Well, let's look now at that
passage that Brother Ronnie Lewis read for us a moment ago, the
book of Acts, chapter 8. The title of this message is,
A Seeking Sinner Finds Rest. A Seeking Sinner Finds Rest. Now, in the 8th chapter of Acts,
verse 1, it says, And Saul was consenting unto his death. Here
in chapter 7, I believe we find, I believe this is the first time
that we're introduced to the Apostle Paul. His name was not
Paul, it was Saul of Tarsus. He was a very religious man,
but a man who did not know the gospel. He did not know Christ.
And he sought to do everything in his power against the gospel
of Christ and against the Church. And here in the seventh chapter,
up in verse 57, it says, Then they cried out with a loud voice,
and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, talking
about Stephen. Stephen had preached Jesus Christ
unto them. And it says in verse 58, And
they cast him out of the city, and stoned him. And the witnesses
laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul. and this stone Stephen calling
upon God and saying, Lord, Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled
down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their
charge. And when he had said this, he
fell asleep." Now, there's where we pick up verse 1, chapter 8,
in Saul. And Saul of Tarsus was consenting
to his death. He agreed with it. He was glad
to see him die. And at that time, there was a
great persecution against the church. Now evidently, the death
of Stephen under Saul's leadership brought about great persecution
and affliction on this early church at Jerusalem. And so it
says here that they were scattered abroad. The people in the church,
they started hunting them out, putting them in prison. and abusing
them for the gospel, they believed, so they were scattered about
throughout all the regions of Judea and Samaria except the
apostles. In other words, a lot of the
people had to leave Jerusalem. They had to flee. But everywhere
they went, now note this. Well, verse 2 says, Devout men
carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over
him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church. You say, this
is, you know, this is a tragedy here, that great church, thousands
of people believe, something like 3,000 and then 5,000, not
counting the women. And here Saul has brought persecution
against that church and put people in prison, made havoc of the
church and just drove them out. They just left in droves, going
different places. In verse 3, read on, "...entering
into every house, and hailing men and women, committing them
to prison." But watch this, "...therefore they that were scattered abroad
went everywhere preaching the Word." You know, I think of this
little illustration, I don't know how true it is, but they
say that an eagle builds a nest. And she puts thorns in her nest,
and when the little eaglets get a certain age, those thorns prick
them, and they have to get out of there. They have to fly, have
to flee the nest. Otherwise, they'd stay there.
Food's coming to them, you know. All the good things are coming
to them, and they just sit there comfortably and never leave.
But when the thorns stick them, they fly out and go somewhere
else. And, you know, the Scripture says that when persecution came
to this church, Those people fled Jerusalem. But everywhere
they went, they took the gospel. Now, here's the question I'm
asking. If the persecution had not occurred, there's a good
possibility those people would have stayed right there, comfortable,
under the ministry of the eleven apostles, everything going well. Good possibility they'd never
gone. Philip went down to Samaria, but what made him leave Jerusalem?
Persecution. You see, God moves in a mysterious
way. We wonder, well, so-and-so left
our church, you know, had to move away or something, but maybe
God sent them to preach the gospel. You see, would they have been
there? Wouldn't they have stayed in the comfort of the fellowship
and joy and happiness of of the strong church under able, experienced
ministers and never would have launched out, never would have
gone. But God sent him out and he chose this way to do it, this
way to do it. But the hymn writer said, Our
God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform. He plants
his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. His purposes
will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter
taste. The bud may have a bitter taste.
This was bitter, this persecution, people being put in prison, coming
into their homes and taking them away. And they had to leave,
had to leave their families and friends and had to go off. Some of the young preachers that
have left here, I've talked to them later and they say, You
know, we're not real happy. We miss the fellowship. We miss
all the young people around there. The bird may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flower. Sweet will be the flower. I think
sometimes, you know, people say, well, God's not leading me here
or there or yonder. Is it God's not leading me or
I don't want to leave the nest? Which is it? I wonder sometimes. Is it God not leading me or do
I just miss the fellowship? I don't want to be out there
by myself in the desert. And so he used this. I'm sure
of this. I know Saul, you know, here's
the thing, the wrath of man will praise the Lord. The people who
crucified Christ did it out of hatred. But even in their hatred
and in their wickedness, they fulfilled the purpose and will
of our God in the death of his Son. And Saul of Tarsus, there's
no excuse for his hatred for Christ and there's no excuse
for his hatred against these people. And here they are sitting
there in their church and enjoying their fellowship and happiness
and all the good things God has given them and the apostles are
all there, you know, He comes in and drives them out. And you
say, that's all God's purpose is destroyed. No, God's purpose
is being accomplished. God's purpose is being accomplished.
And it takes some time for us to willingly follow the Lord. It takes some time for God to
use severe measures. And that's what He did with His
church. He used severe measures. He wanted them to evangelize.
He meant for them to be missionaries. He meant for them, our Lord said,
go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
He said, you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria,
and to the uttermost parts of the earth. And they hadn't gone
anywhere but next door. They'd sat right there in Jerusalem,
and that's as far as they'd gone. So he used an instrument of persecution
and drove them out. He used the thorn in the nest
and put them out. And then he says here in verse
4, "...then therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere
preaching the word, they fulfilled the great commission." Another
verse of that old hymn I quoted a moment ago, "...Ye fearful
saints, fresh courage take, the clouds you so much dread are
filled with mercy, and they will break with blessings on your
head." And these believers, I say, would never have left Jerusalem.
They would never have gone to the places where they went to
take the gospel had not this persecution come upon them. They
never would have done it. All right, it says here in verse
5, then Philip, during the persecution, Philip went down to the city
of Samaria and preached Christ to them. These men knew Christ. That was their message. They
preached Christ. They didn't go forth with the voice of prophecy.
They went forth with the voice of the gospel. They didn't go
forth declaring something intriguing, but they preached Christ. And
verse 6 says, 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
a 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, the city of Samaria. God
sent a great revival." Now, I spoke at noon to my family. We were having dinner together,
and I said, I like this type of preaching, expository preaching,
because You get to cover so many subjects as they come up. You
go through the Word and you see all these different subjects.
Here's a subject that comes up here, and I know your attention
is focused on it. Philip healed the sick. Why don't
I heal the sick? Philip made the lame to walk.
Why don't I make the lame to walk? Philip and some of the
other preachers spoke with other languages. Why don't we do that?
Well, could I tell you this if you turn to Hebrews chapter 2?
Now, I know this is true. The Word of God declares it.
These early apostles, these early disciples, were given special
gifts. They were given special powers
and gifts, gifts of the Holy Ghost, gifts of discerning of
spirits, gifts to speak the gospel in other languages, gifts to
heal the sick, give the eyesight to the blind and strength to
the lame, and even raise the dead. They were given these credentials,
and there was a purpose for that. There was a purpose for that.
This is not a cop-out at all. I'm just simply saying this to
you. I know a little bit about church history, and I know a
little bit about the preachers of the past. I can go back and
pick up men, even in this country, like Jonathan Edwards, And then
back in England to Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and back to Keech,
and Rippon, and John Gill, and John Bunyan, and John Newton,
and Charles Wesley, and George Whitefield, and Huss, and Owen,
and Luther, and Calvin, and every one of these men are the great
preachers of the last five or six centuries. The greatest preachers
of the last five or six centuries, the greatest writers, the greatest
theologians. Men who shaped history, men whom
God used to preach the gospel. None of them, none of them spoke
in tongues. None of them claimed the gift
of healing. None of them. Not a one of them. None of them had anything to
do with demonism or the casting out of demons. None of them. Now, and nobody today has those
authentic powers. They do not. I'll tell you what
they're doing, and they're hoodwinking the public. They're talking about
aches and pains. You know, it's mind over matter.
There are plenty of blind people in this country, and I guarantee
you if one ever, born blind, received his sight, everybody's
going to know about it. It's not taking place. And I'll
guarantee you, and I know they break their crutches and all,
but he probably could have walked without them when he came there.
And I know they do all this different things, but I'm telling you this,
the deaf are not hearing, and the lame are not walking, and
the dead are not living, and the blind are not seeing. And
that's exactly right. These men are using this as leverage
to make money. If they wanted to heal the sick,
they could go down to the hospitals, but you can't pass a plate in
the hospital, and you know that. They won't furnish you with an
expense account at the hospital. And you can't wear your diamond
rings and hold the big meetings and take up offerings in wash
tubs. And that's what they're doing. They're con men. They're
flesh merchants. That's exactly it. You shouldn't
say anything against another man's religion. Well, Satan's
religious, and I'm going to say something about him. He changes
himself into an apostle of Christ and his ministers are ministers
of righteousness. They don't have these powers
and they don't have these gifts, and furthermore, we don't need
them. You say, doesn't God heal the sick? Anybody that's healed,
God heals him. God says, I kill and I make alive. Sometimes God heals with means
and sometimes without means. Our God is able to heal. I don't
get excited when God heals somebody. I'll tell you, the thing to get
excited over is when God saves somebody. They are made well
for eternity. I'll tell you, John, if God healed
you and gave you the ability to walk, we're still going to
put you in the ground someday. But He's given you spiritual
legs, and you're going to walk right into glory someday. I'd
rather walk for eternity than walked for a couple of years
down here. That's a fact. And we don't need these gifts. God Almighty could give them
if He's sovereignly pleased. But these men needed them. And
I'll tell you why they needed them. All they had at that time
was the Old Testament, Genesis to Malachi. The New Testament
was not even written. It was in the process of being
written. It wasn't even written. The chief writer of the New Testament
hadn't even been saved, the Apostle Paul. And these men went out
to Jews and Gentiles, they went out to antagonistic world, declaring
that a man who was crucified on a Roman cross was the Messiah. They went out taking a message
impossible to believe by any normal person. They went out
into a world that was hostile, antagonistic, with a message
that men despised, that was offensive, that was impossible to believe
apart from a revelation of the Holy Spirit. They went out preaching
that Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of the Old Testament scriptures,
and God gave them these credentials to get men's attention. Our Lord
used them Himself. Our Lord said, The Scriptures
bear witness of me, John the Baptist bears witness of me,
and the works that I do bear witness of me. Nicodemus said
to the Lord, no man could do the things you do except God
be with him. And the blind man that was made well said, has
it ever been told since the beginning of the world that somebody made
a man blind to see? And that was Christ's credentials.
They couldn't speak against what he was doing. And these apostles,
now look at Hebrews 2 verse 4, God also bearing them witness,
God bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders and diverse
miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his will.
They went out preaching And God Almighty bore them witness that
they were representing Him, that they were speaking for Him, that
they were declaring His Word by giving them power over demons
and power over deafness and blindness and lameness. And I tell you,
one time the Apostle Paul was sitting by a fire and a coral
snake or something fastened on his hand had bit him. And he
just shook it off into the fire. And everybody stepped back waiting
on Him to die. They knew He was going to die
in a matter of seconds, but He didn't die. And they thought
He was a God. And so they listened to Him.
They listened to Him. Now, I don't need that kind of
power. I don't need the power to make
the lame walk to get a hearing. I just preach the gospel, the
words right here, the Word of God. And if they receive not
the Word of God, it's because there's no light in them. If
they preach not the Word of God and receive not the Word of God,
there's no life. We don't need. Here's the wonder that God's
given us. Now let me show you something
in the book of 1 Corinthians a moment. 1 Corinthians chapter
14. I want everybody here that has a Bible to turn to this scripture.
1 Corinthians 14. 1 Corinthians 14. Now listen to this. They say today that if you receive
the baptism of the Holy Ghost, You speak in tongues. It's a
gibberish which nobody understands. They say it's an unknown tongue.
It's heavenly language. It's not me speaking at all.
It's the Spirit speaking. And that's a sign that I've been
filled with the Holy Ghost. Well, I'll tell you, that's not
the kind of language that Peter, James, and John, in which they
spoke, every man heard the gospel in his own tongue at Pentecost. They spoke a clear language. Now then, tongues are a sign,
all right, I agree with you. But listen to this, in 1 Corinthians
14, verse 20. Brethren, well, back in verse
19, Paul said, In the church I'd rather speak five words with
my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others, and
ten thousand words in a language they do not understand. In other
words, if I had the gift of speaking Spanish, and stood up here tonight
and spoke 10,000 words in Spanish wouldn't help one bit in this
work. I'd rather speak five words in the language you understand
than 10,000 in a language you don't understand. Now, brethren,
be not children in understanding, howbeit in malice be ye children,
but in understanding be men. In the word of God it is written,
in the law, there's the Old Testament, with men of other languages and
other lips will I speak unto this people. And yet for all
that, will they not hear me, saith the Lord? Wherefore, tongues
are for a sign." Pause. Read that with me out loud. Will
you? Read. "...not to them that believe, but to them that believe
not." Tongues are a sign, but not to the believer. Not to the
believer. They're signs to the unbeliever.
The only person fascinated with tongues is an unbeliever. The believer looks to Christ.
He doesn't look to signs. He doesn't need signs. He lives
by faith, not by sight. And so anytime anybody talks
to you about tongues or signs, you're talking to an unbeliever.
They weren't even given for the believer. They were given as
signs for the unbeliever. These men had these credentials
and wonders and signs given them by the Holy Spirit to impress
these paganistic, naturalistic, unbelieving people and get their
attention. That's exactly right. All right,
down here, now here's another strange thing. We keep running
on strange things in this 8th chapter. Here the church was
sitting there in Jerusalem so comfortable, enjoying one another
and the fellowship and the preaching of the apostles, God saving thousands
of people, and the Lord sent persecution, just scattered them
all over the creation, and they went everywhere preaching. God
gave them gifts to preach the gospel. Philip went down there
in Samaria and preached and had, oh my goodness, folks were being
saved everywhere. And then in verse 26, And the
angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Leave Samaria. Leave Samaria. Leave? Leave,
Lord? Why, do you realize what's going
on here? We're having a revival. You don't want me to leave. Yes.
Leave and go south about 70 or 80 miles the way that goeth down from
Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert." Now that's a long ways
at that time. He was up here in Samaria. If
you've got maps in the back of your Bible and you're going to
use them sometime, you'll see these places. And he went all the way,
he told them to go all the way down to Gaza, leave the revival,
leave the stirring and all. You mean the Lord will be using
a man to preach the gospel and then just take him away? Put
him off in some little desert spot, yes sir, to reach one sheep.
One sheep. Our Lord Jesus Christ came to
the land of Gadarenes, the land of the Gadarenes, for one man,
that naked fellow in the tombs. Our Lord went to the land of
Samaria and met one woman, the woman of Samaria. Our Lord went
to the land of Jericho and came back with a Zacchaeus. Our Lord,
in the Old Testament, one woman, Rahab in Jericho. Our Lord went
to the cross, and as far as I can determine how that whole multitude,
one thief, came to know Christ. So here the Lord sent Philip.
We bow to the sovereign will of our God. And he just picked
Philip up and moved him down to Gaza. And verse 27 said, And
he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia...
Now I want to notice some things about this seeking sinner. This
man of Ethiopia, first thing, he was a black man. And let's
be honest here, let's be plain talking, we're talking plain.
The scripture declares that every one of us are of one blood on
this earth. Some are black, some are red,
some are yellow, and some are pale skinned like us. And the
Word of God declares that Adam is the father of all men. That's
where our roots go back to Adam. And some years ago, I ran upon
a book that was being distributed down south. It was entitled,
The Beast of the Field. I don't know whether anybody
here has ever seen that obnoxious book or not. But what it was
contending was this, that the black man really, really wasn't
a man at all, that he did not have a soul. That's how the ultra-segregationists
were trying to get around letting black people in their churches.
is because they were beasts of the field. They tried to connect
some strange-looking beast back yonder to the black man today. This is obnoxious to God. The
black man is our brother as far as blood is concerned. And the
reason I point that out is this scripture here says this man
that received our Lord's attention and our Lord's love enough to
take one of his leading disciples, believers, out of a great rejoicing
time in Samaria and send him to the desert was a black man,
was a black man. And let's be careful now, let's
be careful that we don't act like the Jews of old when our
Lord said to them, there were many widows in the land of Israel
and God didn't feed any of them. He fed a despised Gentile. And
there were many lepers in the land of Israel, and God didn't
heal one of them. He healed a despised Gentile.
So let's be careful that God doesn't remove the gospel from
the white race and give it to the black race entirely. He certainly
can do it. He did it to the Jew. He blinded
the Jew and called the Gentile. And this was a black man. And
secondly, this black man, another thing about him, he was a man
of great authority. of great authority, and I like
what Queen Victoria said. Queen Victoria was a believer,
according to Mr. Spurgeon, and she said one time,
she said, I realize that I am one that ought to have great
praise for God, because I am a person of great prestige and
influence and authority, and God's been pleased to reveal
His gospel to me. And she said, I thank God for
the letter Im. The letter Im. Im? Yes. She said, it said, not many might
he have called. It doesn't say not any. Not many
noble. Not many, you see. But he does
call some. And this black man was a man
of great authority. In fact, he was the treasurer
of his country, Ethiopia. He handled all of the wealth
of this queen. This Queen Candacy, Queen of
the Ethiopians, he had charge of all her treasure. Now here's
another thing about this man that I know. He was seeking the
Lord. He was, he was seeking the Lord. He had been to Jerusalem. And he went there to worship.
He went there to seek God. He was interested in God. He
didn't know anything about Christ or the Gospel. And unfortunately,
the people he went to hear didn't know anything about Christ and
the Gospel. He went up there where they were having their
feast and their traditions and their ceremonies and going through
their ritualism. He went up there because he knew
that God was the God of the Jew. And Jerusalem was the capital
of religion. And he went up there to hear
something. And another thing I know about him, he was returning
to his country still in darkness, still in ignorance, still didn't
know the gospel. But here's the wonderful thing
about him. You say, what can a sinner do? He can do what this
sinner is doing. He can go where the Word of God
is preached and he can read the scriptures. And here this man
was on his way back to Ethiopia and he had the Where he got a
copy of God's Word, I don't know, but he had a copy of the book
of Isaiah in his hand, the Old Testament reading. He was reading
the Scripture. A man told Spurgeon one time,
he said, Mr. Spurgeon, before God saved me,
he said, I resolved one thing. He said, I picked up a Bible
and I said this, salvation is to be found somewhere in this
book. This is the Word of God, and
salvation is to be found somewhere in this book. And I'm going to
get into this book, and I'm going to stay in it until God reveals
salvation in my heart. That's good advice. That's good
advice. Get into the Word. That's where
it's found. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
All right, let's go on. He was reading the Word of God.
And verse Isaiah the prophet, chapter 53, verse 29, And the
Spirit of God said to Philip, Go near and join yourself to
this chariot. So Philip ran thither to him,
and evidently, I picture it this way, the man was sitting, he's
an important individual. And they've got a long caravan,
there's other people in this caravan besides this man. But
he's sitting there in his chariot, and he is studiously and seriously
searching the Scriptures. And he was reading here in Isaiah
53, and I can picture Philip. Philip wouldn't have walked up
and knocked on the door of the chariot, but he was walking along beside
the chariot, and the man was sitting there reading. And Philip
said to him, as he joined the chariot, verse 30, he said to
him, Do you understand what you're reading? Do you understand? Now, my friends, salvation is
a hard work. I know that. Let's turn to Romans
10 a moment. I know that salvation is a heart
work, and I hear this a great deal from preachers everywhere. Salvation is just to believe.
It's just a heart work. It's just a feeling. It's just
an experience of the heart. It's an emotional thing. Well,
there's a sense in which it is. It's a heart work. Repentance
is a heart work. Conviction is a heart work. Faith
is a heart work. It says in Romans 10, verse 9,
that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth and believe in thine
heart, that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with a heart man believeth unto righteousness." And God
says, my son, give me your heart. It says, keep thy heart, out
of it are the issues of life. And the reason for that is this,
it's a heart work because it's a sincere work. It's a sincere
work and it's a spiritual work. Salvation is a spiritual work
and it's a sincere heart in that it's a heart work. But my friends,
the heart cannot believe what the head does not understand.
Now turn to Romans 10 again, the next page, verse 13. I'm saying this, I'm saying it's
impossible for the heart to believe, it's impossible for the heart
to embrace. It's impossible for the heart
to lay hold upon that which the head does not comprehend. Now
God works on the heart, Tom, but he works through the head,
through the mind, through the eyes, through the ear. He that
seeth the Son, he that heareth my word, and believeth on me."
Now, look at Romans 10 and 13. I'm going to ask you four questions. "...whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved." And that's with a heart
call and with a heart sincerity. But let me ask you four questions.
How shall they call on Him in whom they've not believed? How's
a man going to call from his heart upon whomever if he doesn't
believe in Him? And here's the second question.
How shall they believe in Him whom they haven't heard? You
can't trust an unrevealed Christ. You can't build on an unrevealed
salvation. You can't rest on an unrevealed
Savior. It's impossible. Here's the third
question. And how shall they hear without
a preacher? Just how are they going to hear?
And then the fourth question is, how are they going to preach
in the power of the Spirit the truth of the Word, a revealed
mystery, lest God sends them? There they are, right there.
Four questions for us to deal with. How can I turn back to
Acts 8? And that's what this man, Philip,
said, do you understand? Do you understand? Salvation
is trusting Christ as prophet, priest, and king. But how are
you going to find out he's prophet, priest, and king? You've got
to hear it. How are you going to know that he is prophet, priest,
and king? You've got to hear the word.
What is the office of the prophet? What is the office of priest?
What is the office of king? Emotionalism won't do. Intellectualism
won't do. We can't go to either extreme.
I don't want to go to a cold, dead-letter intellectual theology. Now, A, B, C, D, you're saying. No, you're not. Nor do I want
to go to the wildfire enthusiasm of experience and say, I don't
know anything about Jesus, but I believe on him. Don't preach
doctrine to me, preach Jesus to me. I don't know about all
your doctrine, but I know how I feel. I don't want either one
of those. But I want an understanding anointed
by the Holy Spirit with a foundation I'm able to grasp and understand
and comprehend to some extent how God can be just and justified. How God can be righteous and
yet merciful. How God can be truth and love.
And yet I want the warmth of the Spirit, and the joy of the
Spirit, and the life of the Spirit, and a saving experimental relationship
with Christ. And both are possible if God's
pleased to do the work. And that's what Philip is saying.
Do you understand? Turn to 1 John 5 a minute. And
that's what I'm asking you. And Peter said this. He said,
for us to be able and ready always to give an answer to everybody
that asks us a reason for our hope. Well, I don't know anything
about the Bible, but praise God, I know how I feel. That's ignorance. And I'll tell you, you're in
trouble. Well, I'm just living on the hallelujah side. I'd love
to know where that is, wouldn't you? I'd like to always, you're
always on the hallelujah side. There's something, somebody said
this to me one time about a television preacher. He says, not only because
his theology's rotten, but the thing that bothers me about that
man is he smiles all the time. And you don't want to trust a
man that smiles all the time. He's hiding something. Because
it's impossible to be happy all the time. Now you listen to me,
I'm telling you the truth. But 1 John 5, verse 20 said,
And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an
understanding, that we may know him that is true, and that we
are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This
is the true God, and this is eternal life. An understanding. Now then, turn to Isaiah 53.
Isaiah 53. I'm not going to keep you much
longer, but I want you to look at this. Philip was walking along,
this man was reading Isaiah 53, the Old Testament. And Philip said, do you understand? He said, how can I unless somebody
shows me? And that's the reason God has
raised up prophets and apostles and evangelists and pastors and
teachers that we might understand. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing
by the Word of God. God hath chosen by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. This very thing. And
people aren't their own pastors and their own preachers. God
sends them preachers. He sends a messenger. And so
Philip got up in the chariot and began at the same scripture
and preached to him Jesus. Let's look at Isaiah 53 briefly,
just briefly. It starts out, Who hath believed
our report? And to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed? The arm of the Lord is the power
of the Lord, the grace of the Lord, the redemption. He shall
grow up before him as a tender plant." That's our Lord was born
of a woman. He was a little baby, nothing
so dependent and frail as a little baby, a tender plant. As a root
out of a dry ground. I heard a preacher last week
on the radio down in St. Kitts who said that's Mary's
womb, a root out of a dry ground. Maybe, but I think it's the nation
of Israel. that was practically nothing
at that time. He hath no form, no comeliness,
and when we shall see him, no beauty that we should desire
him. He's like the tabernacle in the wilderness, covered with
badger skin. He is not this the carpenter.
He is not this Mary's son. No beauty about him. He didn't
come in satin and silk and linen with crowns on his head. No beauty
about him. He's just a man in human flesh,
but like the tabernacle inside the very glory of God. He is
despised and rejected of men. He's a man of sorrows, acquainted
with grief. He was tempted as we are in all
points, yet without sin. And everybody hid, as it were,
our faces from him. He's despised and we esteem him
not. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. We did esteem him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities,
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes
we are healed. That's our Lord's substitution. Substitution. All we like sheep have gone astray.
We've turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid
on him the iniquity of us all. Look at verse 10. It pleased
the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. When
thou shalt make his soul, not just his body, but his soul,
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, those for whom
he died, He shall prolong his days, he's eternal, he'll never
die, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands,
he'll never fail. He shall see the travail of his
soul, that's his children, that he brought forth and be satisfied.
By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he
shall bear their iniquities. And as Philip, as he read that,
he said, Philip, who's this prophet talking about? Who is this sinless? This person, this submissive
sacrifice, this sin offering, who is this person? Is the prophet
talking about himself or talking about someone else? Turn back
to Acts 8. Let's see what Philip replies.
In Acts 8, the Ethiopian eunuch asks that intelligent question,
who's he talking about? In verse 35, and Philip opened
his mouth and began at the same scripture and praised Jesus Christ
to him. Christ is the sinless substitute. Christ is the sovereign Savior. Christ is the suffering Messiah. Christ is our substitute. That's
who this is talking about. And he preached Christ to it.
Preached the gospel. Now then, look at verse 36. And
they went on their way. I don't know how long this lasted.
I know that Philip preached to this man. And you know, a lot
of our people have trouble with what we call witnessing. They
want to witness. Well, I'll tell you one thing
that's required for effectual witness. You've got to have an
ear, an interested ear. This is not something that you
shoved out of a man's throat. This is not something that you
pawn off on people. You don't sell shoes to folks
that don't have feet. And you don't sell gloves to
people who don't have hands. And you don't sell Christ to
people that don't feel the need of him. That's just all there
is to it. And Philip found an interested,
seeking sinner reading the Word of God, and this man's ears were
open and his mouth was shut. Just about everybody I've tried
to witness to has got their ears shut and their mouths open. Butt,
butt, butt, butt, butt nothing. Goat's butt. Sheep don't. They
listen. Sheep listen. Sheep are easily
led. That's right. But this generation's
got religious indigestion. They're filled with it. They've
got religious colic. They've all got their denominations
and they don't listen to anybody. But if you can find somebody
with his mouth shut and his ear open and his heart receptive,
you can witness to them. You can take him to the Word
of God. But when they start popping back at you, just close your
mouth. Just close your mouth. Don't
cast your pearls before swine. They'll trample them in the mud,
in the hog mud. But even for this, Philip found
an interested man, and he preached the gospel to him. And so they
went on their way, verse 36, and they came to a certain water,
and the eunuch said, hey, wait a minute, here's water. What
doth hinder me from being baptized? Evidently, Philip had talked
to him about confessing Christ. And the way that Philip told
him to confess Christ was baptism. Where did he learn about baptism?
He learned it from Philip. That's exactly right. And so
Philip put the only hedge around baptism, the only requirement.
He didn't say, well, you'll have to wait until the elders meet,
or you'll have to wait until we can vote you in. Do y'all
still do that at some of the churches? You know, a man comes
by and says, I want to be baptized. Is there a motion to be received?
Is there a second, you know? We're all in favor. Any objection? Philip said, we'll have to have
a vote. Because all Baptists vote, they quit praying and went
to voting several years ago. Philip didn't say that at all.
Philip said, do you believe? If you believe with all your
heart, you may. And he answered and he said,
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Philip said,
whoa, horse. Stop that chariot. And he commanded
the chariot to stand still. And so I want you to see how
big this glass of water here is in verse 38. that they sprinkled
him with. They both went down into the
water, both of them, both Philip and the eunuch. It says that
twice, verse 38. He commanded the church to stand
still and they went down, both of them, into the water, both
Philip and the eunuch. And he baptized. Let me tell
you something, no use arguing, but baptism is for believers.
Baptism is confession of Christ. Baptism follows salvation. Philip
stopped him right there. He said, I want to be baptized.
He said, only if you believe. Only if you believe. And I want
to hear it out of your mouth. And baptism is your confession
of Christ. And baptism is by immersion.
There's no question about it. This is the Word of God. And
when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord
caught away Philip, and the eunuch saw him no more, but he went
on his way rejoicing. He had heard the gospel. Now
then, this bothers me sometimes. How many times have you heard
this gospel? Some of you have heard it too
many times. You've heard it too many times. This man heard it
one time. One time. That's right. He heard it one
time. And he didn't dabble around,
I want to be sure. I want to this, that, and the
other. I don't know how lost some folks
are that claim they're lost. Drowning men won't be saved right
now. Fellas in burning buildings won't be saved right now. People
that are gasping for breath and are dying won't be saved right
now. Folks whose blood's run all out of their bodies, they
want a transfusion right now. But folks claim to want to know
God and be lost, and they want to be saved next year. That does
not make any sense to me at all. This man heard the gospel one
time, and now is the accepted time, today's the day of salvation.
And it's mocking God for me to hear it over and over and over
again and despise it. That's true. And that's what
it is. Christ said, he's not for me,
he's against me. And a man that's not glorifying God is despising
God. And a man that's not believing
God and letting people know he believes God is denying God. That's so. One time. And this is it. I just preached
it to you. Same message that this man heard
right here, I just preached to you." And that's all he needed
to hear. And he was saved. You say, yeah,
he heard Philip. It's not the vessel, it's the
Lord. It's not who you hear, it's what you hear, or whom you
hear about. That's where it is.