If you would, please stand with me and receive the Word of the Lord and how grateful we are that God sends forth His Word. We hear the Word of God from Isaiah 56. Thus says the Lord, Preserve justice and do righteousness for my salvation is about to come and my righteousness to be revealed. How blessed is the man who does this and the son of man who takes hold of it, who keeps from profaning the Sabbath and keeps his hand from doing any evil. Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, The Lord will surely separate me from his people. Nor let the eunuchs say, behold, I am a dry tree. For thus says the Lord, to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths and choose what pleases me and hold fast my covenant, to them I will give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than that of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off. Also to the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, everyone who keeps from profaning the Sabbath and holds fast my covenant. Even those I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples. The Lord God, who gathers the dispersed of Israel, declares, Yet others I will gather to them, to those already gathered. This is the word of the Lord. All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flower of the field. Grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we ask your blessing upon your word as it is read and as it is preached. We ask Father your help. For our ears often do not hear well. We pray that you would give us spiritual ears to hear spiritual truth. Father, for the sake of your glory and our eternal good, would you grant this today? We pray in Jesus name Amen Psalmists asked the question in Psalm 15 O Lord who may abide in your tent? Whom a dwell on your holy hill. The psalmist says later in the 84th Psalm, he says, how blessed are those who dwell in your house. They are ever praising you. He says, a day in your courts is better than a thousand outside. I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. He says, how blessed is the man whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. Now there's no explicit question there, but there's an implicit question. Oh God, can I be that man? I want to be that man. I want to be the man that dwells on the holy hill of God. I want to be the man who is welcomed into the courts of God. I want to be the man that we read about there in Isaiah chapter 56 just moments ago, who is brought by God to his holy mountain and made joyful in his house of prayer. The greatest thing in all of eternity that a man might ever have the privilege of doing is being with God. That's the greatest thing. It's the greatest thing you could ever have the privilege of experiencing. In fact, it is the hope of every Redeemed man to be in the presence of Christ forever When John sees in the Revelation and Revelation chapter 1 he sees the churches he sees the lampstands Remember he sees seven lampstands he sees he sees seven lampstands that stand for the seven churches and It's interesting that it's seven, isn't it? Do you ever wonder why there's not six churches or eight churches? There are seven churches. Seven is often one of those numbers of perfection in the Bible. I thought there was something else, though, about that opening chapter of the book of Revelation that kind of hit me several weeks ago. I don't know. It's one of those things that, uh, you know, why didn't I ever see this before? I've read this a thousand times, but I've never seen this. So they just put this on the Bible this week and I just didn't see it before. And the old Testament in the tabernacle and later in the temple there, there's a table and the Holy place, the, the outer room, not the Holy of Holies, but the outer place. And, On that table, it's called the Table of the Presence. It's where the priests, every day, would lay out 12 loaves of bread. And these loaves of bread would sit there for the day, and the next day, the tabernacle would basically become a very sanctified day-old bread store. And they would use that bread, and they would eat that bread. But for that day, it would sit right there on that table. And you might think, that's weird. They just left 12 loaves of bread sitting on a table while they did all their stuff. I mean, they were in and out of that room all day, every day. 12 loaves of bread sit on a table, arranged probably two rows of six, nice, neatly laid out. And it was called the Table of the Presence. And right across the room in that holy place from the Table of the Presence on the other wall is a seven-lamped menorah. Seven lamps. You've probably seen a picture of it, you know, kind of a big stock post in the middle and then three arms coming off of each side, seven lamps. That lamp represents the presence of God, the light of the glory of God. But the table is called the table of the presence. But the bread doesn't represent God. The bread represents the tribes. The bread represents the people. the people that are in the presence of God. And in Revelation chapter 1, John sees a vision of seven lamps. And walking in the midst of the lamps in Revelation chapter 1 is one like a son of man, dressed all in white, white hair, white beard, all white, with feet of burnished bronze, and he's walking in the midst of the lampstands. What a picture. Now there's another picture to add to this, and it's also from the Old Testament. It's in the book, I believe it's in the book of Deuteronomy. It may be mentioned in Leviticus as well. We'll take time to look it up, maybe later on. Now this picture is a little more edgy. You got a beautiful picture there in Revelation chapter 1 of lamps and the Lord Jesus Christ and his resurrected glory walking amongst the lampstands, walking amongst the churches. You've got that picture in the Old Testament in the tabernacle of the menorah shining the light of the glory of God down upon the bread. It provided light for the room. You can imagine being in a small little room. It doesn't take much. I mean, I sit in my office, and my lights in my office don't seem to be doing much. And then at night, I'll go in my office, and I turn on one lamp. The whole room is lit up with one little 60-watt light bulb. Imagine that little bitty room completely closed in, dark, but seven lamps continually burning, the presence of God continually shining upon the people. But this other image comes from a text in the law that required the people to do something when they had to answer that, we often call it the call of nature. My wife was thinking, this sermon is about to go really south really quick. She's seen a lot of sermons do that over the years. When the people had to go, they had to take a shovel with them. And you're thinking, this is really bad. Why are we talking about this, Pastor? Because there was a reason they were to take a shovel, because when they went out to do their business, they were to take that shovel and they were to cover it up. Like you wish your dog would take that shovel out in your backyard. Our dog wouldn't know how to use a shovel, but he does know how to do business. And the people were to take that shovel and to go and cover up what they had done. There are moments in the sermon when you have everyone's attention. This is one of those. And this is what it says. The reason you're to cover that up is because I, the Lord your God, walk in the midst of your camp. And I don't want to step on what you've done. It's unclean. It's a metaphor. It's an image. to dwell in the presence of God. That's the longing. That's the longing for which men were indeed created. The heart is restless, one of the fathers said, until it finds its what? Its rest in you. There is in each one of us a God-shaped vacuum that will not be satisfied by anything but God. You can put all kinds of stuff into your life, but if it's not God, it won't satisfy. Who can ascend your holy hill? Just to be there for a day would be better than a thousand outside. But the Lord God doesn't offer us just a day, does he? He gives us every day. And it's every day in which there's no night. It's every eternal day. It's an everlasting day. And we have the privilege by the grace of God in Christ to be in the presence of God forever. That's what John sees at the opening of Revelation chapter 1. He sees that the church is the place that the Lord God dwells and lives and shines his light upon her. And at the end of the book of Revelation, when it's all perfection, and it's all glory, and it's all joy, he ends the book with, Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. All the horrible things I've seen in the book of Revelation will not keep me from saying, even so, come, Lord Jesus. I want to be with you. That's the only thing I long for. Imagine what it might be like to know that because of who you are or because of what had happened to you, it prevented that from ever being a reality. What if you knew that because of your status What if you knew that because of something wrong with you, physically speaking, you could never be in the presence of God? The one thing that all men long for at the depth of who they are, even wicked men are longing for that, they just don't know they're longing for that, but they're longing for something, and that's Christ. They're filling their lives up with all kinds of things. They fill their lives up with their jobs, with their relationships. They fill their lives up with sex and money and drink and power and pursuit. And it all comes up a big zero in the end because it's not satisfying to the soul because your soul was made for God. You see, you may be young here today and you may be unhappy. You may be old here today and you may be unhappy. There may be this thing that gnaws you at the depth of who you are. You are simply unsatisfied and you pursue all kinds of things to make it right. Only one thing will make it right. And that's Christ. He is the light of the glory of God. He is the light of the world. He is the bread of heaven. He is all your soul needs for life. But what if you knew? What if you knew that because of who you are, where you'd come from, or maybe something that was deficient about you and your person, what if you found out that because of who you were and where you'd come from, your personal deficiency, you found out that you couldn't come near? You couldn't be with him. In the scripture that we're going to look at today in the book of Acts, in Acts chapter 8, we're going to meet a couple of people that by Old Testament standards were unfit. Were unfit to come near. They could not ascend God's holy hill. They could not spend even a day in the courts of God. They couldn't get into the courts. They were kept out of the courts. There were actually signs on various places in the gates of the courts hanging up saying, you can't come in here basically, no admittance. In Acts chapter 8, and I'd like to draw your attention there, We encounter a group of people, generally, and then a man, specifically, who are kept from the presence of God under old covenant requirements. We encounter the Samaritans, and we encounter a man known as a eunuch. Now, we are yet to get to the mission of carrying the gospel to the Gentile nations of the world. This particular text in Acts chapter 8 will kind of get us right to the edge of that, but it won't take us into it. And you might think, well, I thought that this got us to the Gentiles, because maybe you know something about Acts chapter 8, and you're thinking, isn't the eunuch from Ethiopia? That sounds like the nations to me. Well, that's true. He lives in Ethiopia, but most likely he's a Jewish man that's a eunuch that lives in Ethiopia working for Candace. We'll meet them here in just a moment. But what's stressed over and over in that story is not that he's an Ethiopian. What is stressed is that he is a eunuch. Five times it is stressed. He is a eunuch. He's not just the Ethiopian. He's the eunuch. five times over. But before we come to the eunuch, we come to the gospel going to Samaria through the hands of Philip, sometimes referred to as Philip the Evangelist. So if you would, open your Bible and turn with me to Acts chapter 8, Acts chapter 8, and let us see how the grace of God in Christ overcomes these deficiencies that are found in people, keeping them away, and by the love of God in Christ, they are brought near. They are given, not just the promise of a day in God's court, but the promise of everlasting life. In Acts chapter 8, we're going to begin in verse 4. Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and began proclaiming Christ to them. The crowds, with one accord, were giving attention to what was said by Philip as they heard and saw the signs which he was performing. For in the case of many who had unclean spirits, they were coming out of them shouting with a loud voice. And many who had been paralyzed and lame were healed. So there was much rejoicing in that city. Now there was a man named Simon who formerly was practicing magic in the city and astonishing the people of Samaria, claiming to be someone great. And they all from smallest to greatest were giving attention to him saying, this man is what is called the great power of God. And they were giving him attention because he had, for a long time, astonished them with his magic arts. And when they believed Philip, preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike. Even Simon himself believed. And after being baptized, he continued on with Philip. And as he observed signs and great miracles taking place, he was constantly amazed. Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For he had not yet fallen upon any of them, and they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they began laying their hands on them, and they were receiving the Holy Spirit. Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying, Give this authority to me as well, so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit. But Peter said to him, May your silver perish with you, because you thought that you could buy or obtain the gift of God with money. You have no part or portion in this matter for your heart is not right before God. Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours and pray the Lord that if possible the intention of your heart may be forgiven you for I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity. Simon answered and said pray, pray to the Lord for me yourselves so that nothing of what you have said may come upon me. So when they had solemnly testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they started back to Jerusalem and were preaching the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans. But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza, that is, a desert road. So he got up and went, and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. and he had come to Jerusalem to worship. And he was returning and sitting in his chariot and was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, go up and join this chariot. Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said, do you understand what you are reading? And he said, well, how could I unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of scripture which he was reading was this. He was led as a sheep to slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he does not open his mouth. In humiliation, his judgment was taken away. Who will relate his generation? For his life is removed from the earth." The eunuch answered Philip and said, please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else? Then Philip, Opening his mouth or opened his mouth and beginning from this scripture. He preached Jesus to him as They went along the road. They came to some water and the eunuch said look water what prevents me from being baptized and Philip said if you believe with all your heart you may and he answered and said I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and And he ordered the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away, and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went his way rejoicing. Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through, he kept preaching the gospel to all the cities until he came to Caesarea. On the back of your bulletin is a brief outline that perhaps will help as we kind of make our way through this text, and hopefully we'll be able to make it through the entire thing. I want to begin giving some background to what I would call here the Samaritan mission. Most of our time will focus on the carrying of the gospel to Samaria, and we'll make a few comments about the eunuch toward the end. So to begin, we'll look at some background about the Samaritan mission. Then I want us to look at what I would call the execution of the Samaritan mission itself. Let's look at Philip as he goes and he preaches and what happens there. And then we're going to take a little bit of an excursus, a little wandering off the path, a little trip down in the side from the Samaritan mission, and that will take us into the road to Gaza there with the Ethiopian eunuch. And then we'll try to draw a point for the end and look at the result of this mission. So let's kind of begin by looking a little bit at some what we might call background. So when we come to Acts chapter 8, we have already covered quite a bit of ground to get us here. And I want to mention just one thing from the book of Acts itself, and then I want us to look at some other things. But one thing that we've covered in Acts was back in Acts chapter 1. So let's turn there for a moment and look at Acts chapter 1. You'll remember this. The disciples have asked jesus in verse six that at this time is he going to be restoring the kingdom to israel And he doesn't directly answer that question, but he tells them it's not for them to know times or epics He doesn't say no. He doesn't say yes. He just says let's not worry right now about the issue of time, but this one thing I will say to you in verse eight You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth. We've seen in our look at Acts 1 and Acts chapter 2 that it is in these chapters, these early chapters, that indeed Jesus is restoring the kingdom of Israel. He has gathered his people back in from his far-off land. He is putting them under the kingship of that Davidic Messiah. He has poured out his spirit there in Acts chapter 2 at the day of Pentecost. This is all a fulfillment of what we might look at in verse 8 of chapter 1 as what we might call phase one You will be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea." And we see in these first chapters of the book of Acts, and we have not taken time to look at 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7, but chapters 1 to 7 all happen in Jerusalem and in Judea in the south. Much of it takes place simply there in the city. But we didn't read in Acts chapter 8 in verse 1 what happens. In Acts 8, these opening verses tell us that a great persecution arises against the church and the believers are pressed out of Judea and they're pressed into the regions of Samaria and beyond. Notice what it says in verse 1. Saul was in hearty agreement with the putting of him to death, that's Stephen in chapter 7, and on that day great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. Some devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him but Saul began ravaging the church entering house after house and dragging off men and women, he would put them into prison. So that initial phase of things being in Jerusalem and then down in Judea, now we're moving into what we might see as another phase. The gospel, yes, is going to spread out further in Judea, but it's also going to spread now into Samaria. So when we come to Acts chapter 8, we're really moving into what we might just consider a second phase of this mission that Christ sends the Holy Spirit to empower the church to fulfill. And the reason I use that term, a phase, is if we look back in chapter 1 in verse 8, one way to look at this is to think in terms of just mere geography. In other words, the Gospel starts in Jerusalem, then it goes out to Judea, then it goes out to Samaria, and then to the uttermost part of the earth. And we're just thinking geography. But I want to encourage you to think not just geographically. I want you to think theologically about why it's moving in such a way. Why is it moving out from the center of Jerusalem, then to Judea, then to Samaria, and then to the uttermost parts of the earth? Luke, unlike Matthew and Mark, has much to say about the Samaritans. In fact, there is a central portion of his letter that kind of focuses on Jesus' ministry in the region of Samaria. So I want to move, this is again another point of background material. We looked at Acts chapter 1 a little bit. I want you to think in terms of phases. theological phases that are kind of expressed in geographical zones, but something's happening here in the spread of the gospel. And I think we'll try to make this more clear as we go. But I want to take you first back to the gospel of Luke. Now, again, Matthew and Mark don't talk much about the Samaritans. John has a little bit of encounter, some encounters of Jesus with Samaritans, like, for example, the woman at the well there in John chapter 4. And later in John chapter 4, all the Samaritans come out from the village, and they have a lot of conversation. But Luke speaks about the Samaritans. And the reason I stress Luke is two reasons. One, Luke generally, Generally, the Gospel of Luke sounds a lot like Matthew and Mark. In fact, Matthew, Mark, and Luke sound so much the same that they often call them the synoptic Gospels, the Gospels that kind of see things very similarly. So it's interesting when Luke interjects at least three things about the Samaritans that Matthew and Mark do not contain. That just kind of stands out to me. The second reason I want to speak about Luke is because Luke is the one who wrote what? He's the one who wrote Acts. Remember, Acts is just part two, and Luke is part one, all right? So if we really want to understand what's going on in part two, we need to probably back up and look at what's going on in part one. So briefly, I want us to look at a couple of things that are happening in Luke. One of these stories is from Luke chapter 9. One is from Luke chapter 10 and one is from Luke chapter 17. And you're seeing three weeks in your mind. Don't do that. Don't go there. Don't let your mind go there. All right? Just stay with it. All right. Luke chapter 9. Luke chapter 9 probably begins a longer section. It takes us all the way through a midpoint in chapter 18. It seems that Luke 9 through 18, in many ways, A lot of this happens in Samaria. Now this is very different because Matthew and Mark have most of Jesus' ministry taking place either in Judea or Galilee. But Luke concentrates a lot of chronology, a lot of time in Samaria, which makes sense. I mean, it was a big area. And it especially makes sense if Luke is trying to draw our attention to the fact that the gospel, the gospel of the kingdom that Jesus begins to come and preach is a gospel that's going to expand from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the uttermost part of the earth. Matthew will have things like, you know, don't even go to the Samaritans. Don't go to the Gentiles. Just go to the lost sheep of Israel. Just go to them. It's this real exclusivity thing. Luke doesn't talk like that. All right? It's not to say that Matthew's wrong. It's just to say that's not what Luke highlights. Why? Well, Luke is a Gentile, for one. Luke is not an apostle. He is a Gentile, and he's riding with this broad, probably Pauline mission in the back of his mind. He was one who traveled with Paul to those ends of the earth. Well, one story comes up in Luke chapter 9 in verse 51. This is what many would consider a theological turning point for Luke's gospel. Notice what it says, Luke 9 verse 51, and when the days were approaching for his ascension, that is his going up, his going back to heaven, he was determined to go to Jerusalem. Now I didn't refresh my King James this week, but I think this may be the text in the King James that talks about how he set his face like flint. Somebody can look at that and come talk to me later. Either way, he determined to go to Jerusalem. Yeah, in the footnote, I'm sorry, of the NAS, it says literally he set his face. You can see that kind of turning the face, real purposeful move here, okay? He set his face to go to Jerusalem. He sent messengers on ahead of him, and they went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make arrangements for him. But they, that is the Samaritans, did not receive him because he was traveling toward Jerusalem. Note the reason. Note the reason they did not receive him is because he was going to Jerusalem. That is significant. When the Samaritans realize that Jesus is simply committed to something greater and something much more, quote unquote, Jewish, they're upset. Why? Because Jews and Samaritans, it's oil and water, right? Two cat and dog in a room. Maybe a cat and a cat. Obviously, I don't have cats. Why am I speaking about cats? I'm obviously going beyond what I know. I know nothing about cats. Okay, talk to Jeff later about what happens with a cat. He sent messengers on ahead of them. They went and entered the village. They did not receive him because he was traveling toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, very kind, gentle, spoken young men here, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them? It's just like, The whole situation just escalated way high, all right? Calm down, James. Calm down, John. There's no reason to kill everybody right now. It's like an Elijah, Elisha moment here, all right? We're gonna start calling down fire out of heaven. But he turned and rebuked them, and said, you do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them, and they went on to another village. It is significant to contrast the movement of James and John with that of the response of Christ. Their response is, let's just speed up the hellfire and let's just get it here now and we'll just take care of these guys and get them out of the way. Jesus is like, no, that's not my spirit. That's not the Holy Spirit that's moving you to say things like that. That's the wisdom of the world. That's the spirit of the enemy himself. I'm here to do what? I'm here to save. And notice who he's here to save. He's here to save the Samaritans. Hmm, that must have struck James and John rather odd. Well, the reception that Jesus gets in John chapter 9 is completely reversed in Acts chapter 8. The reception is going to be much different when the gospel by Philip's hand goes to Samaria. But notice here at this outset of this Samaritan section, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. Samaria is not the place he's going to stop. It's not his end point. It's not his end goal. He wants to get to Jerusalem. But on the way, he wants to make sure he goes through Samaria. Fast forward a little bit to chapter 10. And there is the story in chapter 10 of the good Samaritan. This is a very interesting story. Verse 25 says that there is a lawyer, and this is not a lawyer like you and I think of a lawyer. It's not like a public lawyer. This is a lawyer of the law. This is a religious lawyer. He is conversant and trained in all things theological about legal matters in the law. The lawyer stood up and put him to the test, saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he said to him what is written in the law, and it goes on and goes on. And he says, do these things and you'll live. But wishing to justify himself, which is always a bad idea, but he decides to do it anyway, he wants to know, let's talk about who is my neighbor. Now you've heard the story of the Good Samaritan. A man was on his way, you know, on a road. He gets beat up and he's almost dead and there's a priest and a Levite. They pass over him. But the good Samaritan comes by and helps this man. Presumably in the story, the man that gets beat up is a Jewish man. And you would think the priest and the Levite might want to help the Jewish man. The Samaritan, yeah, not so much. But it's the Samaritan that stops and helps. What I want you to notice is that by the end of the story, in the telling of the story of the Good Samaritan, by the end of the story, the question of who is my neighbor is reversed. By the end of the story, the focus is reversed and placed on the one who was actually neighborly. So compare, if you will, verse 29, where the question is asked, who is my neighbor? with the question that is asked in verse 36 by Jesus, which of the three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among robbers? So early in the story, he's simply trying to say, look, tell me or tell you a story so you can see who your neighbor is. Well, it's true that this man in need is your neighbor. But what's also true is that you should be toward him, what? You should be neighborly. Again, think not just a story. Jesus is trying to say something. He's trying to make some theological point. What's he trying to drive home? You have a Samaritan in the story who is one who is unacceptable. He is an outcast by the Jewish requirements of the day. And we're going to talk more about that as we go back into the background a little bit more. He is an outcast. He is unacceptable. But he is the one who is neighborly to the Jew. And the Jew to the Samaritan is just as offensive as the Samaritan is to the Jew. Do you get that point? We often talk about how offensive Samaritans are to Jews. But we don't usually talk about how offensive Jews are to Samaritans. Because they both see one another as apostate, heretical, and having been unfaithful. But what Jesus here is saying is that both the Samaritan and the Jew should be toward one another what? Neighborly. We quickly hear this story, and we hear it as 21st century Americans, and we rush past the religious significance of the story. The story, though we could use it for application, that you and you and you should be neighborly to people when you see them and give them Christian care. And you should, you know, care for the needy and the poor and all these kinds of things. But that's usually where we go because we want to know, well, what am I supposed to do because of the story? We quickly run to what? We quickly run to application without really understanding what's happening. What Jesus is saying is that this, in telling this story to the self-righteous Jewish lawyer who wants to justify himself, is that you need to see yourself as a Jew. To borrow a term from a commentator, I think it's a great term, you need to see yourself in faithful solidarity with the Samaritan. You need to see yourself at one with him. The Samaritan is not a Jew. But he is an Israelite. But he's not a faithful Jew. But you need to see yourself as a Jew in solidarity with this Samaritan. And he needs to see himself in solidarity with you. Now, let's tell another story. Luke 17. Trying to run through these. And I'm trying to go fast so you won't look at me at the end and say, I told you so. People have told me, I'll tell you, Luke 4, and that's fine. I'll take it. Luke 17, the story of the cleansing of 10 lepers. We're still in this section of Luke 9 through Luke 18. We're still in this Samaritan region. And this is one of the reasons why scholars often believe that this particular section is kind of a Samaritan section. It's got these stories that deal with these Samaritans that nobody else talks about in Matthew or Mark or John, but Luke talks about them at the beginning, middle, and end of this section. Luke 17, verse, well, the story is kind of verse 11 through verse 20, 21, all right? But again, you probably know the story ten guys ten lepers cleansed by Jesus and Jesus says go show yourself to the priests and He probably isn't telling them to go to The Samaritan priests he's probably telling them at this point Jesus would not recognize Samaria as a place of true worship you can get that from John chapter 4 and Jesus believes that true worship in an old covenant context is expressed at the temple in Jerusalem but he tells the woman at the well an hour is coming now is when true worshipers worship the Father and Spirit truth, but when he sends them off to go to the priest and leprosy by the way, according to Old Testament law was like the only the only disease that you had to go to the priest and to get checked out and get the checkbox, you know, checked to say that you were healed. So he sends them off and says, go show yourself to the priest and, you know, make sure that you're good, you're acceptable now, all right? They run off. One guy comes what? One guy comes back. And interestingly, the one guy that comes back is a what? A Samaritan. Probably indicating or implying that the other nine guys were Jews. But one of the guys that was a leper was a Samaritan and he comes back. Notice what happens in verse 17, Luke 17, 17. Then Jesus answered, well, it says in verse 16, he fell on his face, his feet, giving thanks to him. And he was a Samaritan. And then Jesus answered and said, were there not 10 cleansed, but the nine, where are they? Was no one found who returned to give glory to God except this?" It doesn't say Samaritan. It says what? Foreigner. He refers to the Samaritan as a foreigner. This is the way Luke sees, yes, through the words of Jesus. But this is the way Luke sees the Samaritans. They are like what? They are foreigners. They're not God-fearers. They're not Gentiles. They're not proselytes. They are commonly translated in the Old Testament, this particular term, used only here, by the way, in the New Testament. Only here. Only by Luke. Translated strangers. And commonly and continually in the Old Testament, when people are going to come near to God, it is said, strangers should not come near. Because if they do, they'll be killed. Strangers cannot come near. But here we have interest in this story, a stranger who has come near. In fact, so near has this stranger come. He is falling at the feet of Jesus, giving thanks to Jesus, giving glory to God. And Jesus says, has no one else come back? What a contrasting shame it was to the Jews who should have recognized Jesus as the Messiah. But this foreigner does. This foreigner comes to him and falls down before him. Now, that's some background from Acts and some background from Luke. Let's look at one more point of background, and that is the Old Testament itself. We're not going to turn there. I'm just going to refer you to a couple of chapters, a couple of sections, and you can look this up later on your own. But in the Old Testament, the story of the origin of the Samaritans is found. You probably remember the story. First Kings chapter 12, we have Rehoboam. Rehoboam is the son of Solomon. Under David and Solomon, the kingdom was united. But under Rehoboam, the kingdom did what? The kingdom divided. And 10 northern tribes went home. And the two southern tribes went back to their homes. And you now have a divided kingdom into a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom. The southern kingdom follows David and his line through the tribe of Judah and also the small little tribe of Benjamin. And the northern kingdom, 10 tribes, they follow after the king that they appoint, Jeroboam. They appoint different centers for worship. They have a place in Dan, or a place in Dan and Beersheba, two places north and south that people can go and they can offer sacrifices and they don't have to go down to Jerusalem. Eventually, there's going to be, in the history of the Northern Kingdom, there's going to be an actual temple that is built that rivals the temple in Jerusalem, and it's going to be built in Mount Gerizim, on Mount Gerizim. Jesus has a conversation with the woman of the well about Mount Gerizim as the place to worship, or Jerusalem. That temple, Mount Gerizim, I think is somewhere around the 2nd century BC, it was destroyed. The capital of the Northern Kingdoms becomes significant here because the capital of the Northern Kingdom is the city of Samaria. The Northern Kingdom becomes identified with its capital. The Northern Kingdom is kind of summarized as being Samaria. You actually have this kind of imagery by the time we come to the New Testament, and that area that we call Israel today, it was known in the first century as Palestine, and it was made up of Judea in the south, Samaria in the middle to the north, and then far north was Galilee, this small little region around that Sea of Galilee. But generally speaking, the two kingdoms were divided as Judea and Samaria. Now, the reason I say that is by the time we come to the New Testament, the Southern Kingdom and the Northern Kingdom, or what's left of the Southern Kingdom and Northern Kingdom, Judea and Samaria, are completely at odds. So at odds are they that Jesus says in John chapter 4 in the story of the woman at the well, that there's this great surprise. that Jesus is even talking to the woman. Remember that? And if you're not careful, you're going to read that and you're going to go, oh, well, she's just shocked because she is a woman of ill repute. I want to make the parents, you know, have the least amount of things to talk to their kids about later on this afternoon. I often have those, thanks pastor, now I got to explain all these things to my kids. She is a woman of ill repute. She is a woman. And you might read the story and go, well, yeah, they shouldn't be talking because she's a woman and because she's a woman of ill repute. But that's not what it says. Those things are true. She's a woman, and she's a woman of ill repute. She's had five husbands, and the man she's with now is not her husband, but she's with him anyway. But it says in John chapter 4 that the reason there's this surprise and shock is because she's a what? She's a Samaritan. Wouldn't matter if she was a religiously upstanding man Samaritan. She's a what? She's a Samaritan. It says in John chapter 4, early on, the Jews have no what? They have no dealings with Samaritans. They just don't. They just don't get together, all right? There was a minority in Judaism, interesting little side story, a minority view in Judaism that said you could talk to a Samaritan and you could actually even take food from a Samaritan. But before you could take food from a Samaritan, you should have him taste it first. And the reason that was is because the Jews knew that the Samaritans did follow dietary kosher laws. The Samaritans only had the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. And following dietary kosher laws, if the Jew got the Samaritan to eat the food first, the Jew could be assured the food was kosher. That's the only way you could eat food from a Samaritan, have him eat it first. You might hear that story and think, maybe you'd think it was poison. You want to make sure, what are you going to kill him? Like the Samaritan becomes the court jester or something like that. But no, the Jew would need to be assured that it was kosher. Well, all of these things are simply to say that we need to consider the idea of background to the story of what's happening in Acts chapter 8. It's not just a historical story. The book of Acts is not simple history. It is theologically loaded history. Things are moving and progressing forward in the kingdom of God. The gospel of the kingdom is being preached. We're going to see the gospel of the kingdom is even preached to the Samaritans in Acts chapter 8. which makes the idea that the kingdom of Israel there in Acts chapter 1, when they talked about the kingdom of God, he'd been preaching to them about the kingdom of God for 40 days, they come and ask about the kingdom being restored to Israel. If we're not still engaged in Acts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and beyond with the idea of restoring the kingdom, then why is Philip going to Samaria and preaching the kingdom? Why is Paul preaching the kingdom in Acts chapter 28? I think they're preaching the kingdom all throughout the book of Acts because indeed the kingdom of God is being restored to the people of Israel, just not in the way that they anticipated it before. With all that said, I'd like to take you back to Acts chapter 8. So let's look over there and let's see if we can make some way through the execution of the Samaritan mission. The execution here of the Samaritan mission. Now, we're going to try to move through this and not get sidetracked by Simon, Simon the magician. It's an interesting story. It's not that it's irrelevant, but I think we can really get to the heart of what we need without taking a lot of time to talk about Simon. I want you to notice three things as we kind of try to make way through the execution of the Samaritan mission. Number one is this. Let me just give you all three and then I'll come back and say a few things about each one. The Samaritans hear the word about the kingdom of God. When Philip comes to preach, he preaches to them the kingdom of God. The Samaritans hear the word about the kingdom of God. Secondly, the Samaritans receive the word about the Christ. They receive the word about the Christ. Thirdly, the Samaritans experience full inclusion with the church. After Acts chapter 8, the Samaritans are no longer seen as disconnected from what's happened on the day of Pentecost in Judea. The Samaritans hear the word about the kingdom of God. The Samaritans receive the word about the Christ. The Samaritans experience full inclusion with the church. Look with me briefly in chapter 8, verses 5 and 12. It says that Philip went down to the city of Samaria and began proclaiming Christ to them, or Christ, or the Anointed One, or the Messiah. Now the Jews were not the only ones that were anticipating the coming of the Christ. Remember Jesus and the woman at the well? Jesus is telling her all kinds of things. Uh, she decides she's going to engage with him a little bit about worship And she says, you know, should we worship here worship there? and jesus says an hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth for such the father seeks to be his worshipers and she says I know that when messiah comes he'll tell us all things and jesus says to her I Who speak to you? am he What a moment I mean, her jaw is on the ground. Her water pot is literally on the ground. And she leaves it and she runs into town and says, come and see the man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? They're looking for him. They're waiting for him. Philip comes to Samaria, and he begins proclaiming Christ to them. And God gives him power to accompany this message with signs, true signs, life-transforming signs, signs that even catch the attention of the sign worker, Simon. And he realizes, whatever power I think I have, this power is greater. The people notice this as well. And it says down in verse 11 that when they were giving him attention because he had for a long time astonished them with his magic arts, that's Simon, but when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike. Excuse me. The Samaritans hear the word about the kingdom of God. Now, what I want you to do is take verse five and in your mind, draw a word or a line from proclaiming Christ to, verse 12, preaching the good news about the kingdom of God. Proclaiming Christ is preaching the good news about the kingdom. Preaching the good news about the kingdom is proclaiming Christ. The kingdom and the Christ, the kingdom and the Messiah, the kingdom and the expected messianic Davidic king go what? They go together. We see this back in Acts chapter 2. We see it here in the preaching of Philip as well. Not only do they hear the word about the kingdom of God, the Samaritans receive the word about the Christ. Verse 6, the crowds were with one accord giving attention to what was said by Philip. And as they heard and saw the signs which he was performing, et cetera, they gave attention to what was said by Philip. The same kind of verbiage is used later in Luke chapter 16, where it says that Lydia paid attention to the words of Paul. And this is a picture of kind of an outward way of expressing an inward transformation of like a believing heart. She's being drawn, they are being drawn to the preaching of Christ by Philip. She, Lydia, was drawn to the preaching of Christ by Paul. Notice back in verse 12, it says that they believed Philip. When they believed, they were baptized. The Samaritans hear the word about the kingdom. The Samaritans receive the word about the Christ. Finally here in this Samaritan mission, the Samaritans experience full inclusion with the church. But you notice what happens in verses 14 and following. Now it said back in verse 12 that they believed and were baptized. But what it doesn't say yet is that they've received the Holy Spirit. Because remember earlier in Acts chapter 2, they believe, they're baptized, they receive the promise of the Holy Spirit that is for them and their children and those who are far off. But here they believe and are baptized, but the Holy Spirit doesn't come yet. Look in verse 14. Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John. I'll just make a little note in your mind. John, Luke chapter 9, the last time John was in Samaria, or at least that we know about, John's calling down what? Wanting to call down fire to wipe them out. I wonder if John was thinking about that when he's here. How could you forget it? I mean, do you think if Jesus in the flesh looked at you and rebuked you, you'd think you'd forget? I don't think I'd forget. I think I'd remember that. Peter and John who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for he had not yet fallen on any of them. They had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. when they began laying their hands on them, and they were receiving the Holy Spirit." Now, there is a lot of transition in the book of Acts. So we want to be careful when we read the book of Acts, because, you know, it's like one time it seems like salvation happens this way. Another time it seems like some other things are happening this way. There's like the patterns aren't always the same. And here we see a break in what we might think of as the pattern. We're kind of early in the book of Acts to establish a pattern. But one thing we do see is the connections of the apostles and the granting of the Holy Spirit. This we saw back in Acts chapter 2. The apostles preach, the apostles speak, and the Holy Spirit falls upon those who believe. We're also going to see the connection of the apostolic presence and the granting of the Spirit in Acts chapter 10 with Peter when he goes to the home of Cornelius. Now, here, Peter and John come down. Why do they come? They come because they are representing the apostles. The apostles have heard. The apostles send. Peter and John go forth as official representatives of the apostles. The idea of being sent. We think, for example, in terms of Romans chapter 10, how can they preach unless they're what? Unless they're sent. Acts chapter 13, the church in Antioch sends out Paul and Barnabas. Preachers are sent. And here, the apostles, Peter and John, are sent out by the church in Jerusalem by the apostles themselves. The reason they come, one, to perhaps confirm what has actually happened in Samaria are these truly authentic conversions. For we see them later on, do we not, reproving Simon. They estimate that Simon's conversion is false. He is not a true convert. But secondly, it says the reason they come in verse four or verse 14 is for the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen on any of them. They'd just been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. So they lay their hands on the people and they receive, they were receiving the Holy Spirit. I want you to think here for a moment about Acts chapter eight and what we've already seen previously in Acts chapter two. In Acts chapter 2, we looked at Acts chapter 2 as somewhat of a restoration and a reconstitution of Israel in the new covenant. And I want you to see that kind of idea is carried on here in Acts chapter 8. In Acts chapter 2, we found the church grounded on the apostles. The apostles, these 12 new patriarchs appointed by Christ to lead and to rule over his newly established church. We find here in Acts chapter 8, these new believers grounded on what? Grounded on the apostles. Here they are, Peter and John, come from Jerusalem to Samaria. we see in some sense here the Samaritans. If we were to go back to the Old Testament and we were to look in 1 Kings chapter 12 and 2 Kings I think somewhere around chapter 17 where it talks about the conquest of the northern kingdom by the king of Assyria and how he takes many of the people out of the northern kingdom and brings people from five other nations in and plants them into the northern kingdom region and they begin to mix and mingle. This is why many of the Samaritans were viewed as like some kind of a half-breed race. They weren't a pure Jew. Why? Because they had mixed. They'd mixed with the nations. and in the dispersion of the northern kingdom we see here the the gospel of christ reaching out to the region of samaria which is which is representative of that northern kingdom here we have the church grounded on the apostles gathered in from the nations gifted by the holy spirit the holy spirit now comes upon them And they believed, it says in verse 5, in the Christ. It says in verse 12, they respond to the preaching of the kingdom of God. We find here the church in Samaria grounded on the apostles, gathered from the nations, gifted with the spirit, and governed by a king. The same thing that happens in Acts chapter 2 now happens in Acts chapter 8, just a little bit further we could say down the road or in this place it's up the road because Samaria is north of Judea. This is something of the execution of the Samaritan mission. Just to mention very briefly in this excursus, we've already read the text. We've read the text about the Ethiopian eunuch. And again, we refer to him as the Ethiopian eunuch because that's the way he's introduced first in verse 27. There was an Ethiopian eunuch. But again, after this introduction, he's not mentioned, he's not referred to as the Ethiopian again. He is referred to in verse 34, in verse 36, in verse 38, in verse 39, simply as the eunuch. The prophets envisioned a day when those who would normally be cast out of the presence of God would be brought back in. We've already seen that the only one in the New Testament to use this particular term to refer to Samaritan, the term of foreigner, is Luke. And in Luke chapter 8, Luke tells the story of the gospel by the preaching of Philip going to the region of the foreigners. And then in that same chapter, We kind of wander off the path a little bit. And we wonder, why is this story about the eunuch here? Why would you put, because he's not a Samaritan. And I don't believe he's a Gentile. I think he's just a Jew who is displaced in Ethiopia working for Candace. Why? He's a eunuch. He's come back to Jerusalem to worship. But I can tell you one thing that happened or one thing that didn't happen when this eunuch came back to Jerusalem, you didn't find him in the temple courts. You didn't find him coming into the presence of God. Why? Because he was a eunuch. Now, again, I don't want to open up more parental conversations this afternoon. However, these aren't always bad. A eunuch is a man who has his body some sense disfigured. He could not have children. They are either crushed or removed. And in Deuteronomy chapter 23, it says that anyone who has that kind of maiming to their body is not to be admitted into the presence of God. They're not to come to the temple. Now, obviously, he could come to Jerusalem. He's a Jew. He could come near somewhere, but he could not do what he would have longed to have done. he would have had to go away with a sense of loss. Why does Luke put these two stories in his account together? And why does he put the Samaritan, listen, with the eunuch? Or why does he put the eunuch with the Samaritans? You're probably already there, but I'm turning to my Bible back to chapter 56, Acts 56. There is no Acts 56. Go to Isaiah 56. Isaiah 56. You can keep your finger on Acts 8. We're going to refer to it one more time, and then we'll be done. I had Paul read Acts 56. Because in Acts 56, I did it again, didn't I? In Isaiah 56, we find the foreigners. And we find the eunuchs, just like we find them in Acts chapter 8. We find them what? We find them together. And where are they? The foreigners who couldn't come near or they'd be killed. The eunuchs who couldn't come near because they were disfigured. Because of where you were from and because of what happened in your body, you couldn't come near. But Isaiah envisions a day, a gospel day, a new covenant day. This whole section at the end of Isaiah, from Isaiah 40 to Isaiah 66, is envisioning the coming of the Messiah and the coming of new covenant mercies. And notice what happens in verse 3. Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, the Lord will surely separate me from his people. Can you imagine the temptation, the fear that a foreigner would have? He'll never let me stay. Can you imagine somebody inviting a foreigner to come? They'll never let me come in the court. They'll never let me get near. You'll have to leave me outside. I was reading this past week, I guess it was this morning, in the Book of Acts. It's like the weekly Sunday morning reading of the Book of Acts. And I came across the passage again where Paul goes to the temple toward the end, 22, something like that. He goes to the temple and he had been seen with a Gentile and the people accused him of having brought the Gentile in. That would have been a what? A big legal no-no, ceremonial no-no. You can't do that. And you certainly can't bring the stranger in. You can't bring the Samaritan in. But he says, let not the foreigner say. The Lord will separate me from his people. Let not the eunuch say, behold, I'm a dry tree. I mean, I can't father children. I can't have a family. For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast my covenant to them, I will give, notice verse five, this is so good, in my house and within my walls. Now, this may be referring to the walls of the city, like we read in Psalm 147 earlier today. But I think it's probably to the walls that are right there around the precincts of the temple. There are walls to the city of Jerusalem. But the closer you get to the temple itself, there's other walls. There's like these little circles you kind of got to get through to get in. And I will give them in my house. That's the temple. I will give them within the walls, my walls, a memorial and a name better than that of sons and daughters. I'll give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off. And now the foreigners, also the foreigners will join themselves to the Lord to minister to him and to love the name of the Lord. The word minister there is a priestly term. Foreigners are going to function as priests in the new covenant realities of God. It's exactly what Peter says, right? We're a kingdom of what? A kingdom of priests, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession. To be his servants, every one who keeps from profaning the Sabbath and holds fast my covenant, even those I will bring, what? I will bring to my holy mountain. Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? Who shall dwell in his presence? Why? Why do we come near? What is God going to do? Verse 7, notice, to make them joyful in my house a prayer. I love that term, to make them joyful. What happened in Samaria when the gospel of the reigning king and messiah the lord jesus christ came to samaria it says in acts chapter eight verse eight so there was much rejoicing in that city what happens when the gospel of the reigning christ the messiah of god goes to the eunuch who is forever kept away it says at the end of acts chapter eight in verse 40 that he that Philip, excuse me, in verse 39, the eunuch no longer saw him, no longer saw Philip, but he went his way, you can probably guess, rejoicing. The one that God brings near finds joy. Remember earlier we said, what is it the soul longs for? The soul longs to be in the presence of God. The soul longs to be with God. And here we have testimony in the scripture of the conversion of the Samaritans, the conversion of the eunuchs. And how do they respond? With what? With joy, with delight. The soul is finally what? The soul is finally satisfied. I don't know where your soul is. I can't see your soul. I can't see your heart. I can't see your mind. I mean, you come every week. You're very faithful with that. And that's wonderful. Where's your heart? Is your heart near the Lord? Is your heart responding with the message of the Christ, the message of the kingdom of God? Is your heart responding with joy? Or are you still trying to fill the void in your heart with everything else that won't really satisfy? Come to Christ. You will find everlasting joy. God brings his people to himself, to his holy mountain, to his glorious presence, and gives them joy. I pray that you find that very thing even here today. Let's pray together. Our great God, we bless you. We thank you for your word. We thank you, Father, for the gospel going out from Jerusalem and Judea, and now to Samaria. Father, we know we're looking at past things. We're looking at things that have already happened years and years ago, but we're still living in the experience now of the gospel going out to the very nations of the world. And we pray, God, even here today, the sound of my voice and the sound of the proclamation of this word, that the message of the gospel of the reigning King Jesus would go forth even here. And that you would take hearts and ears in this room and that you would give ears to hear, give hearts that are that are fleshy and hearts that are soft. Oh God help us not to spend another week away from the presence of God. But let us draw near with the assurance of faith that we will find at the throne of our God grace and mercy to help us in time of need. So I pray for myself and I pray, Father, for my brothers and sisters here. And I pray, Father, for those who are here who have not yet named the name of Christ. And I pray, O God, that you would humble all of our hearts, even at this very moment, that you help us to see that there is the glorious promise and offer of the gospel, the good news of the kingdom of God in Christ, the good news that we can have sins forgiven and hell can be subdued and we can have peace and joy with God forever and ever starting even now. We would pray, O God, for your mercy We pray, O God, that you would open our hearts and eyes to see and feel and respond to such a wonderful, precious thing, to know that there's a promise that men can, by grace, ascend your holy hill. They can, by grace, dwell in your presence and the light of the glory of the God of all creation that shines on us in the face of Christ will shine on us and never, never be taken away. Father, bless you. Bless you for your kindness and your mercy. I pray for myself and for all those who are here in this moment. We ask your mercy upon us in Jesus' name. Amen.