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Well, some of we've been studying in Acts and Acts the Acts of the Apostles, some commentators and some people have have said that it should be called the acts of the Holy Spirit and when you read that book it's really hard to deny that actual superintendence of God through his spirit and so we've seen that quite a bit as we're going through. Last week we were talking about Peter and John going down after Philip had been in Samaria. He'd been in this great revival and there's a great revival going on and Peter and John come up and it helps to kind of validate what has going on and they prayed and laid hands on the believers and they saw the Holy Spirit come upon the same way that he had in Jerusalem for the apostles and those gathered at the day of Pentecost. So this is the start. This is where we were and the last verse we went over last week, it said Peter and John headed back to Jerusalem and on their way back they ministered the gospel to everyone along the way.
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In Samaria, apostles. In Samaria, Jews and Samaritans getting along. This is something new. This is not something that's happened in a thousand years. We're gonna go today and I'm gonna just kind of title this one Philip acts in obedience.
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It's the acts of the apostles but this one Philip acts in obedience. Typically, you see this Philip in the Ethiopian eunuch. That'd be the heading in your Bible and that's what we're gonna talk about. Is that ministry? But how great it is that God would have us doing this today that those ladies, they're such a part of this church.
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I see some empty chair, it feels weird because 19 empty chairs are filling seats right now on the plane and they're ministering to black Africa. This is the first place that we see the gospel expand the territories of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria. This is getting to the ends of the world. We'll go into it further but Ethiopia as it was called then was considered to be the first the furthest habitable region of the of the globe. So this is the end of the earth.
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We'll start off just reading through the scripture. I have a lot of principles or several principles I wanna pull out of it, but I wanna just walk through. This seems to be working well for narrative to walk through and read the scripture together and then point out them. So '25, just before this is Peter and John on their way back to Jerusalem, and it starts off. But as for Philip, an angel of the Lord said to him, go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza.
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The word for angel right there is under us. I'm I'm pointing this out because when we hear angel, we immediately think all the pictures of angels that we see in our head. There there are wings, there's flowing gown, there's all this fear not. You know, you hear that, but angel in Greek means messenger. It's a messenger of God and we tend to put a lot on that, that it's an angel, supernatural being that carries God's work and that is true.
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But I want you to start looking at whenever you see angel in the New Testament, look at it as this is someone who carries God's message. Okay? It's angel or messenger. So if you're looking at that verse like this, as for Philip an angel or messenger of the Lord said to him, I do believe it was an angel just like you're thinking of But for our own contemporary application, that would be a little bit more foreign for us than to believe that someone has brought the message of God. Does that make sense?
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Are you with me? Yes. Alright. As for Philip, an angel or messenger of the Lord said to him, go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to God. So he started out.
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I'll put it in pink. Pascal's not here, but she'd appreciate that. I'll put it in pink this time instead of red or orange. That go literally, what the angel said to him was, rise up and go or get up and go. And in the very next sentence says, and he got up and went.
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Get up and go. And after having gotten up, he went is what it says. We can stop right there. Y'all would say, whoo, short Sunday. This is what this sermon is about.
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This is what this whole passage is about from Philip's standpoint. We can stop right there. There was godly instruction. The messenger of the Lord, the angel of the Lord said to him, do this and he did it. That's it.
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Godly instruction followed by immediate obedience. That's a good term. Miss Meg, I brought her up before but it's been over a year. Y'all might not remember miss Meg. Miss Meg was Pascal's first grade kindergarten and first grade teacher at a little Christian school in South Carolina and she was kind of a hippie and kind of just really really sweet, a smile bearer.
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She always wore a smile. She was a God fearing lady, just loved the kids and she had seven little girls there in her class. High school was one of those and Ms. Meg's mantra that she was teaching for these first grade girls, she taught Bible verses but the one that I heard more than anything else is I will obey right away and with a happy heart. That's a great thing to teach a kindergartner.
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The first Bible verse that she taught them was not John three sixteen and it was not some of those we might think are the greatest hits versus, it was from Thessalonians that was encouraging one another and build each other up. For seven little girls, that's a great lesson to learn. But when someone was to give them instruction, a teacher, the principal of the school or her or your parents, she would say, I will love that right away with a happy heart. And she said it like that so sweetly. And so, okay, then we still will bring that up with the Passover.
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Like this morning, when they were getting up to go to the airport 05:00 in the morning, Baby, it's time to get up. I will obey right away with a happy heart. So that's miss Mayrick's mantra and that's what Philip did. He obeyed right away and apparently with a happy heart. So we're not gonna stop there.
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That would be too short a sermon. We're gonna keep on and what happens next. So get up and go and have having gotten up first tense. Having gotten up, he went. And he met the treasure of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under the Kondike, the queen of Ethiopia.
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Some of your versions of the Bible may say Candace, queen of the Ethiopians and that's fine. Kondike probably was a an office, a title. The ruler of that part of Ethiopia was seen to be kind of like a pharaoh of Egypt who seemed to be so holy that he didn't really ever do anything. So the first lady, the Queen was the one who had the responsibility but even she delegated it all and when she delegated she would delegate it to primarily courtiers who were mostly units. That's a very common thing of the day in that region.
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It's not all that common now but what Eunuch really signifies here is this is a man that's all about business. He's not into other things. He's all about the business of his office being treasurer of Ethiopia. He's a man of some great influence And so the eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship. This is an interesting wrinkle because a eunuch from the court of the queen of Ethiopia is a long long way from home in Jerusalem.
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So what this says is that this is a God fearing man. Perhaps a Jew, a proselyte, a convert, perhaps. Anyway, I think in modern violence it would be safe to say that he was a seeker. He was one who was seeking after God. Most likely a black African from South Of Egypt, South of The Upper Nile region, almost to Kenya actually.
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The eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship and he was now returning. Think about that. He had been there and he was returning. How many times in the gospels? How many times in the gospel of John did we see the disciples and and Jesus go down to Jerusalem or whatever festival?
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That was a common thing to make that pilgrimage to Jerusalem and that's what the eunuch had done. So seated in his carriage, he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah. His carriage, his chariot, some versions say, probably an ox cart. It was not a real fast, lightning fast, Roman chariot with his spikes like Ben Hur. Probably not that.
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It was his way of getting around, but he was a man of means and he was traveling in comfort. The Cadillac version from Jerusalem to Gaza. And he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah. That's quite common too and and this time period people routinely read aloud and not to themselves. It was common almost everywhere for that to be the case.
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I thought what terrible joke. I can't get past it so I'm gonna say it. The definition of an intellectual where I'm from is someone who can read without moving their lips. So just go over and walk along beside the carriage. What it says is go catch up with that carriage, and it's the Holy Spirit this time.
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So what is that? What we see the first time, the messenger of the Lord said to him, get up and go, and he got up and went. It was godly instruction followed by immediate obedience. And now the spirit, the Holy Spirit is giving him some instruction. Go catch up with that charity.
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So what will Philip do? What's your bet for what Philip will do? He'll He'll do it. I wouldn't be preaching about Philip, will it? Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah.
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Philip ran over. He took off. This is miss Meg's mantra again. I will obey right away and with a happy heart. He took off running.
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So it's immediate and unquestioning obedience. I'll add the unquestioning because there are significant cultural differences between Philip and this guy in the chariot. Yes, ma'am. Significant. Immediate and unquestioning obedience.
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Now Philip could have said, oh I don't know about that. I'll wait. Let's see. I probably we probably don't speak the same language anyway. I know I don't know squat about the treasury of Ethiopia.
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Probably, I mean, he's riding in style. I'm not just gonna I'm just gonna sidle up next to him. No. He didn't say that Philip ran up. Raised childhood road trip story.
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Immediate and questioning obedience I think a lot because we spend so much time with kids trying to get them to obey because we love them, because we want to keep them safe, because we want to take care of them. My parents used to say you know just because I said so that was the norm because I said so was the answer for why I should do something so I learned not to question because it was because I said so. I was on a quick road trip of several days long in the North Georgia Mountains. We call them mountains. There were hills around here.
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It even be buttes around here. But we're going to a trout stream and it was supposed to be a trout fishing trip. The pastor of the church loved to trout fish like so many of pastors do. And when we got there, we caught no travel. And it went on and on and we caught no travel.
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It was terrible. And it turned from a travel fishing trip into a swimming trip and we had a fall. We muddied the river for all the fishermen downstream. But as we were coming home, we had several cars. We had a little bit of car trouble.
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And when we're coming home, we stopped at a roadside gas station, used bathroom, fuel up. And I went into the restroom, and when I came out, none of the cars that had brought me there were there. And I looked around, I'm about 11 or 12 years old. And I was like, well, what do I do? No cell phones.
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They would assume that I was with them. We're four hours from home. What in the world? And so just as I was starting to freak out, I remember my hands doing this. And I was just starting to, oh my goodness.
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What am I do I wait? What? I saw across the intersection there the '79 Buick that I was supposed to be in and I took off running full speed and I'm a pretty quick little joker. I took off running hair hood full speed and as I was going I saw my dad's head turn and to me it's in slow motion he just kind of turn like this and he said and he did not scream he just said stop and when he did I went into that mode and slid on grass but stopped and a truck went by and it would have killed me and there's no doubt it would have killed me but it was like dead body said but you're leaving me dead breath just bend up right there but what they had instilled in us by that point was no you just do it You figure it out later. We'll talk about it later, but you just do it.
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So that one is kind of the way that Philip did it. Had he thought about it, he might not have wanted to do it. He might have thought, but that guy's rich and I'm poor. Yeah. I'm full of the Holy Spirit and all those good things they set out about me last chapter, but I don't know anything about that guy.
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I don't know what happened. Send somebody else. I don't wanna do that. He didn't say that. He just went.
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The Holy Spirit said to Philip, back up. Go over and walk along beside the carriage. So Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah and Philip asked, do you understand what you're reading? Ain't that cool? So far, he's got this divine instruction for where to go, where to be.
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When he gets closer, God gives him a little more information. Does it remind you of the story of Abraham where it says, leave the land which you know and go to a place that I'll show Yeah. When he gets there, he gives him a little more information. Yeah. The just will walk by faith.
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They believe God. Good. And it's counted in his righteousness. Philip walks along and when he hears what's going on, he says, oh, I got this. This is something that God's gifted me with.
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He's taught me the lessons of the Bible since my youth. And now knowing the apostles and knowing Jesus' ministry here on earth and knowing why he came to die, I understand. He was reading from the prophet Isaiah. We'll come back to that. Notice this, the instruction here is not listed.
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The question came from Philip. It doesn't say that there's any divine inspiration as to him saying that. God had it in the right place at the right time and he had gifted him with the right gifts. This was his spontaneous response to the situation and now he's functioning out of the resources that God has given him. Over and over and over this week, I've thought about those gals that are going to Africa and I thought, how weird it must be to have three or four kids.
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Think, well, maybe it's not so weird to say I need to get away for a while but how weird it must be for these mothers to go, this doesn't make any sense but I'm gonna say yes anyway lord because I feel like this is your message for me. Get up and go. So they got up. They did the things necessary. Now when they get there, God will continue to prompt and we've seen it over and over.
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Most of you know me and know Tanya and know Pascal fairly well. You know that we're missionaries in Mexico for seven years and we would have teams that came down and asked the same questions and we saw how they would work and people seem to be when they're away from home so susceptible to the movement of God because they're out of their element. It's an amazing thing to see people that wake up in the morning and think, my job today is to serve almighty God. This is why I'm here. This is what I was here for.
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And the truth is that's true here too. That's the truth. But something about being out of your element changes that. And who knows why God sees fit to use Philip, this Hellenistic Jew Christian, to do this with this human. But Philip is functioning out of the resources God had given him.
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Do you remember the question? Do you understand what you read? And the man replied, how can I unless someone instructs me? Isn't that a great humble response? He could've said, well, of course I do.
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I'm a brilliant eunuch of the treasury of Candace. No. He said, how can I understand unless someone instructs me? Now he had been on this religious pilgrimage to Jerusalem seeking after God, seeking to experience God. That's what he went for.
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How can unless someone instructs me? And he's reading something that in first century Judaism was one of the most confusing texts that could be read. And he urged Philip to come up into his carriage and sit with him. So Philip hops on board. Isn't that great?
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Philip gets a ride. That's nice. Have you ever found yourself in a situation that was like this? All of sudden you're riding in that Cadillac and you're going, how did I get here? I found myself in that position quite a bit.
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I mentioned one of them a few weeks ago when when we we ended up at the at the governor's table for some reason. That was so bizarre to me but God says that this is if you're if you're there, if you're doing following the providence of the spirit, it puts you in some crazy positions. Have you been in this position? I'm gonna tell Trevor's story really quickly because I think it's funny. Trevor is a guy who grew up in Florida.
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I was in seminary. He was one of the junior professors. He had just started and I heard him tell this tale about 07:00 in the morning before our prayer day. His very first experience with real Christian missions at all was two weeks after he become a believer, just two weeks. But when God saved him, was dramatic.
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He pulled him out of this lifestyle that he had been in. He was a surfer. He was a pothead. He was pretty self seeking kind of guy and he was you know nice enough guy and everything but when he got saved, when God saved him, he started going to this youth group and they were going on a mission trip and somebody dropped out and he was able to go into place with that person that dropped out. Now everybody else in there he describes as pious Christians that's the way he said it.
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These folks have been Christians their whole lives and they had grown up in church and they knew the Bible backwards and forwards but Trevor had not. He'd been a pocket most of his life and a surfer and he didn't know squat or anything. When they get to this and it was a Middle Eastern travel of all places and so when they get to this Middle Eastern place in a Muslim country, travel area, the tribal leaders, the missionaries that were on the ground that were there full time had been trying to get into this trial for a long time and had received no welcome whatsoever. But something about this group intrigued the tribal leaders. So they said why don't we meet, we'll meet with the missionaries if you'll have them come in and smoke the hookahs with us.
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Smoking the pizza. It was hookah. It was not good stuff. It was not stuff that Christians I wouldn't smoke it. He wouldn't make me smoke it.
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But Trevor, on the other hand, said he'd been training his whole life for this moment. God used Trevor who was not afraid to smoke the hookah to get the other guys into the meeting. Now they didn't have to do the things that they were offended by and Trevor didn't know the answers to the questions but that travel leader became a Christian out of the experience. That's crazy. Now this Trevor is now a teacher like I said at the seminary where I graduated.
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It's a fantastic story. Who knows how God orchestrates this stuff, but we know that it is he who's doing orchestration. So this is the passage of scripture that he has been reading. And he was led like a sheep to the slaughter. And as a lamb is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.
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He was humiliated and received no justice. Who can speak of his descendants for his life was taken from the earth? And if you know your Isaiah, you know that that is Isaiah 53, but it's a pretty rough version of Isaiah 53. It's from the Greek version of the old testament scroll. Now Philip is a what kind of believer?
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He's a Greek, Jewish, Christian, the Septuagint, he knows. He's been studying since his youth most likely, and he knew this and it was confusing for him up until he knew who Jesus was. Because first century Judaism does not know what to do with a suffering servant messiah. They were looking for a victorious military leader. The anointed one would overthrow Rome, not sin.
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He wouldn't deal with the hearts. He would deal with the government. That quote from the Greek version of the Old Testament, Isaiah 53, and the eunuch asked Philip, tell me, is the prophet talking about himself or someone else? So this is someone seeking after God. Most likely, he just bought this book.
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He just bought this scroll when he was up in Jerusalem and he's wondering how can this be? I've been to the place, I've been to the temple although since he's a eunuch he can't go into the the center place. He had to stay out in the court of the Gentiles. He was excluded. Tell me, was the prophet talking about himself or someone else?
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So beginning with this same scripture, Philip told him the good news about Jesus. Amen. Praise God. Mhmm. Praise God.
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So where do you begin with someone who's asking you about God? Be aware they are. He was stuck and where he was stuck was right there at Isaiah 53. He could have picked a lot of different places in Isaiah. He could have picked a lot of Psalms that would be sticking points that talk of a suffering servant and a messiah.
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Someone who came to live a perfect life but be persecuted. Be beaten for our iniquities, wounded with our stripes. He could have started in a lot of different places, but begin with that same scripture, he showed him the way to Jesus. Beginning with the same scripture, Philip told him the good news about Jesus. Now why would he do that?
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He could have taken on teacher role and said, well, Isaiah, you know, Isaiah, the first 30 books are this and then could have explained all kinds of other stuff, but no. He knows the point. That prophet was looking forward to something and the way he was looking forward to what just happened and it's Jesus and he needs to know this. Why? Paul would say, it's the power.
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It's good news about Jesus. The gospel is the power unto salvation for all who believe. Amen. Amen. And as they rode along, they came to some water and the eunuch said, look, there's some water.
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Why can't I be baptized? This one, was planning to just fill up the baptismal this morning. We've had about four or five people that have that are scheduled. They're in line to be baptized, but I I started to do this because in most version, this is, hey, here's water. Why not now?
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This is a good time. As they rode along, they came this morning and said, look, there's some water. Now this is verse 36. Brief discussion about 37. If you have your New Living Translation of the Bible or the NIV or several others, there will not be a a verse 37 in there.
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Verse 37 is strange. It goes from 36 to 38. I mentioned that only in passing because verse 37 is not in all of the manuscript evidence and I think that most of the modern Bible translations when they leave something out it's because they are leaving out something that they believe to be an addition. Does not change any central point of theology. There's nothing that hangs on this but I do want to mention it because if you read from 36 to 38 or something, please say what are they hiding from me here?
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37 says, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you can and he says, I do. I believe Jesus is the Christ. So that clears it up. It fills in the gap. It may be a gloss is what they call it where they gloss over that.
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When I'm preaching like I'm preaching here where I go verse to verse and I interject, maybe at some point in the past one of the scribes interjected and wrote it down. But verse 37 clears it up for us that yes, this man was saved. Not only did Philip do the leading to Jesus, he actually arrived. The guy accepted Christ. And so he ordered the carriage to stop and they went down into the water and Philip baptized him.
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And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord smashed Philip away. I could go on since I'm a Baptist. I could go on and on about the going down into the water and when they came up out of the water and preach a whole sermon on full immersion, but, you know, the water could have been downhill from them, I suppose. I won't I won't be late for that point. But the spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away.
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This week when I was talking to Carl, and I was talking to several of you and they said, well, what's the passage for this week? I wanna read ahead. And I told him, I said, oh, that part about him getting snatched away or being carried away or pulled away. What is that all about? That's just weird.
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Snatched the look away. So when I got back to the study, I go back to this. This is Heratopsin. That is for all of you grammar nerds out there, the heirsactive indicative of the third person singular proposal. Nothing that cleared up for you?
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Let's move on. Forcefully carried away is what that means And it means that he was forcefully withdrawn from the situation. Now we don't see that particular use anywhere else in the New Testament. We do see a bird like it used a few times for other things, but it is a violent removal that's what it is, snatching away, taking out. So it's a good translation but the forcefully carried away.
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I want you to think right now about these ladies that are going over to serve in Africa. This week they're going to play with a 100 little kids, maybe more, probably a lot more little kids and they're going to find themselves doing something that they've been anticipating for a long time. Their hearts are going to become intertwined with people just like Philip riding with this guy explaining Jesus to him. You get to a place where you feel so closely related to those with whom you're ministering that any removal from feels like a violent snatching away. Now did God snatch him away physically and remove him to a place?
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Probably so. But I want you to think about it in in your own life. When you found yourself ministering and you feel like you've just been snatched out of a place all of a sudden, forcefully carried away. When they came up out of the water, the spirit was smashed to the floor. This is something else.
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I mentioned a little while ago that people have common questions on short term mission trips, even long term mission trips. These are the three big ones. How did we do? Guys always want to know this. After the first day of construction work down in Mexico, let's go where we were.
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After the first day the guys would come back every single one of them would at some point sidle up to me go, so how do we do? How do we measure up to the rest of the group? How do do? Do we get done what you want to get done? The ladies didn't usually ask that question but they did ask the next one.
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What will these people think when we go home? These folks, for the most part, where we were serving were very, very poor, undereducated, probably sweet, humble people. But what will they think when we get home that we've just flown down here and spent a lot of money and and that we just don't care anymore and we went back home? Will they think what would they think? What would they think?
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What must it be like? What what would it be like? And did we really make a difference? Everybody wonders that. And I've even heard some the gal asking and some of some of the gals asking, can we really make a difference in a short time?
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Well, how short a time was it for Philip to spend with this Ethiopian eunuch? It was a pretty short time. So when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord smashed Philip away, and the eunuch never saw him again, but went on his way rejoicing. That answers those questions right there. That answers those questions.
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He never saw him again, but he went on his way rejoicing. This is another one of those summary statements. Told you verse 25 was about Peter and John as they walked back to their home place, Jerusalem. They ministered in all the Samaritan villages until they got here. This tells us what happened when Philip was snatched away, drawn, withdrawn violently from where he was.
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Meanwhile, Philip found himself farther north at the town of Azotis before he realized that he was out of the area. He was completely off of that rather than he was north at the town of Azotis, which if you go by the name there is a Greek name and most likely more familiar, a near culture, something that he's used to. But what did he do? He preached the good news there and in every town along the way until he came to Caesarea. It's interesting that it says he kept on doing that until he came to Caesarea because if you'll keep on reading in Acts, Acts 21 says, Caesarea is where Philip lived.
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And in twenty one eight, it says that Paul and his companions came on one of their missionary journeys. They needed a place to spend the night or spend some time, and they stopped in with Philip. What we know about Philip from this passage and everything that preceded it was that he was a short term missionary. He was ready. He was willing.
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He was gifted by God, but he was immediately obedient to Godly instruction. He gifted them and then he used them. Boldness in Samaria. You don't go to Samaria unless you're awfully bold. His intellect, curiosity, his willingness, his hospitality.
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And here's the so what. So what? Today, how does that matter? What does it matter about Philip? Well, God still instructs through his messengers.
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God still instructs through his spirit. If you are a believer, you have the Holy Spirit living within you. God is living within you. He's writing his law in your heart, and he is wanting to express himself through your giftedness. And God hand does use the gifts that he gives.
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But the big but, always there. But we need to be obedient immediately and unquestionably. When we know that it's God's spirit that's doing the speakings, we need to be obedient to it. And so all the while we need to trust God to bring increase. I could not get away from it this week thinking how timely it is when we see such a large group from one place all going out and there was a little bit not trepidation like scared but just what will we do when we get there?
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As Philip's walking down that dusty road from Jerusalem towards Gaza what will we do when we get there? It's those little nudges of the spirit And they've been happening for months, but they'll happen more and more. Would you please be praying with them this week? And would you please be praying for God to speak to you and through you? If you do not know Jesus and you have a sticking point, can I get all the elders in here to stand up?
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Would you mind? All the elders at this church, if you have any sticking point with any kind of point of theology, brother Rich, would you stand up to? Pastor present elders, there are a lot of people here who may be a little bit further down this road than you are. If you have any sticking point, any one of these guys I may include it too would be glad delighted to speak to you and we'll start from that very place where you stop and we'll bring you, hopefully, y'all can be seated towards Jesus. The good news of Jesus, the gospel.
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The eunuch never saw him again, but went on his way with Joyce, and I think that's the last Carl, do y'all wanna come up? Pray. I'm gonna pray while the man gathers up. God, would you just mold us and make us after your will, lord? Think of the words of that old invitation hymn.
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God, would you do that? Would you please use us today? Would you give us that spirit of humility that the eunuch had that when we don't understand something to admit it, not try to cover it? God, would you please use us? Would you please speak through us?
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May we be your messengers, Lord. May we carry your word. In Jesus name. Amen.
