subject and and the subject is a person,
and that person is Christ. Now, a lot of people have been
exposed to preaching, they have been exposed to church, and they
have been exposed to ministry, but they have not always been
exposed to Christ-centered preaching. The vast majority of our present-day
evangelical ministry is really not Christ preaching. It's preaching
per se, but it's not Christ preaching. And in that context, the reality
is from a strict biblical standpoint, if a person is not preaching
Christ, you are not preaching. You're going to see this tonight
as we will have both the protagonist of the gospel and then the antagonist
of the gospel working hand in hand. This is going to help you
understand and some of you are probably going to identify fully
with the struggle that went on in your own life where you were
exposed to people like this charlatan that we're going to look at in
a moment versus a legitimate gospel preacher. Philip is a
gospel preacher. And his ministry went like this.
The people that were in Samaria with one accord gave heed unto
those things which Philip spake, doing two things. What? Hearing
and what? So you notice that in the ministry
of Philip, it first began with what? Hearing. You see that Philip
did not come in with magic tricks. He didn't come in with the gimmicks.
He didn't come in with smoke and mirrors. He didn't come in
with some type of fantastic show, a set of theatrics. He came in
preaching the word. So for these people, they were
exposed to a body, a proposition that told the story about the
man, Jesus Christ. So their ears were exposed to
truth. And what we know about hearing
is this, faith comes by what? And hearing by what? And we were
more technical with even that verse in Romans chapter 10, 17,
we would say faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.
if we were more technical, but that's for another day. Because
you come to know that a lot of things can be said about the
Bible, but until Christ is preached, you really haven't heard the
message of the gospel. That's the difference between
many years in religion, hearing a lot of things, and then finally
hearing the gospel. And so Philip is a preacher of
the gospel, first and foremost, and that's what it means to be
an evangelist. Euangelon is our word and it
means to preach or herald the message. And so they were first
disposed to hearing and then they were privileged with what?
Seeing. Hearing and seeing. Now ladies
and gentlemen, this is going to be our challenge tonight as
we work through the account, because the account is going
to serve as again, a model for us of the battle of the preaching
of the gospel, the battle of preaching Christ. And so my proposition
is this, there is no place where men go and preach the gospel
faithfully, where they are not confronted with Satan's emissaries. There's no place where the gospel
is preached. faithfully where it is not also
met with false prophets and false teachers and false religionists
who come with their own kind of gospel as well. This is quite
interesting. So let's begin to work through
this. Look with me in your outline
under the Tribulation of the Saints. And if we can pull the
PowerPoint up, I'm thinking that we will have PowerPoint number
one. Let's see here, because... All
right, yeah, let's deal with point number one over on your
right side of your page. If you have the PowerPoint, pull
it up under the evidence, the evidence, the evidence. I'll
start right there and work it through because otherwise we'll
be confused. Do you guys have your outline
there? The evidence, the evidence. And so Philip comes preaching
the gospel. And remember what we said last
week, the gospel preacher, when he comes, he comes with what?
Gifts. He does not come to take from
you. He comes to give to you. The
minister of the gospel comes already fully bearing qualifications
and gifts to communicate to people, to give to people something necessary
for their soul's welfare. So that he doesn't come to hoodwink
you or entertain you so as to take from you. And much of religion
is about entertaining you and then finally taking from you.
For you can very seldom go into church doors where some prominent
preacher or some prominent minister is not only entertaining you
but also asking for a gift asking for some renumerations, asking
for some monies. And the people are very frequently
trained by their congregations that if you don't give to the
minister, God won't bless you. And so there's a compelling on
the part of the whole people group to make sure that when
the minister comes, he gets his. That's a predisposition on their
part. And they're actually told that they are mature and that
they're walking in the reciprocal relationship of God in Christ.
You want to bless the man of God. And they have verses where
they use to actually argue that make sure you bless the man of
God. In fact, they use texts that says, obey the man of God,
obey his word. And the notion again is you are
beholden to this preacher and not his message, but to the person. And you aren't even discerning
his message yet, and you know that by the end of the service,
you have to actually come out of your pocket. Is that true? And this is why for years as
an ethic and as a model at Grace Bible Church, I mean, from the
beginning of our ministry, we have made sure that we do not
follow those kinds of patterns. What pattern? The pattern of
conditioning the mind of the common auditor that when they
come to church, they gotta make sure they got five or $10 in
their pocket because they must pay the man of God. That is a
completely backwards concept. It's a completely backwards concept.
We saw this in first Thessalonians chapter two last week. Remember
the apostle Paul said, we did not come with covetousness. We didn't come to you with crafty
words. We didn't come to you with the
desire to take from you. In fact, we didn't come to you
in vain at all. We didn't come to you in vain.
That's an old Saxon term, old King James term. And what it
meant was we didn't come to you empty handed, wanting to receive
from you. We came to you bearing gifts.
And then he said, not only did we give you the word, but we
gave you our lives as well. So the ethic and the model of
the gospel minister who is properly serving Christ is that he does
not come to take from people, he comes to give. Now Philip
here is a perfect model. You're going to see this as we
work through the text. We're going to look at the text
very carefully. You're going to see, as we juxtapose Philip
over against this other fella, one gives and the other wants
to prepare himself to take advantage of people. And so we go on to
read the evidences of the kingdom of God. You remember what the
text opened up saying over in verse eight, it said these words,
and there was great joy in the what? It was great joining the
city. We don't want to pass that up
as such a critical point. So Philip comes preaching the
gospel. Philip comes with miracles and
signs and wonders. That's what our text is. And
we again saw how that the Arthur under inspiration of the spirit
says that Unclean spirits crying with loud voices came out of
many that were possessed with them and many Taken with the
policies that were lame were what healed? So verse 7 also
describes a kind of giving on the part of Philip. Is that true?
Was Philip was giving was he not he was giving the gift of
healing. He was giving the gift of comfort
He was giving the gift of deliverance. We could call his ministry in
the proper sense of the term a deliverance ministry He came
to set the captives free. He actually operated out of a
messianic paradigm, which was opening the eyes of the blind,
healing the lame, healing the lepers and healing the sick,
freeing them from their bondage and captivity. So he came giving,
he came giving, and there were no strings attached. You don't
hear anything in Philip's message that says, because I've done
this for you, you ought to do something for me. Do you hear
it? You hear it nowhere. You hear it nowhere and you will
never hear a man who has been properly taught of God to ever
beg or even imply that the people should give him money. You will
never hear it. You will never hear it from God's
servant because Christ never did it. He never taught it to
his disciples and they never set it down as a rule that you
make sure you condition the people to give to you, especially when
you've done something like that. Do we, do we, do we bless those
who rightly divide the word of God? Of course we do. Do we out
of a heart of thankfulness and gratitude towards God respond
with gifts of love to people who serve us? Of course we do.
But it's not out of some kind of law or compulsion. You don't
have to do it. And so you don't see that here.
You do see Peter Phillip laboring. You see him serving. You see
him blessing the people. And the evidence is of, of, of
the Texas this, and there was great joy in the city. Now stay
with me for a moment, because again, we're getting ready to
move into the battle between Philip and this guy called Simon.
And there's a lot to learn here, but at this present time, what
is the state of the city? Joy. I do want to make sure you
get that. What kind of impact did Philip
make upon the city for the whole city? to have a unified heart
disposition of joy. What kind of impact must his
ministry have made for the city? to experience this kind of wholesale
joy. I'm going to say it one more
time, and I want to see if you get the point. What kind of impact
did his ministry make for the whole city to be rejoicing? Not per capita, that is one man,
but the overall aggregate, the characteristic, the tenor, the
atmosphere of the city was one of what? So just, you know. I'm not talking about the joy
that you always find yourself forced to stir up in church.
Everywhere I go, temper the AC for some of our sisters before
they kill me. Everywhere I go, everywhere I go, the pastor,
the preacher, the preacherette, the prophetet, prophetess, whoever
they are, They act like it's an absolutely necessary law that
the people clap and shout and make noise and act like they're
happy It's like it's like it's like we have failed somehow to
get it right if we don't stir up some type of some type of
emotional joy some kind of emotionalism as To affirm God's presence or
to affirm our own authenticity as Christians and I think that
begs the point child of God is I think it begs a certain point,
and that point is this. Does joy in the biblical sense
require an existential manifestation of clapping the hands and standing
up and shouting and waving and going on? I mean, I mean, let
me make that point again. Does joy necessarily require
the existential demonstration of clapping and row mo going? Amen. Amen. Does that require
it? And does joy in the real biblical
sense have to be pumped up like your water pumps in the old days,
the wells you have to pump before you got that water going, pump
it. And then finally the water start coming up, gushing up. Does biblical joy require that? The answer is no. Hold on. Not only not necessarily, not
at all. Please let me help you understand
this. Biblical joy does not require a person pumping you up. Never
ever be manipulated by someone pumping you up to be happy. Do you understand what I'm saying?
Never. Because joy is a product of a relationship that's based
on knowledge and joy starts way deep down in the soul. And it's
a reciprocity of God's grace and favor in your life. And you
don't need anyone to stir you up when that's so. Now, follow
me now. I want you to get this. This
is very important, because there are some days, some days when
you are deep down in your soul, truly rejoicing in Christ, but
you have no desire really to share it. Is that true? Right because it's tempered by
other things that are going on in your life and at this present
time You just want to commune with your own Savior and you
don't necessarily want to get locked into the rope mode of
conformity to external Circumstances. Oh, this is good. You better
write this down because this is very important See, we're
not called to a kind of uniformity of existential affirmation of
whether or not we know the Lord. We're not called to, well, if
you don't stand up and shout, if you don't turn to your neighbor
and say this, then something must be wrong with you. Maybe
something is right with you if you don't do it. Are you hearing
what I'm saying? There is a critical necessity
on the part of the child of God to always at all times maintain
a sense of self autonomy. It is critical on your part,
lest you set yourself up to be deceived by the masses, the group
consensus, the movement of the atmosphere and the manipulation
of really a good collaboration on the part of the musicians
and the person pumping you up and creating an atmosphere of
jubilation and even frenzied sort of enthusiasm. Make sure
that you have enough grounded commitment to Christ on an autonomous
level, a personal level where you don't allow people to move
you until you want to be moved. And listen, when God moves you,
no one can stop you from being moved. Is that true? When God
moves, you know, it can stop you from being moved. So I just
want to make sure because there's a false joy out there today.
It's not based in truth and it's not a fruit of the spirit as
well. Now we do rejoice. We love to rejoice, but make
sure that you're rejoicing is predicated first and foremost
on knowledge. And that's why we have four points up there
as the foundation for true spiritual joy. Now, joy in the kingdom
sense is a fruit of the what? That's right. There's a false
joy, but joy in the kingdom sense is a fruit of the spirit. It's a fruit of the spirit. He
produces that in us. We don't fake it. He produces
it, but it's also based upon four necessary prerequisites. Look at it. First and foremost,
they rejoice because they have been preached to on the doctrine
of justification. They have been told that Christ
was made sin for them. He who knew no sin became sin
for them that they might become the righteousness of God in him.
Is that a grounds for rejoicing? They were also told about the
forgiveness of sins through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. God
hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, making Christ a curse
in order that he might give us the forgiveness of sins. And
when, when, once they heard the forgiveness of sins, the idea
that God could freely bestow upon men and women forgiveness. Afimi is the Greek term and it
means release, to let them go, to let them walk away from the
slate of sin and guilt against their soul, to walk away from
it as a pardoned sinner. How is that not going to produce
joy in your soul? I have never met a convict walking
out who wasn't happy. And that's what you and I are
by nature, convicts. You understand that? Listen,
we're not waiting for the arraignment. We're guilty. We're doomed. And
we're already in prison waiting to go to hell. And when God let
us out, it was truly on the basis of justification and then an
act of forgiveness. That's a result of justification,
which justification and forgiveness opened the door for what reconciliation. See, reconciliation is God himself
bringing you back to him in terms of fellowship and unity and having
the ability to commune with him on a safe grounds. How is it
that I can commune with God on the grounds of justification?
How is it that I can commune with God? I know that God has
forgiven me of my sins. How is it that I can commune
with God? God has made me accepted in the beloved as grounds for
rejoicing. That's grounds for rejoicing.
And then the next one is the obedience of what? So when you are in the presence
of gospel preaching and the kingdom of God begins to make an impact
in your life, Romans 14, 17, the kingdom of God is what? Righteousness,
peace, and what? Joy in the Holy Ghost. That's
right. When it begins to make an impact in your life, it is
a consequence of sound teaching. Sound teaching. Sound teaching
produces the fruit of a spiritual joy in the soul that's authentic. But that joy collaboration, that
response to your justification and forgiveness and reconciliation
is the obedience of faith. And this is what the text plainly
asserts as we look at it. Notice what it says over in verse
12. But when they believed Philip
preaching concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus
Christ, they were what? Baptized both men and women. Do you see that? Philip went down preaching to
the Samaritans. He performed messianic healings. These were what we call the signs
of the apostles. He was, in this context, operating
as a sent one. with limited qualifications,
limited qualifications that were unique to one gift, and that
is the gift of healing. He didn't have all the gifts.
He had the gift of healing in this context, much like Stephen
did. And his preaching resulted in
the people coming to faith in Christ and expressing, as our
last point was up there, the obedience of faith. Remember
what our master said, go ye into all the world, preach the gospel,
making disciples of yourselves, teaching them to observe whatsoever
things I have commanded you, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. You guys remember
that? So when we are done evangelizing, and God has entered into that
act of evangelism, people actually are converted, they are taught
of God, therefore they become disciples, and discipleship has
as its first manifestation an inclination to identify with
Christ in the waters of baptism. See, proper evangelism is not
a five minute shot. It never has ever been. Proper
evangelism is confronting people with either your witness or your
evangelical message. And evangelism and witness is
two different things. Have we not learned that? When
you witness it to someone, you are telling them your story.
When you evangelize, you are telling them God's story. When
you witness to someone, you're telling them your story. When
you evangelize, you are telling them God's story to gospel is
to talk about God, not yourself. But sometimes God allows us to
tell our story because on a human level, often our story is interesting,
but we can really get into a lot of danger when we're telling
our story because she, your story can be like the little fish you
caught. It can grow weekly. It can grow. And over time, your
story becomes large. And I know a lot of people spend
more time telling their story than telling his story. And folks
actually really enjoy people's stories, never hearing God's
story. And that's a problem, isn't it?
So the kingdom of God only works as the gospel is preached the
person the work of Jesus Christ is a gospel And when the Spirit
of God really is working that person's life, they know who
saved them They know how he saved them and they know why he saved
them This is where the whole issue of baptism becomes extremely
critical and every three or four months, excuse me Every three
or four months where? we prepare to baptize people,
we are often hard-pressed to have to explain the fact that
many of you were not baptized in a biblical way, and this had
nothing to do with the form of your baptism. This had everything
to do with the substance of it, not the form. The form is its
own argument, but the substance of it is the real issue. For
if a man or woman has not been introduced to the true Savior
through the true gospel, your baptism was nothing but a ritual.
And if you did not understand what it meant for you to enter
into the waters of baptism with respect to the substitutionary
atoning work of Jesus Christ, your union with him in his death,
your union with him in his resurrection and the implications of his resurrection
in terms of your justification and your permanent status before
God, which is basic Bible doctrine around the tenants of salvation. If you didn't understand that
you were not baptized in the biblical sense because baptism
is confession. Baptism is a man or woman saying,
I know who saved me. I know how he saved me and I
know why he saved me. And this is why we don't baptize
babies, because babies are not capable of making that articulate
expression of faith. By the way, if you notice this
verse, I'm not going to make it an aside, but I'm going to
make, I'm going to argue for the book of Acts, giving us a
very clear Expression of the objects of baptism look at verse
12. This is just an aside one could
argue this at length I won't verse 12, but when they believed
Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God in the name
of Jesus Christ They were what? And if you were able to read
this in the original language, it's not that subtle, even in
the English version, they were baptized means they did not baptize
themselves. This is a passive verb form.
Whenever a person is baptized, they could not have baptized
themselves. Someone else has to baptize you.
It's a passive act on the part of the object being placed in
the water and being brought up out of the water. Or rather the
subject the individual who's being baptized is placed in the
object being the water and they come up out of that water They
are passive in that act Fundamentally, you can never baptize yourself
But now notice the subjects of baptism here in terms of those
who are expressed men and women. Do you see that? It doesn't say
children Men and women and you'll see that pattern running all
the way through the book of acts as well Why men and women because
they have to be able to articulate their faith You're gonna see
that when we work our way through the book of Acts chapter eight,
when Philip gives us a wonderful exegesis of preaching the gospel,
its impact in the life of the Ethiopian and the Ethiopian responding,
what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip will say, if you believe
with all your heart, you may be baptized. And the Ethiopian
responds to Philip's standard for baptism by acknowledging
the crown rights of Jesus Christ. and then Philip then baptized
him. A lot of technical language there too, but it underscores
this, that you don't run up to the water and get baptized because
a bunch of other people are doing it. You don't get baptized because
your cousin is getting baptized. You don't get baptized because,
well, this is just a good time to do it. I mean, my partner
getting baptized, I might as well get baptized too. We generally
will have, when we do baptisms, sometimes up to 30 baptisms,
you guys know this, 15 men, 15 women, what have you. But what
we really do is we really try to labor to help them understand
you need to be clear on what salvation is before you enter
into these waters or else all you have done is gone through
a mere ritual one more time. So it's important to know that.
And so they responded because Stephan had, I'm sorry, Philip
had preached the gospel so fully and so clearly. They had seen
the power of God so pervasively and presently in the ministry.
They had come to understand justification by faith, the forgiveness of
sins through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, and the reconciliation
of guilty sinners back to a holy God on the grounds of the righteous
one, Jesus Christ. And the spirit of God through
the knowledge of the gospel compels them to what we call the obedience,
the obedience, the obedience of faith. and they are then baptized. But there's some complications
that have a tendency to rise up and we wanna look at some
now. Go with me back to chapter eight, verse nine. Let's go to work a little bit.
The church has been experiencing this battle for 2,000 years. And that's this, wherever the
true gospel goes and begins to work, the devil always quickly
comes behind with a parody of a false gospel to try to countermand
it or usurp it altogether. Wherever God's true servants
labor, the devil always shows up to give a facsimile of the
truth in order to divert as many people from the truth as they
possibly can. Only on this occasion, I wanna
show you something very interesting that I thought was remarkable.
It tells us in verse nine, these words, 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. Point number two in your outline.
Are you there? The flesh and the devil, the flesh and the
devil. This is what we're going to extract
from this portion of scripture. Two things, the fleshly nature
of an unregenerate man, who has been able to have his way with
masses of the people, manipulating and deceiving them and hoodwinking
them and holding them sway by his tricanery. And then we're
going to also see that this here is your basic modus operandi
of the devil as well. The devil always seeks to usurp
what rightly belongs to God. So under the flesh and the devil,
point number two, give me that power. Do you see it? Give me that power. So I want
you to hear what takes place in our text. Verse nine, that
certain man called Simon, which before time in the same city
used sorcery and he bewitched the people of Samaria, giving
out that he 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. You have to be
sharp. You have to be significantly
good at what you do to have masses of the people calling you, watch
this now, the great one of God. This man is the great power of
God. Do you see that? Literally he
is the power of God. He is the dunamis of God That's
what they were saying because that's what he was asserting
He himself was asserting in verse 8 the latter verse 9 the latter
part giving out that himself was some great one So he had
already gone before Philip to deceive the masses into thinking
that he was from God and Now, this is quite interesting because
what you've got going on here is a little bit of a tit for
tat. Because if you guys remember,
there was someone who was truly from God who has showed up the
first time. What was his name? That's right. And did not just tell you that
wherever the true minister shows up shortly thereafter, here comes
the false prophet. So Jesus shows up a few years
earlier. He was truly the great one, was he not? Was he truly
from God? Was he truly the power of God?
And yet here comes the hoodwink, here comes the crook now, Simon,
as it were, mimicking Jesus. You got it? Mimicking Jesus.
That's as simple as I wanna put it. But because these people
from Samaria, are you ready? Were God's elect. Guess what
Jesus does? He sends a true gospel preacher
to deliver them from lies. Because they were God's elect,
Christ sends a true minister of the gospel to release them
from the manipulative, deceptive tricanery of lies that they could
not detect otherwise. Are you guys following what I'm
saying? This is very important. The comforting truth in what
we're working through is this, my sheep, what? That's right. Another, they will not what?
You better put the word ultimately there. So I have told you this
before that there are times in which even God's people can be
deceived. So you and I never want to use
John chapter 10 verses 25 through 27 as sort of a calling card
that would suggest true believers are never deceived. You never
wanna make that text say that. What that text is saying is that
we will not be ultimately deceived. There are many times you and
I are deceived on a very limited level and a very narrow context. It may be by the devil. It may
be by the culture. It may be by a person. And sometimes
we deceive ourselves. And then God has to come and
deliver us from ourselves. And I would assert to you that
your greatest manipulator and deceiver is self. Although for
the child of God, he will, and she will constantly be assaulted
by the enemy on this level for a number of reasons. And so we
want to be able to work through this under point number two,
the flesh and the devil. Give me that power is the request
of fools. Give me that power. My proposition
to you is that Simon, uh, this man, Simon is so infatuated with
what he sees Philip doing. that he wants what Philip has.
He's so infatuated with this movement that has swept through
the city and has basically taken all of his auditors away from
him. See, a little while ago, he was the man. A little while
ago, everyone listened to him. A little while ago, he was the
great one. Now the whole city is swayed
towards this guy named Philip. And this guy Simon is now utterly
amazed at how quickly they have departed from him. Well, that
means he has lost out on his money. He's lost out on his influence. His ministry is starting to go
down the tube. So rather than standing up and openly attacking
Philip, what does the devil often seek to do? He seeks to align
himself with the servants of God first to find out where their
power is so that he can operate out of the same power and use
it for his own aggrandizement. Are you guys following me now?
This is true whether you know it or not from an experiential
standpoint. I am very much aware of the dynamics
and we'll just take our time and work these through when the
false prophet is confronted with a true servant of God. He recognizes
that the true servant of God is operating out of a different
power base than him. When the false prophet is finally
confronted with a true preacher of the gospel, who is truly operating
under the anointing in the true biblical sense, he recognizes
that there is a distinctly qualitative difference between his ministry
and the ministry of a faithful gospel preacher. This is what
Simon was now utterly preoccupied with. How is this man, Philip,
doing the things that he's doing? How's he doing it? How's he pulling
this off? How's he manifesting these kinds
of signs and wonders? Now remember, Simon is himself
one that has been using sorceries and witchcrafts in all kinds
of forms of trickery to actually deceive the masses, correct?
Again, verse 11, and to him they gave great regard because that
of long time, long time, long time, he had bewitched them with
sorcery. You got that? See, he had a monopoly
on it. He had the whole city all to
himself. He could go back and pull up all of the tricks by
all of the pagan gods and all of the pagan hucksters and all
of the pagan crooks and some of your Bibles have a more accurate
translation than the word sorceries. What translation is it? Magic. Magic. Magic. He used magic. That's what he
used. The word sorceries here is our
Greek term magio in its root noun form. He used magic. The
word is translated magi in Matthew chapter two concerning those
who were called the wise men who came from the east to worship
our Lord. He used magic. He was using magical
tricks. Have you ever been exposed to
magicians? How many of you have been exposed
to magicians? Quite a few of you. They can be extremely manipulative,
can't they? And if you don't know their methods,
if you don't know their techniques, if you don't know the manner
in which they cause you to be distracted while they pull the
wool of your eyes, optical illusions and audible illusions and sleight
of hands, If you are ignorant and don't have the capacity to
discern through their methods, you will actually think they
have some type of superpowers. And really all it is, is the
depths of the enemy giving them the capacity to appear like they
have power, deceiving the masses because of ignorance. Ultimately,
it's ignorance. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
Ignorance. So here's what you and I are going to learn tonight,
that there is an ignorance that makes people susceptible to false
prophets and false teachers of which they need the people to
remain ignorant. It's imperative that false religion
sustains a kind of control over the masses of the people by not
letting them in on their methods and techniques. I think I shared
this with you last week in our Sunday sermon. As we are going
through the book of Revelation and dealing with the church at
Pergamos remember and they had among them those who held to
the doctrine of Balaam and the doctrine of the Nicolaitans right
and I shared with you that the ultimate objective of the doctrine
of Balaam and the Nicolaitans is to create stumbling blocks
right stumbling blocks and stumbling blocks are traps their genes
their snares that you lay down surreptitiously in a fashion
that does not, Louis, you need to temper the air condition a
little bit more for me, that lays down surreptitiously traps
in a fashion that people don't see. And then you walk into the
trap. And once you walk into the trap,
they got you. Now, the reason why we would walk into the trap
is because we are ignorant. You would never walk into a trap
that you could see. As the proverb puts it, there
will never be a bird in the snare where the trap is in the open
field. You always have to shroud the trap with decor, alluring
things. At least you have to obscure
it in a fashion that the person doesn't actually know what's
happening. And this is the danger of false religion. Because from
the time that they say to have a meeting, From the time they
open the doors until the time you leave, there's a wholesale
system of manipulation that they are seeking to implement in your
life in order to deceive you into thinking you have experienced
the power of God. And so it is with those who do
magic tricks. It is a pseudo power that we
can argue that ultimately have behind it the energy of the devil. But in many cases, it's just
tricanery. And so what we have here in our
text is a magician. That's the idea of sorceries,
bewitching them, spellbinding them. The idea of bewitching
here means to cause amazement, cause amazement. Bewitching in
this sense is not a powerful sort of mystical term. It's really
the word to mesmerize. Are you with me so far? It's
to stupefy. Actually, the Greek term there
would imply that one now is sort of taken out of their wits, made
to be perplexed. And in that sense of perplexity,
they are now astonished. In reality, all that's going
on is that you haven't been able to put the pieces together. And
because the movement of the ministry very often is so quick, this
is how you can pick up on them. They move. From the beginning
to the end, they're moving. The method is to move. Keep moving.
Move your target. Don't let them pause too long.
Don't let them think too long. Once you come in, you guys know
the sales pitch when they're bringing you in to try to sell
you on some type of property or timeshare or something. How
many of you have been hoodwinked by timeshares? Come on now. They
worked you and they set the gin in the trap and you fell into
it because of the lust of the flesh. And this is true for religion
too. People are whipped up into a
frenzy made to stop thinking. Then the magic trick is put out
there and people start falling prey to it because we aren't
able to think it through biblical Christianity. is a highly cognitive cerebral
religion. Biblical Christianity is a highly
cognitive cerebral Christianity or religion. That is, you have
to think. You have to think. Christianity
demands that you do not leave your brains at the door. In fact,
you bring your brains in with you. keep them on all the way
through the service, and go out with your brains. Are you hearing
what I'm saying? It's very important for you to
know that. So true Christianity will always
be centered around biblical truth, the propositions of scripture,
and the heart of worship, the heart of Bible study, the heart
of pursuing God will be always on a rational, intellectual,
propositional level, aided by the spirit of God. Always, when
once you and I, are losing our faculties of reasoning. The ability
to reason through whether or not what this person is saying
or doing is both right and biblical. At that point, you have no stock
in the game. If you and I cease to be able
to reason through whether or not a person's alleged gift of
preaching or teaching is authentic and real, if we don't have the
capacity to reason it through, to think it through, you're not
even in the game. You're not even ready to say yay or nay,
because you don't have the ability to think. And so this is why
the Bible talks much about teaching. So here we are dealing with the
man, according to our outline, I call him Simon, the pseudo
savior. Do you see that? Simon, the pseudo
savior. So pull the PowerPoint back up
for me, so we can just work through this briefly. Again, he has already
deceived the masses. The masses were highly hoodwinked
by him. They actually literally thought
he was the power of God. Now, ladies and gentlemen, what
is the power of God? It's the gospel. The gospel is
the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. This
is Romans chapter 1, 16 and 17. The power of God is the gospel.
What is the power of God to bring a man and woman or woman or a
people or a child even out of darkness into his marvelous light?
the preaching of Christ. What is the power of the gospel?
It's the word of God coming in the power of the spirit to open
the eyes, to open the heart, to the revelation of Christ.
And the power of God works through scripture to do it. Romans chapter
one, verse 16. Go there with me. I want you
to see this in 17. Leave the PowerPoint up, my sister.
Romans chapter one, verse 16. and hear what the apostle Paul
says in verse 17. Now was not the apostle Paul himself a victim
of the deception and manipulative control of the devil while as
yet he thought he was doing the will of God and killing the children
of God, was he not? And did not the preaching of
the gospel by brother Stephan break into Paul's heart, Saul's
heart again and again so that by the time Jesus showed up,
our master said to Saul, Saul, Saul, It is hard for you to kick
against the what? The goals. What's a goal? It's a stick that's used to prod
the ox or the ass to go in the right direction when the master
is calling him. And what our master was saying
in Acts chapter nine to Saul was this, every time you heard
one of my servants preach, every time you heard Stephan preach,
the Spirit of God was laying upon your conscience conviction
that the things that they were saying were right. But because
they were right, they were crashing all of your categories, all of
your reference points as to what salvation was. You thought salvation
was by works. My servants were saying it's
by faith. You thought it was through your bloodline to Abraham.
My servants were saying it's in Christ that you're saved.
You thought that you had to work your way to heaven. My servant
said, justification comes apart from works. And that was like
a battering ram running up against his conscience, against his conscience. And it made him so furious while
he was in his unsafe state that he became a murderer. We're gonna
talk about this on Sunday when I talk to you about the one who
has the two-edged sword Because he's the one that's working in
the churches to separate the elect from the non elect the
sheep from the goats Just by the act of the sword. He knows
how to do it. He knows how to do it in Romans
chapter 1 verse 16 and 17 Are you there? And Paul experiencing
the power of God in the preaching of the gospel, the penetrating
work of that gospel, breaking him down on the Damascus road,
and then that gospel being culminated by the presence of the Lord of
glory himself. It says, for I am not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ for it is the what? Dunamis. That's
our same word. That's in Acts chapter eight.
Dunamis of what? Of God unto salvation to everyone
that what? That's right. Verse 17, for therein
is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is
written, the just shall live by faith. Now go with me in your
Bible to first Corinthians chapter one. So when we call this guy
Simon a pseudo savior, what we are saying is Simon has alleged
to usurp the authority of God to stand over between God and
the people, eternity bound souls and God to pretend that he is
God himself or God's power, which is essentially the same thing.
This is what makes him a pseudo-savior. They said he was the great power
of God. He made himself out to be some
great one. Those are very, very accurate
translations in the text. And yet the Bible tells us very
clearly who the power of God is. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18,
are you there? For the preaching of the cross is to them that
perish, what? But unto us which are being saved. This is a very clear verb form. To us that are being, which are
being saved. It is the what? Dunamis of God. So those who are experiencing
the saving grace of God are experiencing it at their conversion, they
are experiencing it right now, and they will experience it until
it culminates into a state of glory. Those of us who are saved
are presently experiencing the power of God. Presently. It's
an ongoing experience from the time that we are confronted by
the spirit of God through the preaching of the gospel. We know
it's powerful because it has moved us from a dark place to
a place of light. It has given clarity to our mind.
It has changed our understanding. It has brought us into a right
relationship with God. And we are daily growing, being
conformed into the image of Christ. And we know that only that could
be the power of God. We assert to people simply then
that there is no way to experience the power of God except through
the gospel. If we're talking about true power.
When we're talking about true power, true power comes from
God through the gospel. Now listen to what he says over
in verse 24. Are you there? Here it is. Watch this. He started
verse 23. But we preach Christ crucified
unto the Jews a what? Stumbling block. And unto the
Greeks what? And we deal with both sides of
those tensions. We understand that the Jews have a predisposition
to hate Jesus. We know that, but that doesn't
stop God from saving his elect among the Jews. We also know
that the Gentiles shroud themselves in, they hide behind the high
walls of intellectualism. We know that. That's what we
do. Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, and the whole litany and pantheon
of intellectuals who build fortresses of ideology and doctrine and
teachings against the Bible. We know that. They've been doing
it for years. But whenever God wants one of them, He simply
kicks that wall down, goes in there and gets his elect. Tell
them, you fool, I am your salvation. And they believe it and walk
out of the delusion of intellectualism, rationalism and humanism into
the faith, which is in Jesus Christ. Am I making some sense
to you? Sometimes you and I may fall prey to thinking that somehow
we can, we can tackle the things of God on a purely intellectual
level. Nothing could be further from
the truth. All that we will ever receive by way of knowing God
must first always be by revelation. Apart from God himself revealing
to us true, we can know nothing about God in a saving way. Are you hearing me? Apart from
God himself and the prerogative of his sovereign purpose, revealing
to us truth, all of our intellectual powers together could not save
one of us. Without God revealing himself
to us, intellectualism, philosophy, rationalism will never come to
the truth. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? Without God first revealing himself to us in a saving way
to cut the lights on in our intellect, we could never conclude the truth
about God. This is why our intellectuals
today, according to Romans chapter one in first Corinthians chapter
one are called fools, fools, because they dare to try to match
God's wisdom with their human intellect. But listen to what
it says. And this is what we're going
to see about Simon. He's going to really struggle. Simon is going to struggle.
Well, we're going to learn some things about Simon tonight. Here
it is. But we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews, the stumbling
block unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them, which are called
both Jews and Greeks, Christ. What is Christ? The power of
God. Christ. What is Christ? The wisdom of
God. Do you see it? So when somebody
comes to you and says, what is your power? What's your answer?
Christ. Well, what is your wisdom? What's
your answer? Christ is my wisdom. Christ is my power. He is the
mediator between the true and the living God and every soul
that will be saved. He becomes the specific instrumentality
by which we come to know the true and the living God, both
in terms of power and wisdom. You want power? You need to know
Christ. You want wisdom? You need to
know Christ. He is wisdom par excellence. You talk about philosophy,
Christ is our philosophy. You talk about logic, Christ
is the logic of God. In fact, he is the prima facie
logic of all logic. There is no logic apart from
Christ. Everything that's apart from Christ is not logic, it's
foolishness. Ladies and gentlemen, are you
hearing me? And I'm not cheerleading. Here's what I'm saying. It's
very important for you to understand that your mind, your mind is
a treasure chest. Your mind is a gift. It's a gift. It's where God communicates his
glory to you. It's not only in your mind, but
it starts in your mind. It's critical that the mind,
the mind, the mind knows God. For with the mind, we serve the
law of God. And we have the mind of Christ. Let this mind be in you that
was in Christ Jesus. Are you guys hearing me? And
so stay hungry for truth. Stay hungry for the word of God.
Don't allow yourself to default to and shift into mysticism and
paganism and emotionalism because that's where our culture is today.
Our culture is in a place where it launched itself in agnosticism. It launched in not knowing. See,
I would be scared to death. if I could know something. But
you can get a PhD and plenty of them and not knowing anything. And I want you to hear this because
this is one of the worldviews that the evangelist has to learn
how to overcome. It's a foolish notion that presently
dominates our culture. And it's the notion that we are
intellectually astute when we opt to say we don't know. When
we take a position of not only we don't know, are you ready?
We can't know. Watch this and it would be the
height of arrogance to say you do know. Are you following me
so far? This is very important because,
you know, cultures have trends and where we are now is the downgrade
of Romans chapter one. We are in that downgrade. We
are experiencing the noetic effect of sin. We are devolving to a
place retreating to a place where we no longer want to use the
faculty of our mind to come to any real substantive truth. So we hide behind the notion
that we can't know. How can you know? And we build
complete constructs in order to reaffirm the position that
you can't know. Are you hearing me? And the goal
of the enemy in most of our institutions of higher learning is to persuade
your children that they don't know and that their mom and daddy
never did know. Are you hearing me? You have
to be extremely careful of the pompous, arrogant notion that
somehow you are more intellectually astute and more in the know when
you say you don't know or that we cannot know and that somehow
that makes you smart or wise or more virtuous. Please, let
me just kind of give you a little quip so that you can extricate
yourself from that silly notion that you are more intellectually
mature or virtuous because you can't know. Right? So we have always stated that
when you and I are not operating out of a biblical model of worldviews
and a sound set of logical principles of understanding that basically
you're going to set up a construct that is essentially self-defeating
and self-contradicting. So every argument that opposes
biblical truth at the end of the day will demonstrate itself
to collapse into a kind of self-defeated system, self-contradicting system. Are you following me? So when
once you build an argument, establish a hypothesis that no one can
know, then you have just condemned yourself because you can't even
know that you don't know. You got that? So you're going
to go around and be adamant about what you don't know. And you're
going to be adamant that we don't know. But your adamancy is disqualified
by your own premise. Because you may truly not know.
But you can never know that I don't know because your premise won't
allow you to. Are you hearing me? And see,
the Christian can stop arguing with people when they understand
the basic laws of logic. The law of non-contradiction
just being one of many principles by which you can, once you understand
that that fool just stated that nobody can know anything, then
that fool gonna tell me I don't know God? Just lift the mirror
up. Say, take a look in the mirror.
Because you just now contradicted yourself. And you and I cannot
have a reasonable discourse because you have just proven that you
can't even uphold your own theses. So what we're told here in 1
Corinthians chapter 1 is very plainly that the power of God
and the wisdom of God resides in one person. Who is that? Jesus
Christ. Okay, go with me back to our
text. I got about 20 minutes just to work through just this
point here. Just this point here, the flesh,
the devil. I just want to work through this briefly to show
you the fact that this man, Simon, who is a Again, a type of the
adversary of the Lord, the devil, is nothing but a facsimile of
a servant who is basically vacuous of any real truth. And he is
now, he himself is going to have to swallow his own dirt. He's
going to have to eat his own meal, if you will. He's going
to have to buy, he's going to have to be susceptible to his
own delusional methods because he is now confronted with an
authentic minister of the gospel and we read over in verse 13
these words then Simon himself believed also do you see that
and when he was baptized he continued with Philip wondered beholding
the miracles and signs which were done this is absolutely
phenomenal to me phenomenal to me so we see Simon the pseudo-savior
He has been stripped of his public powers, right? And he is now,
rather than standing up and opposing Philip, he's now going to join
the band. You see that? Now I might as well be a Christian,
because that's the new thing on the block. Might as well be
a Christian because that's the new thing on the block. He made
himself to be the power of God through crafts, sorceries, and
witchcraft. And again, you can read Revelation chapter 13, 11
through 18. We won't go there tonight, but
I want to call your attention to the next point under the flesh
and the devil. A tension of authorities. Do
you guys see that? Do you see that in your outline?
A tension of authorities. Is it there? A tension of authorities,
motives, and outcomes. I want you to get this. See,
Philip probably does not know what's going on. Generally, the
gospel preacher is so committed to and so consumed by his task
that God often protects him from some of the nefarious characters
that would show up in his ministry. And that's okay, because for
the true preacher of the gospel, he does not need to be omniscient.
He does not need to be omnipresent. He does not need to be omnipotent.
All he needs to have is Christ at his right hand. The servant
of God does not need to know everything. All he needs to know
is that Christ has his back. Are you guys following me? So
a lot of times God will keep a certain kind of naivete and
blindness on the part of the servant of God so he can stay
fixed in his task while God is working behind the scenes to
deal with his adversaries. Now, you know, this is true of
you. How many situations have occurred in your life where you
have said, Lord, I thank you that I did not know that. I am so thankful that I was ignorant
of all that mess that was going on in the coffee room. All that
talk that was going on in those meetings about, I am so glad
I did not know. Am I making some sense? And then
when God has gone before you to demolish all of the schemes
and agendas of the enemy to destroy you, you come to realize that
God was protecting you all along. And this is true also for the
minister of the gospel and certainly It's so in our context. So we
have a tension of authorities. Who are the authorities? One
is Philip. He's the new authority on the block, right? Over against
the old authority, Simon, the sorcerer, the magician. So, you
know, the Samaritans are really kind of wondering what's up with
Simon right about now, right? So he didn't slipped on in and
started joining the Christians, see? But we have a tension of
authorities. And then we also have a tension
of what? Motives. Now God tries the hearts, doesn't
he? And God discerns our motives,
does he not? So you and I can put on a nice
fair show in the flesh. We can even put on the facade
of being religious, but God knows the heart, does he not? And so
I will assert to you right now before you stumble that just
because the text said that Philip believed, that this text is not
describing in that sense that Philip, not Philip, but Simon
believed, that this text is not describing in this context, saving
faith. I want you to understand that,
okay? When you read your Bible, wherever
you read the word Pistis, which means to believe, you are not
always reading saving faith. But there is a temporary faith.
There is a shallow faith. There is a stony ground faith.
There's a thorny ground faith. There's a faith that appears
for a time. There's a dead faith. There's
a weak faith. There's a small faith. There
are all kinds of faith of which you have to be careful to determine
what is the authentic faith in view. And only the context can
tell you that. Four, Simon is doing the same
thing that Judas Iscariot did when Christ called Judas Iscariot.
But we read very clearly in the gospel of John chapter 6 verse
67 He says did not I choose all 12 of you and one of you is a
what a devil. He was always a devil He was
never truly converted we're talking about Judas Iscariot because
there are some who would hold that Judas was saved and Because
they have a lopsided salvation or soteriology. They would say
he was saved and then he lost his salvation. That's even worse.
I Not only is the man lost now, but you're impugning God for
not being able to actually save the man. You're going from bad
to worse. There's one thing to say that
he was never saved or that somehow, you know, he played church. But
once you say he's saved and then he's lost all over again, you
didn't just completely mangled your gospel. Right. And again, it implies that you
don't understand the connection between being saved and who saved
you and how he saved you and why he saved you. And so critical
for us to understand who saved us in order to know the certainty
of our salvation. So Judas Iscariot wasn't saved. And this man, Simon is not saved
either. His motives will come out in
a moment. And then we talk about outcome. So we have a tension
of authorities. We have a tension of motives and we have a tension
of outcomes. We have a tension because the
drama is getting ready to take place right now. The drama is
getting ready to take place But what I want you to do is go back
with me now and consider verse 13 because there's some things
here in verse 13 that are worth considering Worth considering
here. Here's what the text says the
text says in verse 13 then simon himself believed also and when
he was baptized he continued with home and wondered Beholding
the miracle and the signs which were done three words. I want
to call your attention to briefly without boring you First of all,
after he went through the external form of baptism, and by the way,
I think I had in our last week's outline, oh, it's in your outline
under point number three, water baptism doesn't what? Let's say
that again. Water baptism doesn't what? Be
very sure of that. Be very sure of that. You can
be dunked a thousand times in this life and still go to hell.
Be very sure that you understand that water baptism doesn't save
you. In fact, when we use that rubric, we are fundamentally
saying you are never saved by anything you do. You are never
saved by anything you do, much less someone putting some physical
substance on you. That which is of the flesh is
flesh, and that which is of the spirit is spirit. Physical h2o
could never translate you out of the kingdom of darkness into
the kingdom of his dear sir Am I making some sense? So when
you and I when you and I submit ourselves to the waters of baptism
as we will in a few weeks again We are submitting ourselves to
the waters of baptism in obedience of faith Now faith is the substance
of things what? Oh The evidence of things what?
So we act on the basis of biblical proposition that tells us of
things that happened in the past of which we never saw. We never
saw the God-man assuming human nature. We never saw him walk
a perfectly impeccable life. We never saw him die a perfectly
righteous death. We never saw him rise again from
the dead, affirm over 500 brethren, the actual physical resurrection
of him. We never saw him ascend into
heaven. We never saw it. But we believe it And it's based
upon faith and what we did not see That we are able to now respond
in obedience. Am I making some sense ladies
and gentlemen, you never saw christ You never saw him, but
him whom you have not seen yet believing joy Unspeakable and
full of glory abides in our heart because one day we shall see
him As he is And we will be just like him Am I making some sense? And so why do we get into the
waters? Because he told us to, in obedience of faith, because
the water teaches us something about the death, burial, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. It becomes a witness to people,
right? It becomes a testimony. It's not for us, it's for his
glory. And we do it. We don't do it for any other
reason. And so here this man goes through the external perfunctory
act of baptism, and the text gives us three chief words that
I want to call your attention to. The first one is the word
continue. Do you see that? Simon continued with whom? He continued with Philip. Now
the word is a powerful, powerful, powerful word here to continue. And it basically means to stick
to Philip like white on rice. That's how we say it in the country.
The Greek word there is pro-katero. And it means to persevere or
to endure. It means to maintain constancy. Its root verb means to endure. It means to stay. Like if someone
were trying to pull you apart and you say, I'm stuck to this
person like super glue. That's the idea of constancy. Here's the idea. When Simon saw
what Phillip was doing, He wanted in on the act so bad that he
went through all the outward forms of confession of faith
and baptism. And as soon as he came up out
of the water, he grabbed a hold of Phillip's coattail and stayed
with him everywhere. Phillip went there. Simon was
when Phillip took a nap. Simon was right there. When Phillip
ate, Simon was right there. When Phillip went to the bathroom,
Simon was right there. Why was he right there? Cause
he was trying to find the hook. He was trying to find the hook
and crooks know that when you do crooked things, you got to
have a hook in order to deceive people. And he was trying to
find the hook. OK, are you hearing me? He says
this man got something and I want it. So in order for me to to
get it, I must cleave to him. I must cleave to him. That's
what our word literally means. Go with me in your Bibles to
Daniel chapter 11. I'm going to show you what I
mean by that. Daniel chapter 11 verses 32 through 35. This is apocalyptic language,
but it's going to describe what I believe is fulfilled in the
first century and also is often fulfilled throughout church history.
Am I boring you right now? Good. Give me about 10 or 15
minutes of your time. I want to make sure I just get through
this portion of our scripture tonight, and we'll take up the
rest next week. Daniel chapter 11. This portion
of Daniel 11 fundamentally speaks to the Antichrist system in the
Old Testament under Antiochus Epiphanes, which would have occurred
about 200 years before Christ. And then it's a foreshadow of
what is generally an anti-Christ model of infiltration of the
church, the deception of false religionists and the persecution
of true believers. This can really be more fully
seen in the book of Revelation, but we will stay here for the
moment and learn some things. In Daniel chapter 11, I'm gonna
read verse 32 through 35. Are you there? Now just listen
to the language. It's couched in, the apocalyptic
phraseology of Daniel, Zachariah, the book of Revelation, this
terminology is Old Testament terminology, but to those who
understand this framework of language, they'll see the principle
players emerge up out of, and the methodology. Look at verse
32. And such as do wickedly against the covenant, shall he corrupt
by flatteries. Now the he here is the vile man
who comes in to deceive the people both politically and religiously.
I guess I'll tie it on down. Look with me back at verse 21.
Here's one of the resumes or portfolios of this Antichrist
person. An innocent state shall stand
up a vile person. See it? Verse 21, to whom they
shall not give the honor of the kingdom, but he shall come in
what? Peaceably. and obtain the kingdom by what?
That's how the devil works. I'm not going to deal with the
historical narrative here. This certainly deals with Antiochian
epiphanies and it deals with the breaking up of the kingdom
of Persia into four parts, the Antiochian kingdom, then the
Egyptian kingdom, Ptolemy kingdom. And the men who rise up out of
this are sort of antichrist figures. Antiochus Epiphanes being one
of them, but then we read over in verse 30 for the ships of
Cheetham shall come against him Therefore he shall be grieved
that is Antiochus and return and have indignation Against
the Holy Covenant in this context. The Holy Covenant has to do with
the children of Israel Okay, as all these battles are taking
place in the Middle East so shall he do He shall even return and
have intelligence with them That forsake the Holy Covenant So
this Antichrist type person, who is both a political and religious
entity, he pursues Israel with one objective, to have indignation
against the what? Covenant. Now the covenant is
that Old Testament covenant system that Israel was under, which
identified them as the people of God. And Antiochus Epiphanes
hated every God but himself. And so the true God represented
in the covenant of the Old Testament by the people of God is going
to always be assaulted by an anti-Christ system. That's why
the church is assaulted today, because we under the new covenant
represent the true and the living God, and so the devil comes after
us. Well, they will come after the people of God under the Old
Testament system, and they will pursue them, and they will infiltrate
their camps. And as you see in the days of
Nehemiah, as you see in the days of Ezra, as you saw in the days
of Esther, So you saw in the days of Christ the Antichrist
system permeated the priesthood and corrupted the priests even
to the point where the priests wanted to kill the true Messiah.
Did you guys hear what I just said? So this is a continuum
that works from generation to generation where whosoever the
people of God are the enemy comes in and seeks to hoodwink and
deceive and corrupt the leadership And when once the leadership
was corrupted now he can start working to smoke out the true
believers and persecute them This is your Old Testament Bible
all the way up to Jesus All right, and now we're in the book of
Acts and it's happening again in the book of Acts. So let me
go on to just Share with you what it goes on to say verse
31 and arms shall stand on his part And they shall pollute the
sanctuary of strength. You guys see that? This is the
abomination that make it desolate that Jesus talked about in Matthew
24. And shall take away the daily sacrifice. That is to destroy
the sacrifices which pointed to the atoning work of Christ,
right? And they shall place the abomination that make it desolate.
So now this is the enemy who has come in. He's destroyed the
true gospel represented by the atonement and has placed an abomination
in that context. It would have been the idol Zeus
or some deity to man that they would have erected at that time.
And the people would have been looking to a false God to worship
by implication. Whenever you and I worship anything
other than the true Christ, we are worshiping an idol. It is
an abomination that make it desolate. Are you guys tracking with me
so far? Let me keep going, because I just want you to get the next
point. And here we go. Here's the content. And such
as do wickedly against the what? Now to make application to where
you and I are today. And such as do wickedly against
the gospel. And such as do wickedly against
the gospel. The men and the women and the
churches and the people who corrupt the gospel, who despise the gospel,
the message of redemption, who denied the true claims of the
gospel and such as do wickedness against the gospel. Watch this.
Shall he corrupt by what? Huge word. Huge diabolical method
on the part of the devil. Huge diabolical method on the
part of the devil. Flattery, ladies and gentlemen,
is always the way he works. If he can use flattery first,
he always will. And when flattery fails, then
he will pull out the sword and kill you. If he can use flattery
first, the devil always will. I told you false prophets and
false teachers and crooks and hoodwinks are much nicer than
true Christians. They're much nicer than your
pastor, much sweeter, much smoother. They're better to be with. You
would rather have them over your house for dinner than me. They
would have a good time. You would have a good time with
them. They would never rub you the wrong way. They would make
you feel good while you're going to hell with them. Are you hearing
me? See, and this is why for the
Christian, in order to overcome false doctrine and false teaching,
you have to militate against your own propensity to feel good
by what people say. In order for you to overcome
false doctrine and false teaching, you have to be ready to fight
against your own inclinations because it feels so good because
they're targeting you. I love what God is about to do.
You know what he's about to do? He's about to deliver Philip. Because see, Philip, he doesn't
know. He's just doing his job preaching
the gospel. He's judging nothing before the time. The Bible tell
us don't do that. He's allowing the guy to hang with him. I mean,
you know, the guy is saying all the right things right now. Are
you guys hearing what I'm saying? He's flattering Philip. Flattering him. Let me see if
there's anything else in our text. Verse 33 through 35 before
I go. Here it is. Here it is. So watch
this now. And such as do wickedly against
the covenant, shall he corrupt by flatteries, Here it is, but
the people that do know their God shall be strong. Do you see it? Strong. Now the people that do know their
God will be strong. What does that mean? The strength necessary
to overcome the flatteries that would knock you over by all of
their accolades to you. Their man-centered, sweet, loving,
humanistic, idolatrous teachings that would cause you to say,
Hey, he's all right. She's all right. They don't mean
any harm. In fact, you know, they almost
sound like they've got the gospel. They are so close to the truth. So close to it. I know they didn't
quite say it, but I mean, you and I can put the rest in. We
could insert Jesus. I know they didn't say Jesus,
but you can put Jesus in there. I know they didn't say exclusively,
but you can put exclusively in there. I know they didn't say
emphatically, but you can put that in there because after all,
I mean, didn't you hear the way they delivered that? I mean,
it was non-offensive. Anybody know the struggle that
I'm talking about? You understand the inclination and power of
manipulation on the part of those who are smooth as butter and
smooth as oil, as the proverb says. That's why I'm quoting
it over and over and over. She is as smooth as oil. There is nothing offensive about
it. Listen, in fact, that's how you can know. Because there's
nothing offensive. See, listen, the true gospel
offends you at least a little bit. See, you've been enduring
my talk tonight for about an hour and a half now. Along the
lines, I have offended you because I'm demolishing notions that
you hold dear. I'm also challenging you to be
alert. And I'm telling you things that
require you standing up in your spirit and being careful and
circumspect when you want to just relax and say, aren't we
all Christians? Don't we all know the same Lord? Isn't God all I got? See what
I'm getting at? And that's the challenge you
have over against the smooth talking, flattering lips of the
false prophet. But the people that do know their
God show what be strong. and do. The word explices is
an assertion there, it's a gloss, it shouldn't be there. And the
people that do know their God will be strong and work. Here
it is, verse 33 through 35 is going to describe where we are
in Acts chapter 8. And I'm going to end it here
and we'll have to pick it up next week because I want us to
understand the battle that Philip will have of which the only way
he's going to be ultimately delivered from this temptation is for God
to send Peter and John to intercept him. Here it is. And they that understand
among the people shall instruct many. And they that understand
among the people shall instruct many. This first clause describes
those who are preachers of the word, who understand the truth,
and instruct many in the truth of the gospel. You guys see that?
Now watch this. Yet they shall fall by the what? That does not mean they fall
into apostasy. It means that they are Killed by martyrdom. Are you following me? So they
preach the truth and in their preaching the truth They become
the targets of the martyrdom of the beast as he persecutes
him as we're learning in Revelation 2 Okay So now this is gonna shake
up the people of God because when you smite the sheep the
shepherd the sheep are inclined to what? That's right whenever
our leaders who have been notable and faithful and committed to
the cause are killed by the beast everyone's tested Follow the
line of reason. Here it is. Watch this. And they
shall fall by the sword and by flame and by captivity and by
spoil. These are all the means that
the devil uses, right? Watch this for many days. In other
words, the persecution and the martyrdom and the torture is
going to go on for a long time. And by the way, look at the devil.
He loves to mimic God by the flames. Do you see it? Cause there's a flame coming.
for all rebels, is that true? There's a flame coming. And I
saw the beast as it was given over to the burning flame. So
the enemy loves to kill the people of God and throw them into literal
fire as a mimicking of the true God. Do you see that? Listen
to what it goes on to say. Now, when they shall fall, here
it is, they shall be helped with a little help. Do you see that? What that means is, God will
intervene from time to time according to a sovereign power to help
the saints continue. God will intervene. Now when
they shall fall, they shall be hoping with a little help, but
many shall cleave to them with what? Contextually, that has
to do with the whole history of persecution on the part of
the true believer, the enemy coming after them, and yet people
starting to side with the faithful believer, cleaving to them with
flatteries. See, the enemy always works from
multiple sides. He's coming with persecution,
but he's also coming inside the camp. So right now in the book
of Acts, are we dealing with persecution? In the book of Acts,
are we dealing with martyrdom? Right now in our context, in
the book of Acts, is Daniel chapter 11 alive and well? And right
in the context of persecution and the martyrdom of Stephen
and the church being scattered abroad, preaching the gospel
everywhere they go. Right in the middle of that,
here comes Simon cleaving to Philip. Do you see it? Do you
guys see it? Cleaving. These are methods of
the enemy. Cleaving to Philip. Listen to what it says. He shall
cleave to them with flatteries, and some of them of understanding
shall fall to try them and to pray. Again, this fall here for
the true believers, not apostasy, OK? It means to try them and
purge them and to make them what? Even to the time of the end,
because it is yet for an appointed time. Go back to our text. I'll
just close with this. So when you read that language
in Daniel chapter 11, especially the terminology fall, don't take
that to mean the apostasy of true believers because true believers
can never fall. Falling simply is a term for
dying in the faith. It's a metaphor for the soldier
who is fighting the battle faithfully and being killed in war. Whenever
we acknowledge an honorable soldier who has died in battle, we say
that he is what? Fallen. And that's the language
being here constructed concerning the battle, that spiritual in
nature that believers are going through. When he has fallen,
it means he has stood, he's fought a good fight, and now he's put
to death, he's fallen in that sense. It doesn't mean that he's
departed from the faith. Does that help you guys? Very, very,
very important. So let me just read this language
here, and then we'll come back and deal with it next. I just
want this to be in your hearing. Are you there? Acts chapter 8,
verse 13 through verse 18. Here it is. Simon himself believed also when
he was baptized he continued with Philip and wondered beholding
the miracles and the signs which were done I'll come back and
deal with that too now when the Apostles which were at Jerusalem
heard that Samaria had received the Word of God They sent unto
them who Peter and John Do you see God intervening? Watch this
who when they were come down prayed for them that they might
receive what? Right, because the Holy Ghost
had not yet sealed the people at Samaria. We'll get into that
when we get down the line. They were truly converted, but
the people were not sealed as of yet, confirmed in their conversion
as of yet with a notable sign that the gospel had come to the
Samaritans. Just to help you, the Holy Spirit had not come
in Acts chapter one yet upon all those who were walking with
Jesus for many, many years, right? Then finally he came in Acts
chapter 2 verses 1 and following. It does not mean that they were
not believers until that time. They were believers, right? And
then the Holy Spirit moved from Jerusalem to Judea and then it
moved from Judea now to Samaria. So Samaria now is going to receive
the Holy Ghost and the evidence of his presence is going to affirm
that the Spirit of God has already been working to bring in a group
of people to become his first fruits of the gospel. And it's
going to be done through the apostles. Now listen to what
it says. Verse 16, for as yet he was fallen
upon none of them, only they were baptized in the name of
the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they
received what? The Holy Ghost. Verse 18, and when Simon saw
that through laying hands on the holy, laying hands on the
apostles, that through the laying hands of the apostles, that through
the laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given,
He offered them money. So now this is the nature of
biblical narratives. And I'm done here because our
time is up. But this is the nature of biblical narratives. This
is why if you're going to be serious about the Word of God,
you have to restrain yourself from being quick to make judgments.
Okay? Because way back earlier in the
narrative, There would have been no indicator unless you're sounding
your theology to know that the motive of the man Simon was corrupt. But now as we're following the
narrative through, we see that this man is utterly blind to
the reality of the kingdom of God. To offer money? That's what I meant by earlier
when I said the tension between two authorities, the tension
between two motives. See, Philip's motive is perfectly
correct. Simons is not. His motive is now being exposed.
And Peter is going to be the one that demonstrates that this
man does not know God at all. And we're going to learn some
lessons behind that next week. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for this time. Thank you for our students. Thank you for the
class. Thank you for your word. It is right. And it does warn
us. And it tells us that we have
to patiently study and patiently work through these texts. and
patiently examine ourselves whether or not we are operating soundly
according to biblical principles. That whether or not we are on
the side of those who have the right gospel, or on the side
of those who would seek power to manipulate people and control
people. So help us learn the lessons, oh God. Help us to see
the truth as it is in Christ. And if we're on the wrong side,
deliver us, even now. We pray these things in Jesus'
name, amen. God bless you guys.

Friday Night Bible Study - Acts 8

What does the Bible say about evangelism?

How do we know the doctrine of justification is true?

Why is Christ-centered preaching important for Christians?

What can we learn from Philip's ministry in Acts 8?

Why is understanding false teachings important?

Sermon Transcript

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Friday Night Bible Study - Acts 8

What does the Bible say about evangelism?

How do we know the doctrine of justification is true?

Why is Christ-centered preaching important for Christians?

What can we learn from Philip's ministry in Acts 8?

Why is understanding false teachings important?

Sermon Transcript

About Jesse Gistand

Comments

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