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It is time for children's church downstairs. I'm nervous for some reason. Can we just pray for a second? There's a lot going on, lord. Lord, I pray that you'd center my my mind on your word and my heart on your people and lord, I pray that you would call down.
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In Jesus name, amen. So, here we are at Acts 26. Acts eight twenty six through 40 and the message today is on Philip and the Ethiopian official. I got two different thoughts before I really get started. This week because of this sermon, I thought, you know what?
1:34
We need to fill the baptistry and I didn't have anybody that was going to be baptized. I just so I called Carl and I said, Carl, I'm preaching on Philip in the Ethiopian eunuch. I'll give you a spoiler alert. The last line is basically, here's water, what hinders you from being baptized? And I said, I feel like we need to fill it and so, he said, alright, we'll fill it.
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No problem. I put it on my, you know, alarms and get the baptistry full and I had several notes to follow-up with and they, hey, so call these people and talk to these folks. This guy stopped in and so I, Carl, will you fill the baptistry? And then, an hour later, I'm talking to Ernesto and he says, I'm just feeling motivated. I feel like God is saying and you know, it wasn't an audible voice to him.
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It wasn't an audible voice to me but it was an impression that God was making that that this is this is what needs to happen and so, with that said, I got one other thought. This week, I went to two different basketball games. I don't do that every every single week. I love to play basketball for a long time till I had a skiing injury and then kinda laid off a basketball for seventeen years before I got it fixed. And in the in those intervening seventeen years, I got too fat to play basketball.
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So I look more like a football player now, But I love to play basketball. I love to block shots and I want the ball. If I'm gonna play ball, I want the ball. Right? And it's not that I'm a ball hog.
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I don't I'm not a ball hog. I play center usually and, you know, if somebody comes in the lane, that's mine. If I'm on defense and you come in the lane, I'm sorry. That paint that box, it's to let you know, that's mine. And so they're called fouls to give for a reason you get five of them.
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Right? I love basketball. I love it. On defense on defense, I want the ball. And so if you go up with a shot, I'm gonna come down with that shot if I can.
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The injury wouldn't allow me to block shots. Might as well quip basketball. Right? Well, if you are playing like you want the ball, people will pass you the ball. And you wanna have everybody on the team wants the ball.
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Not that everybody on the team is a ball hog. Don't get me wrong. That's a that's a terrible thing. It's a terrible thing when there's one guy that wants the ball and everybody else is just kind of standing around. And I'll tell you what, if you're running plays in basketball, if you're running plays, the plays are to open up opportunity for somebody to score, right?
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Somebody to cross over that line in football or for somebody to actually make a basket in basketball. I want the ball and I think that in this passage right here, Philip wants the ball. He wants the ball. It starts off. Oh, before I start that, there are three thoughts I guess before I start.
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Last last week, I mentioned Simon Magus and Simon Magus, Simon the magician who tried to pay for the privilege of laying hands on people and bestowing them the Holy Spirit. And I cast some aspersions on his character a little bit from what the text said. But it says, he believed and was baptized. That's what it says and I don't want to say, no, he wasn't. I just want you to question from his actions what it looks like and honestly, I don't even care what you do with Simon Magus.
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I want you from your actions to see what it looks like. Is this the salvation that has happened? And Peter's rebuking me because I need rebuking or is it something that I thought I understood it and I'm really not all in. Really, I don't want the ball. Does that make sense?
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I really don't want this to come down to me. But it does for every one of us come down to us. There is a judgment. And at the end, it's it's it's hard to say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I believed and was baptized and that was it.
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If there is change, there will be change. There will be transformation. So, I don't want to say Simon Magus is not going to be there when we get there, okay? I kind of said that last week but I don't know. I felt bad about it after I left.
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So, that's an admission. Here we go. This is the way the sermon ended last week. After testifying and preaching. So, testimony is when a witness tells what they have seen in their own life, in their own experience.
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After testifying and preaching, proclaiming the word of God in Samaria, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem. Now, they stopped in many Samaritan villages along the way to preach the good news and then straight from there, we go to Philip. As for Philip, okay, Philip, remember? He was the evangelist that was having such a heyday in Samaria and the church was growing like crazy and lots of people were coming into the faith and so, as for Philip, if you're wondering what happened to Philip, an angel which means messenger, a messenger or an angel of the Lord said to him, go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza. Okay.
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An angel, messenger of the Lord said to him, go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza. He has his assignment. What do you think Philip's going to do? So, he started out. I love the immediacy of action that when the message hits him, goes out down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza.
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He started out. Now he's in the middle of a revival in Samaria, things are going great. Samaria is probably 45 miles, 40 foot forty fifty miles from Jerusalem, somewhere in there, 35 to 50 miles depending on who you ask. And so he's up there at the very top of the screen. He's gotta get to Jerusalem before he ever gets to go on the road south towards Gaza.
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55, 60 miles. It's like driving like walking, excuse me, not driving. It's like walking from here to Afton or the other side of Afton heading towards Grover. Think about that. That was the message he received and it doesn't say and he packed or he thought about it or he prayed about it.
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He received a message and he started out and he met the treasurer of Ethiopia. That's a weird meeting. Ethiopia today, we know Ethiopia is that country on the map, that's the kind of socio or that's the that's the boundaries right now of modern Ethiopia. That's their flag and that it's landlocked. It's barely landlocked but it's not a rich country.
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We would not think of it as a rich country. Most people my age remember it from the famine that kinda inspired Live Aid. Right? It's a it's a very very poor country but that was not the way it was two thousand years ago. Ancient Ethiopia was at least this big and probably more like that and some people say it goes all the way down to the horn of Africa.
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All, I mean, not the horn, the bottom of Africa. So ancient Ethiopia was very, very wealthy, very well established. And so Philip meets this treasure of Ethiopia and he's a eunuch of great authority under the Kandake, the the Kandake. It's not Candace. If you're looking in some of your translations, you'll say, and he was a ruler of great authority under queen Candace.
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Well, the Kandake is the name that they give in Ethiopia of the queen of Ethiopia. And there have been historians who said, oh, Kandake is no way. Actually, kind of patriarchal historians would say, no, that's not true. But the truth is Kandake's ruled Ethiopia and Kush, might be called Kush in some places, between two sixty BC and three twenty AD or CE. So that's five hundred years and there were lots of them.
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Female rulers, it was not uncommon to have a female ruler. They did have some kings during that time too, but the Kandake is the name for the queen. And some of them ruled as co regents along with the king, but many of them did not. Some of them stood alone and they there was one of them. From twenty AD to fifty AD, which is our time frame for today, we're at about '33, no later than thirty four AD.
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Aminatore was one of those Kandeces. This is probably the Kandeces that the Ethiopian eunuch was the treasurer for. Okay? This is pretty cool stuff. And if you think, I don't know anything about that.
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Is there any history outside the Bible that says this? Yes, there is. Amenatori, that is a picture of her thrashing her enemies over here on the left. Showing her great wealth in the middle and this is a pyramid to Aminatori in Meroe, I think. I don't really know how to pronounce that, I'm from Georgia.
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I don't think it matters. She ruled together with her son, Natakamani, for some time, but Meroe is right there. It's in modern day Sudan. I'm trying to connect the pages of scripture to actual today, the earth we live on. Right?
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So Meroe is in what would now be Sudan. There's ancient Ethiopia at its smaller side predict estimation. Now the eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship and you think, why in the world would an Ethiopian eunuch be going to Jerusalem? That's a long way to go from South Of Egypt quite some distance actually all the way up to Jerusalem seems like a ridiculous journey. Would have taken normal normally, it would have taken seven days to get there.
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So, a week at going top speed in a chariot like not walking but the queen of Sheba had made that trip a thousand years before and it's quite possible though we do not know it. It's quite possible that some of what the queen of Sheba saw when she went to visit Solomon and test his wisdom that she had shared that wisdom and it had grown and hit pockets of receptivity and that's why this eunuch was going up to Jerusalem in the first place. Now, the eunuch, it says he went to Jerusalem to worship. That's why he went and he was now returning. So, on his way home from this great, I'm sure, convention, he was seated in his carriage and he was reading aloud.
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Now reading aloud. I said last week about the prejudice state to state, the definition of an intellectual in Mississippi. Do you all know it? Oh, I shouldn't say this. I was gonna say Alabama but I see three Alabamans here right now.
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It's the ability to read without moving your lips, I'm sorry. No. Seated in the carriage. It was normal back in that day for people to read out loud. That's the way people read.
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They read aloud. And so, seated in his carriage, this eunuch was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah. Now, the Holy Spirit said to Philip, a messenger said, get going and he got going and now, the Holy Spirit says to Philip, go over, walk along beside that carriage and so Philip ran over. Do you see the immediacy of that? Like, he saw the carriage and he caught up with it and he heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah.
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Can you imagine? Like, we, these, we're brothers. Brothers. Edmont And my own O'Meal, meal, we we are are brothers, brothers, Ernesto Ernesto and I. We sat and talked for a good long while yesterday but it was like sitting in this chariot.
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There were places where he would bring up a scripture and I would start from right there and I'd bring up a scripture and he'd start from right there. Philip ran over. He heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah and filled Beth. Do you understand what you're reading? Do you get it?
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Do you get it? And honestly, that's not condescending. He's he's hearing the guy reading and it's a well, let's just do it. He didn't presume. He asked him.
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If he had said, yeah, man. It's wonderful. It's the greatest thing I've read. This is the suffering servant passage. No.
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He didn't say that. Philip asked him, do you understand what you're reading? Philip didn't presume that he did but the man replied, well, how can I? Unless somebody instructs me. This, you know, he might have taken that scroll with him but chances are he got the scroll while he was there.
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Actually, when Ernesto came in, he came in to get a Bible. Amen. He left here with the Bible. How can I unless somebody instructs me? This is a posture of humility.
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He didn't say, yeah, of course, I get it. I know everything. I'm the treasurer of Ethiopia. Who do you think you are? No.
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He said, well, how can I insist unless somebody instructs me? Show me. He invited him. He urged Philip to come up into the carriage because Philip's running alongside the carriage. Why don't you get up here?
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It's more comfortable up here. He gets up in the carriage and sits with him and the passage of scripture that he had been reading was this, and notice all the pronouns in here. It doesn't say specifically. It's a prophecy from seven hundred years before Jesus is born. From seven hundred and something years before he's crucified and it says and he was led like a sheep to the slaughter and just as a lamb is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.
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He was humiliated and he received no justice. Who can speak of his descendants for his life was taken from the earth. That's the passage that the guy was reading. Now, that's a softball for somebody who is an evangelist and Philip is an evangelist but he's reading this and Philip hears it. Do you understand what you're reading?
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No. How could I unless somebody instructs me? Let's reason together. Let's sit down in this carriage together And this is the Septuagint version of this and that's what the text was based on. That's just in Greek.
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Actually, there are three or four people in here probably reading it right now going, that's the Septuagint. It's Isaiah fifty three seven and eight. It is one of the suffering servant passages. It is about well, let's let the text say it. He was oppressed.
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He was treated harshly, yet he never said a word. This is the New Living Translation of this. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream, but he was struck down for the rebellion of my people.
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That is the passage that the that the Ethiopian eunuch was reading. How can I understand unless somebody explains it? Now, the eunuch asked Philip, tell me, was the prophet talking about himself? Because everybody feels like they've been dejected. Everybody feels like they haven't had a say.
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Everybody feels like they've cut down. Tell me, was this prophet talking about himself or was he talking about someone else? And it says, so beginning from that very scripture, Philip told him the good news about Jesus. This is a prophecy that happened seven hundred years before and what he's talking about is Jesus who died in the city you just visited. Did you hear about him while you were there?
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And he started from that place and he explained to him the gospel, the evangel, the euangelion, the good news about Jesus. Now, as they rode along, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, look, there's some water. Why can't I be baptized? Now, if you're reading in any of the modern translations of the Bible, it'll go from verse 36 immediately to 38.
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I'm gonna switch to the New King James here for a second. New King James says, now as they went down this desert road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, see here is water. What hinders me from being baptized? Now, it goes immediately to 38 in the New Living, in the New American Standard, in most of the revised standard, new revised standard, all those versions. It's because of the same thing we've talked about about five times in the last year.
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There's a textual tradition where the textus receptus is a reliable a reliable textual tradition. And then there are a couple of others, Codex Sinaiticus and a couple of other codices that did not have verse 37. So the modern translations usually footnote it. Here it is, 37 in the New King James says, then Philip said to him, if you believe with all your heart, you may. I actually asked him in Spanish.
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Do you believe with all your heart that Jesus is the son of God? Because it matters. What you do with Jesus is the thing that matters. So, do you believe that Jesus is the son of God? If you believe with all your heart, you may and he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of That is all that he required of him before he ordered the carriage to stop.
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They went down into the water and Philip baptized him. That's it. There's no watch care for six months. There's not a confirmation class. There's not even a discovery class that meets in the pastor's office between church.
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There's nothing. If you believe that Jesus is the son of God, he died for your sins, then that makes you a candidate for baptism. It just does. So, Philip baptized him. Now, when they came up out of the water and actually I could go into it because I, you know, I grew up Baptist.
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They went down into the water and they came up out of the water. Okay? That's what it says. Baptize actually means to dip under whatever liquid. So, that's what it means.
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The plainest sense of the word is what it means. That's why we do believers baptism. When someone believes that Christ is who he says he was, then baptism is a symbol for being buried with Christ and raised to walk in newness of life. When they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away. This one doesn't seem to require any obedience.
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I don't understand it. Both of the other ones, a messenger of the Lord said, go do this and he went and did it. Holy Spirit said, do this and he went and did it and it was immediate both times. So, the spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away before he knew what was going on. The eunuch never saw him again but he went on his way rejoicing.
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How many times do we see that in the New Testament? When Jesus heals somebody, when somebody comes to faith and it says and they went on their way rejoicing or they went on their way praising God. This is what happened to the eunuch. Whether Philip was with him or not anymore, didn't matter. He still got in his heart, Jesus Christ.
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He's got the scripture he's carrying with him and he carries it back and you know, the religion of the area at the time around thirty three AD was like pre, it was not Muslim. Don't even get that ever close. It's just way later. It was primitive religion, primitive sort of like the Egyptian gods. There were gods, capricious gods that were over whatever and they needed to constantly be appeased.
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This guy takes back with him Christianity following the way of Jesus. He has the Old Testament and he has the wherewithal to travel and in three hundred years, Christianity will be the religion of the area. Now, we don't know how many other proponents were there that still were following after that Judaism that was from Solomon's day but this eunuch never saw Philip again but went on his way rejoicing. Meanwhile, Philip found himself farther north at the town of Azotus. Azotus is modern day Ashdod and it is between Gaza and Tel Aviv.
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And he found himself there. So from Jerusalem, he was pretty far south down towards Gaza when this conversation was over and he snatched up and I don't know, walking on a cloud, not sure, so happy for what had he just been a part of. He wants the ball. He just saw God score. Right?
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He finds himself at Ashdod and it says, and he preached the good news there. And in every town along the way until he came to Caesarea. Caesarea Maritime is up from there another, I don't know, 80 miles, 70 miles maybe. And so he's preaching his way all the way up there. Now, it's interesting to me how Acts ties everything together because Luke in his second volume is trying to be as clear as he possibly can be about the origins and the the early church and I mentioned this last week.
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We'll get to it when we get to chapter 21 but when there's a we passage where Luke and Paul are traveling together and it says the next day we went on to Caesarea and we stayed at the home of Philip the evangelist and I interrogated that guy and I got all this information from him. So, quite possibly the reason we have Philip, the evangelist is because he's the one that Luke got to talk to and he understood the way because Luke told, I mean, he he told Luke the way. So, we went on to says, reinstate at the home of Philip the evangelist. One of those seven guys who've been chosen to distribute food. He had four unmarried daughters and they had the gift of prophecy.
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Now, I'm going to get to this. This is the great commission. I mean, it's a baptist church. Y'all knew when you came in. Great commission's coming up at some point.
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Right? I I I like to see in scripture something that relates to our daily life. I love it when they're place names. I love it when they're time markers because they will be proven true. God has told us what he's told us.
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He's got a message for us. And if you are a believer in Jesus, then this great commission is for you. If you are a believer in Jesus, if you are someone who's following Jesus, then this says, go because you are. All authority has been given to me. This is the lead off.
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Jesus says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth And so because I have the authority, I'm telling all of y'all who believe in me, y'all, go and make disciples of all the nations. I love it when you get to cross a a nation, a boundary, a cultural boundary, whatever. I love it to see that that happens and it's by design. God's the one who separated the languages. If they ever get unmuddied, it's something that he's doing.
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Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations. Be baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit and be teaching them to follow all that I've commanded you and as I said earlier, the way we teach people to follow all that I he has commanded us is that we ourselves would be following all that he has commanded us And behold, he says, I'm with you even to the very end of the age. I want to put one more note on that. The go sounds really like emphatic and it is. But it also is a participle.
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Technical grammar nerd here. As you are going. As you are going about your normal life. Philip was minding his own business but he heard a message from a messenger. Sorry, that's what I am right now.
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The message said, go and do this and he went and did it. He heard from the Holy Spirit. It was an impression upon him. You need to go do this and he went and did it. This says, as you're going be doing this and so, I want you to think about that.
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Do you want the ball? Do you want to carry the evangel? Do you want for God to connect that to someone's heart? Do you want for someone to be moved from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of marvelous light? If you do, take him seriously.
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When when he says, go, go. Oh, by the way, I changed in more baptism clothes. Does anybody want to be baptized? If you are a believer in Jesus, it is a step of obedience and that is what it is. And I don't have to have you under watch care.
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If you believe Jesus is the Christ, the son of the God, the son of God, then you are a candidate for baptism. Are you? Would you? I'm ready. The band will play.
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We'll find you some clothes. I've got a whole bunch of them downstairs. I'm bigger than all of y'all. Alright. Come on back up, Carl, and let's play.
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Is there anything else we're supposed to do today? I think that's it. Okay. Alright. Would you stand with us?
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We're gonna close with this song. Great things.
