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What happens when God suddenly pulls a faithful evangelist away from a thriving revival and sends him alone into a desert? How can one conversation beside a chariot fulfill ancient promises to the excluded and begin carrying the gospel to the ends of the earth? Discover the surprising ways God orchestrates divine appointments and removes every barrier to His grace.
📝 Study Notes, Scripture List, Transcript, and more: https://medicallake.church/sermons/accepted-at-last
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📝 Study Notes, Scripture List, Transcript, and more: https://medicallake.church/sermons/accepted-at-last
#mlcc #church #churchonline
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00:00From an old devotional, and I don't know the author, it's just initials, D-J-D, and so
00:05we're going to give him credit, I'm not sure, it's an old devotional, he's probably already
00:08in heaven, but we want to give him credit for this.
00:11He's telling a story of what happened to him.
00:13He actually, I guess it didn't happen to him, it happened to someone he knew.
00:17A man was assigned to a middle seat on an airplane, and he had a hard week, and he just
00:22wanted to plop in his middle seat and just take a nap.
00:26And I say, amen, I can understand that.
00:28And I always frustrate my family, I can fall asleep before the plane takes off, and it
00:33bugs them, because they can't sleep on the plane, so I can fall asleep, and I understand
00:37what this man was, I understand what he was going through, but he was irritated, wrongly
00:44so, but he was irritated because a young girl was sitting next to him, and this young girl
00:49had Down syndrome.
00:50Well, we know Down syndrome children are loving, and they're kind, and they're inquisitive,
00:53and so she asked him a question.
00:55She said, mister, do you brush your teeth?
00:58And the guy says, yes.
01:01He said, that's good.
01:01People who don't lose their teeth.
01:04Reasonable.
01:05A little later, she said, mister, do you smoke?
01:07He said, no.
01:09She said, that's good.
01:10People who smoke die.
01:13After a long silence, she turned to him again and said, mister, do you love Jesus?
01:18He said, yes, I do.
01:19That's good, she said.
01:22People who do go to heaven.
01:24That's great.
01:26Though deeply touched, he settled back, hoping there would be no more questions.
01:29He was tired.
01:30He wanted to go back to sleep.
01:31Just then, the girl said, mister, ask the man next to you whether he brushes his teeth.
01:38So you can guess what followed.
01:40All the other questions followed.
01:41And when she came to the question about Jesus, the second man became thoughtful, and he said,
01:48I'm afraid I don't understand.
01:50And for the next hour, the two men talked about eternal issues.
01:56Sometimes opportunities for sharing God's love may come in very unusual ways, just like
02:00we're going to see here in chapter last, part of chapter eight with Philip and the Ethiopian.
02:04You get a very unusual way.
02:05But if we're willing, God will even bless our feeblest efforts to tell others that Jesus
02:11loves them and that he died for sin.
02:14Sometimes God puts you in situations you did not expect.
02:18Philip is an example.
02:19The man on the airplane, he did not expect.
02:21But from that situation, God used him to further the gospel message, and that's what's going to
02:26happen in the text today.
02:28So that last part of chapter eight, we'll look in book of Acts, and we'll see that being obedient
02:33to the heavenly calling, Philip went and preached to the eunuch whom God was calling to himself.
02:40God was doing a work in this eunuch's heart, and he sent Philip, unbeknownst to Philip,
02:45it was not something he expected, and he preaches the gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch.
02:51You know, sometimes we make the gospel so difficult, evangelism so difficult.
02:55It's like, oh, I have to have all the right answers, and if I don't have the right answers,
02:58I'm the one who leads someone to Jesus.
03:00No, we are never the ones who lead people to Jesus.
03:03It's the Holy Spirit who leads people to Jesus.
03:05We just tell the story.
03:07We tell them what we know, that Jesus came, that he was God in the flesh, that he died
03:12for sin, that he was buried, that he rose again the third day, and he ascended to heaven.
03:16All who repent and believe will be saved.
03:18So we just tell them the story.
03:19God saves people.
03:21So just kind of take that burden off of yourself, thinking, I've got to lead this person to
03:25the Lord if I tell them.
03:25No, just tell them what you know about Jesus.
03:27Don't make it difficult.
03:31So even though it's recognized in the scriptures that Peter was the one that opened the door
03:34to the Gentiles with the gospel, this man today is a Gentile, and Philip is the one that's
03:41interacting with him, not Peter.
03:42So it's very interesting.
03:43This Gentile gets saved in the text today.
03:47If you look with me, chapter 8, so open your Bibles, Acts chapter 8, we'll start reading
03:51in verse number 26.
03:52So your biblical device, whichever the case may be.
03:55So this is God's word, we want to look at it together, we want to see what's going on
03:58in this story.
03:59If you remember correctly, we saw last week, they were up in Samaria and preached in evangelistic
04:04service, and many Samaritans, I don't know how many hundreds, thousands got saved.
04:09The apostles went up to see what was going on, and they laid hands on them, and they received
04:13the Holy Spirit, which is not normative.
04:15It doesn't happen again in the book of Acts, but it happened in this case.
04:17And then they preached the gospel, and just a great ministry was taking place in Samaria.
04:24So that's where we're at at the end of the section we looked at last week.
04:28Verse number 26.
04:31Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, and Philip was one of the seven that was chosen
04:36to minister to the Hellenist widows, said to Philip, rise and go towards the south to the
04:42road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza, is an old city, Gaza is.
04:47I mean, we hear about it all the time today on the news now, but Gaza, if you go back to
04:50the book of Genesis, way back, I think back 10 or 11, chapter 10 or 11, you see the word
04:55Gaza.
04:55Again, it's an old, old city.
04:58So he's going from Samaria down to Gaza, Jerusalem southward, so from the north to the south.
05:05And then Luke gives us kind of a little sentence and says, this is a desert place.
05:10So it's a desert.
05:13And he rose and went, and there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen
05:21of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure.
05:25He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning.
05:28So he had been to Jerusalem, he was returning back to his home.
05:31He was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah.
05:37And the Spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot.
05:42So he goes from Samaria to where this ministry, this wild ministry was taking place where people,
05:48hundreds if not thousands of people are getting saved, to leave that and to go somewhere else.
05:54Philip obeyed this divine directive given to him by God through an angel.
05:58And it says they went to a desert place.
06:01Now, I mean, if you think about this, and Philip's thinking he just came from the most fruitful
06:06ministry that he's ever seen in his life when hundreds if not thousands of Samarians are
06:10getting saved and he's going to a desert place.
06:14I mean, I can almost see him asking, well, why, God?
06:18Why can't I stay up in Samaria where hundreds if not thousands of people are getting saved?
06:21Why would you send me to the desert?
06:23God knows how to direct his people to get them to the places he wants them to be.
06:31Even though it's not this fruitful ministry, it's a desert place, but God is going to use
06:35Philip in this man's life.
06:37God knows how to get his people in places that they need to be so others can hear the gospel
06:42message.
06:45In Acts 26, this is a Saul or Paul is talking about his salvation.
06:51And he says, therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.
06:55In other words, God gave him directions and he did it.
06:58God knows how to move his people and put them in places that he wants for his plan to be accomplished
07:03in this world.
07:05And then it goes on and says, but I declared first to those in Damascus.
07:08God knows those who are his.
07:10And he directed Philip to preach the gospel to this Ethiopian, this eunuch from Ethiopia,
07:16so that he could get saved.
07:18And the eunuch himself was being drawn by God, we know, because he's reading the prophet
07:22Isaiah.
07:23Now, he must have, to get a scroll of Isaiah was really uncommon.
07:27So he was able to get a scroll of Isaiah, which is kind of unheard of.
07:31They were probably pretty expensive at the same time.
07:33And he's reading out of the scroll of Isaiah, and we'll find out exactly where he's reading
07:36from here in just a second.
07:40He's being drawn by God.
07:41He had just traveled 200 miles to go to Jerusalem to worship.
07:45200 miles, one way, and he's going back now.
07:50God is the one who was initiating this whole contact with the Ethiopian.
07:54He said, God is at work here.
07:55He's moving Philip and putting him in a place that Philip can be used to preach the gospel.
08:01Interestingly enough, the Greeks considered Ethiopia the ends of the earth.
08:06The ends of the earth.
08:07And if you think about the command of Jesus that Jesus gave to his apostles, I want you
08:12to preach in Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, signifying the
08:19ultimate fulfillment of that gospel mission that he had promised them in Acts 1.8.
08:24He said, I want you to go in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
08:28So we're seeing that God is fulfilling this plan, using his people to go to all the nations
08:34of the world.
08:35And we see the Holy Spirit at work here in chapters 8 through 10, more than before,
08:40involved in this mission to the Gentiles and to the Jews as well.
08:44Now, when we say Ethiopia, it's not that the nation that we know is Ethiopia today.
08:49It was actually a little bit further north toward the inlet of the Nile River.
08:53And it was what we are known as the Nubian Empire, the Nubian Empire.
08:57So they were Nubians.
08:59And so they were traveling back to this place, again, not the modern-day Ethiopia, a little
09:04bit north of where it's at.
09:05And this guy would be considered the Ministry of Finance.
09:09He was over the treasury, and he was a eunuch.
09:12He was also then under the Queen Candace.
09:15And Candace was simply a name for the queens, like Pharaoh.
09:18That's not really the person's name.
09:20That's just a title.
09:21So Candace, Queen, the Queen Mothers used to reign in the Nubian Empire.
09:25And the reason is, is the king being the son.
09:28The king was like a deity.
09:30And he can't bother himself with a mundane task of running a government.
09:35So the Queen Mother ran the government.
09:36Her name was Candace.
09:37That was the title.
09:40The eunuch had been in Jerusalem worshiping.
09:43But here's what's tough for him.
09:46He would be called God-fearing, but he could never become a full proselyte because of his
09:53physical blemish that he has.
09:55Now, I don't need to explain to you, we're all adults, what a eunuch is, right?
09:58I think we got that point.
10:00So because of his physical blemish, he could never be fully accepted into Judaism, never
10:05be fully accepted to become a proselyte.
10:08He could be a God-fearer on the outside.
10:10He was one of those on the outside looking in type of person.
10:13Never be fully accepted.
10:14But he's still worshiping God in Jerusalem, traveling 400-mile round trip as he's going
10:20around there.
10:22How do I know that they can't come into the tabernacle or the temple?
10:26Deuteronomy 23 in the Torah, we read this.
10:29No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly
10:33of the Lord.
10:35He could never truly be in.
10:38He was always outside.
10:41It's kind of like his face pushing against the glass.
10:43He's outside looking in.
10:44He could never, because of his physical blemish, he could never be part of really the people
10:48of God in totality, accepted in.
10:53So he was in Jerusalem worshiping.
10:55And it's likely he heard about Jesus in Jerusalem.
10:58It's likely he heard, because if you remember in Acts chapter 5, we heard that the apostles
11:02were claimed that they had filled Jerusalem with the teaching of Jesus.
11:07So that's in Acts chapter 5.
11:09And when they had brought them, they set them before the council, and the high priest questioned
11:12them, saying, we strictly charge you not to teach in this name.
11:16Yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's
11:20blood upon us.
11:21So it's likely why he was in Jerusalem.
11:23He hears the story of Jesus, and he's contemplating that, and God is working on his heart, and
11:28he's traveling back, and he pulls out the scroll of Isaiah and starts reading it.
11:34This was not an accident that he's reading from one of the greatest prophets.
11:38Not an accident at all.
11:39One of the greatest messianic texts, which we're going to come to in just a second, out of
11:43the book of Isaiah.
11:44So the witness in Jerusalem drew him further into the word of God so that God could speak
11:50to him, and Philip then giving him the gospel message.
11:53Of all the prophets, Isaiah proclaims the ideal of God's promised future, which includes Gentiles.
12:01And not just Gentiles.
12:05It includes people like him, who could never be fully accepted at all, because you always
12:12do it outside, because of his physical limitations.
12:20Those, he never could become part of what was the people of God.
12:26He never really could be in.
12:29Isaiah talks about this promise to people like him, eunuchs.
12:33Look at Isaiah chapter 56.
12:35Here's a promise, not to the Gentiles, but people like him on the outside looking in.
12:40Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, the Lord will surely separate
12:45me from his people.
12:47And let not the eunuchs say, behold, I am a dry tree.
12:52For thus says the Lord, and here's the promise, not to just Gentiles, but to eunuchs, to the
12:56eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant.
13:02I will give in my house, and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and
13:09daughters.
13:09I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.
13:13He now can be fully accepted in the people of God in Christ Jesus, because of his work.
13:21Unbeknownst to the eunuch right now, he's going to experience the fulfillment of these prophecies
13:30right here.
13:32When he sees the eunuch, the Holy Spirit says, go join yourself to that chariot.
13:36And Philip says, okay.
13:37So he goes and joins himself to the chariot.
13:39The Holy Spirit's directing this whole event.
13:41So Philip is obedient to the Spirit, joins the eunuch, and who is reading out of the Old
13:47Testament book of Isaiah.
13:48Look at verse 30.
13:50Verse number 30.
13:54Okay.
13:55So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, again, one of the greatest
13:59prophets, and talks about eunuch himself, and asks, do you understand what you're reading?
14:04And he said, well, how can I unless someone guides me?
14:07Which is understandable.
14:07He doesn't get it.
14:08He needs, the Spirit is working on him, but he doesn't get it.
14:12And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
14:15So he's up in the chariot.
14:16Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this.
14:19And by the way, this is a coincidence.
14:20He just opened up and put his finger on it.
14:22No, this is directed by the Spirit.
14:24Listen.
14:24Like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter.
14:27And like a lamb before a shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth.
14:32In his humiliation, justice was denied him.
14:35Who can describe his generation?
14:37For his life is taken away from the earth.
14:41And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom I ask you, does the prophet say this about himself
14:46or about somebody else?
14:49Then Philip opened his mouth and began with this scripture.
14:53He told him the good news about Jesus.
14:55So it was no coincidence.
14:58He's reading in one of the most messianic chapters of the Bible, Isaiah chapter 53.
15:04And he's reading about the Messiah.
15:06And he says, who is this one?
15:08Who is this?
15:08Was it the prophet or was it somebody else?
15:11As a matter of fact, it's coming from Isaiah chapter 53.
15:13You'll recognize it.
15:14Seven and eight.
15:16He was oppressed and he was afflicted.
15:18Yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, unlike a sheep that
15:24is before his shearers is silent.
15:26So he opened not his mouth.
15:27By oppression and judgment, he was taken away.
15:30And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the
15:35living, stricken for the transgression of my people.
15:39One of the most famous messianic chapters in the Bible, he just happens to be reading out
15:44of.
15:44No, the spirit is directing him.
15:47This text from Isaiah is so filled with wonderful things.
15:49We see, we see Jesus is suffering.
15:51We see Jesus is humiliation.
15:53We see Jesus is resurrection.
15:55We see Jesus is exaltation.
15:57All of this stuff we see here in the book of Isaiah, this section right now, the image
16:03of the slaughter lamb points to the crucifixion.
16:06He was silent before those who accused him.
16:09We see that also the resurrection, the whole host of believers, his generation.
16:14That will follow him.
16:15That's us, the resurrection.
16:18His life was taken away from the earth.
16:20We see his death.
16:21We see his ascension.
16:22We see his exaltation.
16:23We see all of this, humiliation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and exaltation.
16:27It is the gospel wrapped up just in a couple of verses.
16:30Because the Isaiah text became the launching place for Philip to preach Jesus Christ to
16:38him, the gospel.
16:39And I don't know what other texts he preaches, but he preaches a bunch of other texts, but
16:43he starts with this one right here.
16:44He says, let me explain this one to you.
16:46And he launches over to a couple of, he made it his business to give him the gospel message.
16:52It was his business.
16:53He wasn't going to say, I'm just going to let it go.
16:55It was his business to give him the gospel message.
16:58Warren Rearsby tells about D.L.
17:00Moody.
17:01He was once, D.L.
17:02Moody once asked this man about his soul.
17:05And the man replied, it's none of your business.
17:08And he said, D.L.
17:09Moody said, oh yes, it is my business.
17:11And the man said immediately, oh, you must be D.L.
17:13Moody.
17:15Apparently he was known for making it his business.
17:17I mean, he went around and he told people about Jesus all the time.
17:20He made it his business to tell people about Jesus.
17:23Philip made it his business.
17:26Philip preached to him the gospel, the good news.
17:30And we talked about the good news.
17:31I mean, it starts off with bad news.
17:33That we're fallen creatures who've rebelled against our creator.
17:37And now we have a sin nature.
17:39And then we have the good news is that God himself came to us in Jesus Christ.
17:43And that God took upon himself on the cross our sin.
17:47And he died and he was buried and he rose again.
17:50He ascended and he exalted.
17:51That's the good news.
17:52So he tells them the good news.
17:54And the good news changes us, doesn't it?
17:57I like what the English reformer William Tyndale defined the word gospel.
18:01Good news.
18:02He said that evangelium, the gospel signified a good, merry, glad, and joyful tiding.
18:09That maketh a man's heart glad and maketh him sing, dance, and leap for joy.
18:15Remember when you got saved?
18:16Remember when your heart was just lifted?
18:18You just wanted to sing and dance and leap for joy because of what God had done for you.
18:22It really is good news.
18:24So he preaches the good news to him.
18:26I wondered, do we really think it's good news?
18:33I mean, do we really believe it's good news?
18:36I mean, we think, but do we really believe it's good news?
18:40I mean, this question was asked Stuart Briscoe.
18:42Stuart Briscoe was an author and a pastor.
18:44Exact same question was asked him.
18:46Do you really believe this is good news?
18:48And this is the story he told.
18:49He was in Manchester, England.
18:51He decided to venture into a local coffee house and engage the local people there, some
18:56young people that were there.
18:57He said he opened up a conversation with one young man who allowed him to share the gospel.
19:02And when the man had to go, he told Stuart, you don't believe a word of all this stuff
19:06you've been telling us about God.
19:09Stuart said, I was stunned but managed to stammer.
19:12Why would you say that?
19:13And the man replied, that's easy because all you have told us here tonight is so wonderful
19:20that if you and people like you really believed it, you would have been down here long before
19:24tonight to tell us kids about it.
19:27Do we really believe it's good news?
19:30And again, we're not responsible for the salvation of people's souls.
19:33We're responsible for telling them the good news.
19:36Do we really believe it is good news?
19:38It is great news.
19:41This was not an accident.
19:42The Holy Spirit was active in the whole event.
19:45It was not an accident.
19:47God set it up and Philip was there and he uses Philip to preach the gospel and there's
19:52a response from the Ethiopian eunuch.
19:54So after confessing Christ as Lord and Savior, the eunuch wants to be baptized.
20:00So look at verses 36 through 40.
20:03And as they were going along the road, and remember this is a desert place, so there's
20:06water somewhere, a spring, a small pool, something.
20:09As they were going along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, see, here
20:14is water.
20:15What prevents me from being baptized?
20:17What prevents me?
20:18What's holding me back?
20:19Is there anything hindering?
20:21I was once a eunuch, couldn't come into the people of God.
20:23Now is there anything preventing me now from acknowledging that I'm part of the people of
20:27God by a visible representation of baptism?
20:31And he commanded the chariot to stop and they both went down into the water and Philip and
20:36the eunuch and he baptized him.
20:38And when they had come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away
20:42and the eunuch saw him no more.
20:45And he went, the eunuch, on his way rejoicing.
20:47He just got, he just acknowledged that he saved and was baptized.
20:50He is rejoicing.
20:51But Philip found himself at Azotus and as he passed through, he preached the gospel
20:57to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.
21:00So he went from on the road to Gaza, which he wasn't all the way down in Gaza.
21:05Gaza is on the coastline.
21:06He finds himself in Ashdod, an old Philistine city, and he works his way up the coastline to
21:12Caesarea.
21:13Zai D is working his way north up the coastline.
21:15So this is what happens.
21:18The eunuch believed and was baptized.
21:20It's no accident they happened to come upon a spring or water, right?
21:23Oh, yeah, in the desert place.
21:25It's not an accident.
21:26God's directing this whole thing.
21:28The eunuch sought the first opportunity to be baptized to show visibly that he was a
21:33disciple of Jesus Christ.
21:34I want to be baptized.
21:35I want to be identified with these Jesus people, with this Jesus movement.
21:40I want to be part.
21:40I was so long on the outside looking in.
21:43Now I want to be part of what's going on.
21:45And God has accepted me.
21:46Even as a eunuch, he's brought me into his family.
21:49And I want to show everyone about that.
21:52He wanted everyone to know what God had done in his heart.
21:55Yet in those days, it was not as our days.
21:58You get baptized.
21:59You get a certificate.
21:59Everyone claps.
22:00And yay.
22:01No.
22:01In that day, you were marked as part of the despised people by baptism.
22:07Dr. M. R. D. Hahn talked about this.
22:09In the early days of the church, baptism was a declaration that the believer was definitely
22:14identifying himself with that group of people who were called Christians and who were despised
22:20and hated.
22:20Hey, I want to be one of them.
22:23That's what it said.
22:24To be a Christian meant something.
22:26To identify yourself with those who were called Christians meant persecution, maybe death.
22:31It meant being ostracized from your family, shunned by your friends.
22:35And the one act, which was the final declaration of this identification, was baptism.
22:40As long as a man gathered with Christians, he was tolerated.
22:44But when once he submitted to baptism, he declared to all the world, I belong to this
22:49despised group.
22:51And immediately he was persecuted, hated, and despised.
22:54In baptism, therefore, the believer entered into the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ.
22:59A person might be a believer and keep it strictly a secret and thus avoid unpleasantness and
23:03suffering, but once he submitted to public baptism, he burned his bridges behind him.
23:08It was not a light thing to be baptized, especially in those days.
23:12You're part of this despised group now.
23:16So I wonder, have you been baptized since you came to faith?
23:19I mean, have you said, yeah, no, I need, I want to visibly be associated with Christians.
23:23I've come to faith.
23:23I want to, I want to, I want to make it known to everyone around that I'm a follower of Jesus
23:27Christ.
23:28Have you been baptized since coming to salvation?
23:31If not, what's, what's hindering you?
23:33What's hindering?
23:34We got lots of water around here.
23:35I'm sure we can find water to baptize in.
23:39This eunuch, he was an important official.
23:41He didn't travel just by himself.
23:42He traveled in a caravan.
23:43Everyone there was watching this baptism.
23:46So it wasn't just him.
23:48It was all the people around him in this giant caravan that were watching this.
23:51It was visibly to all of those people.
23:54What hinders me?
23:55What prevents me?
23:56That word prevent, that verb prevent, what prevents me?
23:59Before my physical limitations prevented me from being part of the people of God.
24:03Now what prevents me?
24:05I've, I've had faith in the Messiah.
24:07What prevents me from being baptized?
24:08What hinders me now?
24:10F.
24:10Stag wrote this about that verb.
24:12The verb indicates that barriers have been removed, hindrances to the spread of the gospel
24:18to all people.
24:19In this case, a double barrier of both physical and racial prejudice had fallen.
24:24A eunuch, a eunuch, a Gentile, a black, was baptized and received into full membership in
24:30the people of Jesus Christ.
24:32What prevents me?
24:33Nothing prevents you.
24:35You have been accepted in the beloved by the Father.
24:38Nothing prevents you from being baptized.
24:40You are now part of God's family by faith.
24:43Now you probably noticed as we were reading along, we went from verse 36 to verse 38.
24:51And you say, whoa, that's not how people count.
24:53There's a word, there's a verse 37 in between there.
24:56Where's verse 37?
24:58Actually, maybe in some of your translations, this one it is not in.
25:02And the reason why verse 37 is not in this translation and most of the modern ones is
25:07that in the earliest manuscripts of the Greek Old Testament, New Testament, which we have
25:12about 25,000 of them, we've got tons of them, and the earliest ones, the ones that go furthest
25:16back to the closest time of the writing, verse 37 was not there.
25:22Probably it was, some scribe was making a note off to the side in the margins about this
25:27and he added something there because the verse itself does have value.
25:30It does have value.
25:31It was probably part of an early baptismal confession in which the candidate was asked
25:37if he believed in Christ with all of his heart, then the candidate would confess that he believed
25:42Jesus Christ to be the Son of God.
25:44So it was probably part of something that was known to the scribe in his day and he most
25:47likely wrote it off into the margin.
25:49But 200 years later or 300 years later when another scribe came along and sees this off
25:55in the margin, he may think it's part of the text and inserts it in.
25:58So it's not part of the Old Manuscripts, but it is an important verse.
26:01It teaches us something about what was known in that day, especially about what happened
26:05during baptism.
26:07Well, the word baptize means immersion, so we don't think anything other than immersion.
26:12They went down into the water, they come up out of the water, it's immersion.
26:15I mean, we talked about the word is actually when you make pickles.
26:18I have never made pickles, but to make pickles you've got to submerge them in a brine for a period
26:22of time.
26:23That word submerge in brine is the word baptize.
26:26So it means to immerse, it's likely, there's no reason to believe that it's anything other
26:30than immersion at this point.
26:32So having his soul being set free by grace through faith, becoming a new creation in
26:37Christ, he went on his way rejoicing.
26:40I can imagine, he was happy.
26:42God was doing something, he had peace with God in his heart.
26:46This is what's interesting though.
26:48Something happened to Philip though.
26:49Philip was snatched up by the spirit like Elijah and he was found in Azotas, the Old Testament
26:56city of Ashdod, which is on the coastline of the old Philistine city.
27:01He was carried away is what the text says.
27:05Elijah was carried away in a chariot to heaven.
27:08He was moved from one location to another.
27:10He's not moved to heaven.
27:11He's moved from one place to another city far away.
27:14In fact, in 1st King 18, we see this Elijah being caught up to heaven.
27:21And now you say, go tell your Lord, behold, Elijah is here.
27:24As soon as I have gone from you, the spirit of the Lord will carry you and I know not
27:29where.
27:30And so when I come and tell Ahab and he cannot find you, he will kill me.
27:33Although I, your servant have feared the Lord for my youth.
27:35So Elijah was carried away by the Lord.
27:37In this case, it was a chariot.
27:39Now Philip happens to be in a chariot, but the chariot doesn't go to heaven.
27:42Elijah goes to heaven in the chariot.
27:46He was carried away.
27:48This, this word carried away in the text today is the same word used in 1st Thessalonians
27:53chapter 4, 17, from which we get our word rapture from exact same word that's used here.
28:01It's a Greek word.
28:02I'll tell you the word.
28:03You'll probably not remember it, but it's harpazo.
28:05And it's this idea of being carried away.
28:07It's seen in 1st Thessalonians 4, 17.
28:10Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up.
28:14That's a word carried away.
28:15That's in our text today.
28:16It's caught up.
28:17Same word.
28:19Together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
28:21And so we will always be with the Lord.
28:24And it's used multiple times in the New Testament.
28:27It's used in John chapter 10.
28:30Remember when Jesus said, you're in my hand and no one can snatch you out of my father's,
28:35out of my hand.
28:36That word snatch is the word harpazo.
28:39No one can come by force and take you out of my hand.
28:43Amen?
28:44Amen.
28:45And he says, you're in my father's hand.
28:46And no one can snatch you out of my father's hand.
28:49No one can take you, come and take you by force out of my father's hand.
28:53That's how it's used there in John 10.
28:54It's used in 2nd Corinthians chapter 12, where Paul says, I was caught up.
28:59Well, he said he knows somebody who was caught up, probably Paul.
29:02I was caught up to the third heaven.
29:04Same exact word, harpazo.
29:07He was from earth transported to heaven.
29:10Same exact word.
29:12In Revelation 12, caught up, same exact word.
29:15So as it's used, you can see it up here, as this word in the New Testament, harpazo means
29:19to take, take by force, snatch, snatch up, grab, remove quickly, catch up, catch away, pluck out.
29:26A lot of different ways of the same word.
29:29It always involves some force outside the person.
29:32So Philip didn't do it.
29:33He's acted upon some force outside the person or thing to be taken or snatched up or removed.
29:39It often implies sudden removal, and it often refers to a person being quickly and supernaturally
29:45taken from one place to another.
29:48He was raptured from here on the desert road to Ashdod.
29:52He was moved from one location to another.
29:55And you know, people say, oh, the rapture.
29:57That's not really good.
29:58God's not really going to take Christians.
30:00He's not going to catch them up to heaven.
30:02They're not going to be caught.
30:03It's just, ah, somebody made that story up.
30:05What?
30:06It's in the Bible.
30:07Elijah was raptured.
30:09Enoch was raptured.
30:10Here, Philip is raptured.
30:12Paul was raptured up to heaven.
30:14It's going to happen just exactly like it says.
30:17Someday he's going to come and he's going to take us by force.
30:19It's a good force because it's God.
30:21He's going to take us by force and move us supernaturally from one place to another place,
30:25and that would be his heaven.
30:27Amen.
30:29Even so, come Lord Jesus.
30:32So, the Holy Spirit led him to the encounter.
30:35Now, he closed the encounter by transporting Philip to further witness up the coastline all
30:41the way to Caesarea.
30:42Caesarea, this is a radical step for a Jew, even a Hellenist Jew, to reach out to any kind
30:48of Gentile, but here a eunuch Gentile?
30:53So, why did Philip reach out to this Gentile?
30:55Why did Philip reach out to not only just this Gentile, but this Gentile that was from Nubia?
31:01It's a black man.
31:02Why would Philip reach out to this Gentile black man?
31:05Not only was a Gentile black man, but he was a eunuch.
31:07He was physically limited.
31:09He had his, you got the picture where the eunuch is.
31:13Why would he reach out to a Gentile black eunuch?
31:17Why would he do that?
31:19Because God told him to.
31:22There is no people group in this world that should be excluded from hearing the gospel
31:26message.
31:27It matters not.
31:28Every one of them should be included.
31:30Because that's what God wants.
31:33So, we praise God for Philip's openness to be led by the Spirit to fulfill God's worldwide
31:40plan in this world.
31:41So, the eunuch brought the seed of the gospel to Ethiopia, modern, well, it's not modern
31:46day.
31:47You got the point.
31:47Nubian, Nubian.
31:49The first Gentile convert that we know of was an African.
31:54Long before Paul took the message to Europe, an African gets saved.
31:58We just had someone from Africa here last week talking to us about Africa.
32:01The first Gentile that we know of that got saved was an African.
32:08He pioneered the, Philip pioneered the ministry in Samaria.
32:12Now, he catches the visionary ministry of missionary service as he goes up the coastline and he
32:19lands in Caesarea.
32:23Interestingly enough, if you remember the story, when we get to chapter 10, we're going to be
32:27introduced to a man named Cornelius who lives in Caesarea.
32:32Caesarea, huh?
32:36Wow.
32:38You mean God has further things for Philip to do?
32:40Yeah, I can't imagine Philip as evangelistic as he is, that he's not going to be talking
32:45about Jesus in Caesarea.
32:46You know he's going to be talking about Jesus in Caesarea.
32:49You know that.
32:51If you think, this was so great.
32:53God promised that through Abraham, all the nations of the world would be blessed.
32:58In chapter 8 of Acts, we see an Ethiopian who was a descendant of one of Noah's children
33:05called Ham.
33:07Ham.
33:08Noah had three children, Ham, Shem, and Japheth.
33:11This Ethiopian was a descendant of Ham.
33:14In chapter 9, we see Saul, a Jew, who was a descendant of Shem.
33:18In chapter 10, we see Cornelius, the centurion, who's a descendant of Japheth.
33:25All the families of the earth will be blessed in you, Abraham.
33:28All the families of the earth.
33:31God is reaching out to the whole world in fulfillment of a promise made to Abraham
33:35in your offspring so all the nations of the earth be blessed.
33:40So I ask myself, did Philip's presence in Caesarea play a role in the centurion's salvation?
33:46I don't know.
33:47The scripture doesn't say, but I can't imagine him doing anything else other than preaching
33:50Jesus in Caesarea.
33:51You know he's going to be doing that.
33:54I don't believe it was an accident that Philip landed in Caesarea.
33:58That's where he landed.
33:59He stops right there.
34:01God is at the work, God is at work in the heart of Cornelius and maybe Philip played a
34:05role in that.
34:07You never know what role you play when you tell someone the gospel message.
34:11They may not get saved right there at that moment.
34:13Most likely they won't.
34:14Some do.
34:14But down the road, when God saves them eventually, you don't know what role you play in that.
34:23Sometimes God puts you in situations you did not expect.
34:27Always be ready for God to use you in those situations.
34:31Jamin, Fawcett, and Brown tying up this whole chapter and moving on, talking about how one
34:39sows and another reaps and we all play a role in this great kingdom work of God.
34:44They said this.
34:45Henceforth, we lose sight of zealous and honored Philip.
34:49I think we only see him one more time and I think it's Acts 21 where we meet him and his four
34:53daughters.
34:54It's the last time we see him.
34:55But basically, he's gone from the scene.
34:58Henceforth, we lose sight of zealous and honored Philip.
35:01As by and by, we shall lose sight even of Peter.
35:05He's no longer going to play much of a role later on.
35:07I like this.
35:09As the chariot of the gospel rolls on, other agents are raised up, each suited to his work.
35:16But he that soweth and he that reapeth shall rejoice together.
35:21And the chariot of the gospel has rolled on even to our day-to-day where we have heard it and got saved.
35:27And it will roll on after us until Jesus Christ comes back.
35:31I love that.
35:32And we all play a role in this.
35:34Philip had his role.
35:36We have our roles.
35:37Let's pray.
35:38Father, thank you.
35:39Thank you for this account of Philip and his obedience to you, his faithfulness to hear your voice and follow your word.
35:46Do exactly what you ask him to do.
35:49And that you accepted this Ethiopian eunuch, one that was never fully accepted, but you accepted and you brought him into your family.
35:56You made him your son.
35:58He belonged to you.
36:00And he carried that gospel message to his home.
36:03And we are so grateful that it spread to our time that we could hear the gospel as well.
36:09And that gospel chariot will roll on and roll on until you say it's in.
36:16Come home, my church.
36:17And even so, come Lord Jesus.
36:20Amen.
36:21Amen.
36:21Amen.
36:21Amen.
36:21Amen.
36:21Amen.
36:21Amen.
36:21Amen.
36:22Amen.
36:23Amen.
36:24Amen.
36:25Amen.
36:26Amen.
36:27Amen.
36:28Amen.
36:29Amen.
36:30Amen.
36:31Amen.
36:32Amen.
36:33Amen.
36:34Amen.
36:35Amen.
36:36Amen.
36:37Amen.
36:38Amen.
36:39Amen.
36:40Amen.
36:41Amen.
36:42Amen.
36:43Amen.
36:44Amen.
36:45Amen.
36:46Amen.
36:47Amen.
36:48Amen.
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