I think that most of us, if we were Philip, would not
want to leave Samaria after the revival finally got started. I would have been
able to come up with lots of reasons to stay in Samaria. God even sends Philip into
the desert where it might be hard to find people to evangelize.
Acts
8:26-29 … Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the
south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert
place. And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court
official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her
treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his
chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip,
“Go over and join this chariot.”
Philip doesn’t argue with God about sending him out to a
desert road. Philip just goes along assuming that God knows what He wants done.
That is a good assumption. It is an assumption that we would be wise to make every
moment of every day.
The Ethiopians have had a long history with the Jews. The
Queen of Sheba had visited Solomon and the story in Ethiopia is that the Queen conceived
by Solomon and that the line of kings in Ethiopia are all Solomon’s descendents.
The Ethiopian Church actually claims to be holding the Ark of the Covenant
having received it for safe keeping during the fall of Jerusalem. Whatever they
have is under heavy guard and they are not showing it to anyone. In any case,
Ethiopia is a bit of a special nation in both Old Testament and New Testament.
So there is no crowd. There is no opportunity for a
crowd. There is only one Ethiopian and his entourage. The Ethiopian isn’t going
to be counted by many people as a gentile convert because he is a “God Fearer”
in Jewish categories and is working to worship as a Jewish convert. The
Samarians were counted as half Jewish and 100% heretic and therefore they were
not really counted as gentile converts either. I think you could count this Ethiopian
as the first gentile convert but most people count Cornelius and we’ll come to
him and his household soon. So you can score conversion anyway you want to if
you are waiting for a gentile conversion.
I think it is good to remember that conversions are
always personal. It is never just business as usual. Every Christian is a
personal conversion. After all the glorious crowds in the earlier chapter, here
we see God send a deacon with a gift of evangelism for one man. He sends Philip
for the one lost sheep.
We reject spontaneous generation. If you had as many cans
of tuna as you wanted, and they were all properly canned, then how many would
you open before you found a living fish inside? Would a billion do it to get
one new organism? You have all you need to make a fish inside but we don’t
worry about new organisms inside. Why don’t we worry? We don’t worry because it
is dead. We may worry about saprophytic organisms getting inside and making it
spoil. But saprophytic organisms eat dead stuff and recycle it. You don’t worry
about cans of tuna bursting to life spontaneously because you reject
spontaneous generation.
In a like manner, with a massive amount of Scripture, you
must realize that your salvation was a resurrection. You were not a case of
spontaneous regeneration. God’s work in your life was just as personal as God’s
work in this Ethiopian’s life. God has no accidents and makes no mistakes. Your
salvation was personal. Each believer is a one-on-one miracle of God’s saving
grace and we should each thank Him and praise Him forever. Blessed is His name.
Somehow Philip caught up with the chariot. The Ethiopian
was seated reading so I’d assume he had a driver or was stopped on the road. It
was customary in that day to read aloud so Philip was able to hear what he was
reading.
Acts
8:30-35 … So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet
and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I,
unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this: “Like a sheep he
was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he
opens not his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can
describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” And the
eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about
himself or about someone else?” Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning
with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.
The version of Scripture (according to scholars) sounds
like Isaiah 53:7-8 in the Septuagint. The version being used might explain why
the Ethiopian doesn’t seem to know about Jesus and all the things that had been
happening in Jerusalem even though he was coming from Jerusalem. The Ethiopian
may not have spoken either Hebrew or Aramaic. However, the Septuagint was a
Greek translation of the Old Testament and it had been available for some time
when Philip came upon the Ethiopian in his chariot.
Part of the challenge of being instant in season and out
of season in preaching the Gospel is being able to use whatever Scripture is in
play to preach Christ when the Holy Spirit is moving. I was never a good
basketball player. I would think about other stuff and the other team and get
distracted from what my team was doing. It was a bigger problem playing right
field in baseball but even in basketball it was a problem. However, there was
this one guy from the mountains that was 6 feet tall and could slam dunk two
handed standing flat footed under the basket. He would come down the lane,
jump, and level off at about 10 feet in the air. I would run under the basket.
If he was guarded then he would pass it to me and I had a lay-up. If they
guarded me then he would take the shot. All I had to do was pay attention to
this one guy for as long as we were on offence and I looked OK. We need to
remember in evangelism that it isn’t just us and the person in front of us. We
need to watch for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit isn’t waiting for us to
display our skills. Just pay attention to Him and remember that the team is
simple and the opponent is outnumbered. The Holy Spirit is in charge and you
don’t know exactly what He’ll do but you do know He’ll go with you. Philip knew
this and went to the desert where nobody was, found a chariot of a guy who was
obviously not Jewish, and shared the Gospel based on the verses that the Holy
Spirit had this guy reading. It was a simple plan but that makes it brilliant
for people like us because we need simple. Just beyond the quoted Scripture we
find even more prophecy from Isaiah regarding the atonement.
Isaiah
53:10-11 … Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to
grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring;
he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out
of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge
shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and
he shall bear their iniquities.
You can see why this was such an easy set of verses to
use to explain the Gospel to the Ethiopian. Jesus was sacrificed by God and as
a result saw offspring (the believers) and was resurrected (His days were
prolonged). Out of His suffering and anguish He made many (the believers) to be
accounted righteous and He bore their (the believers) iniquities. Our sins are
imputed to Christ and His righteousness is imputed to us. This is the heart of
the Gospel.
We don’t know how far the Ethiopian and Philip read in
Isaiah. However, as I said when we studied Isaiah, I’m convinced that he got
from Chapter 53 through to Chapter 56. Just knowing that the Ethiopian heard
these verses is such a blessing to me. However, the verses speak directly to
each of us.
Isaiah
56:3-8 … Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, “The
LORD will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say,
“Behold, I am a dry tree.” For thus says the LORD: “To the eunuchs who keep my
Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I
will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than
sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut
off. “And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him,
to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the
Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant— these I will bring
to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt
offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall
be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” The Lord GOD, who gathers the
outcasts of Israel, declares, “I will gather yet others to him besides those
already gathered.”
The Ethiopian would likely have been told he could never
enter into the assembly at the Temple (Deuteronomy 23:1) because of his being a
eunuch. So he would have always been a second class citizen regardless of his
piety. However, God promises to give him a heritage.
Notice the mention of the Sabbath here in these verses. Most
of you have probably thought about the fact that we worship on the first day of
the week (Sunday) instead of the Sabbath day (Saturday). This change was a
first century change and it stresses one thing that we really need to remember
about the shadow of the Sabbath and the reality. The picture of setting aside
your work and resting in God is a picture of the atonement. It is a testimony
of the atonement. The irony is that some groups try to establish Sabbath
observance as a work that is necessary to please God. So they take the very
thing that is made to testify to the completeness of Jesus sacrifice in which
we bring no works of our own and trust in His righteousness alone and try to
make it a work of satisfaction required by God. It would be laughable if it
were not so tragic. We need a day of rest and we need a day focused on God but
this is not a work to earn God’s pleasure because Christ’s work was perfect and
we are commanded to strive to enter into the rest His work provides (Hebrews 3:7-4:13).
Jesus also quoted from these verses as He purged the temple. I pray we would
seek to purge sin from our lives, not to add one bit to the justification
purchased by Christ but rather to please our Father who has shown us such an
amazing grace. You have a living sacrifice to make to God (Romans 12:1) and you
have an offering too. The author of Hebrews says, “Therefore let us be grateful
for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God
acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire
(Hebrews 12:28-29).
Acts
8:36-40 … And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and
the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?”
And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water,
Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the
water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no
more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as
he passed through he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to
Caesarea.
As a Baptist I’m happy to point out that the Ethiopian
did not suggest that he be sprinkled with water from some vessel in his
chariot. In the desert no one who wants to stay alive travels without water. They
obviously needed more than a sprinkle of water. So He and Philip went down into
the water and then came up out of the water. Sounds like immersion to me and,
as mentioned in the first century text known as the Didache, they used flowing
(living) water.
Remember from last week that he Samaritans had to have
Peter and John visit because the Holy Spirit wasn’t confirming the water
baptisms. That was the odd case and it needed to be pointed out. This is a
normal case. The Ethiopian received the Holy Spirit and Luke doesn’t need to
point that out because you can’t get saved without being baptized in the Holy
Spirit. You can live a life in which you are not filled with the Holy Spirit
and God’s command to you is to keep on being filled continuously with the Holy
Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). Consequently to live a life in which you are not
filled with the Holy Spirit isn’t normal either.
This was the testimony of the Ethiopian that his sins
were covered by the work of Christ. He had just had the atonement preached to
him from Isaiah by Philip and he knew why he was baptized. This was not just a
ritual cleansing, although, he was now found righteous in Christ. The
punishment for your sins, demanded by a Holy God, was poured out on Christ like
a flood as Peter says;
1
Peter 3:20-21 … because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited
in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is,
eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to
this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to
God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
Jesus was resurrected showing that the demands of God
were met and we can appeal to God for a clear or good conscience as a result.
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