Welcome to Harmony Primitive Baptist Church. This is Elder Neal Phelan, Jr. preaching for regular Sunday morning services. I hope you'll continue to pray for us this morning as we stand before you. We've been going through some three remarkable conversions that are found in the book of Acts in chapters 8, 9, and 10. And this morning we come to the person that we have come to know and love as the Ethiopian eunuch. We've already considered Saul of Tarsus. And we have looked at the house of Cornelius. And so this morning we come to the third one, which actually is the first one in the series as you read the book of Acts. But for some reason, I've placed him at the last in our series of messages here. And so let's begin reading about this person. And we find him in Acts chapter eight. If you want to turn with me to that place in the Bible where we are introduced to him. Some have referred to this particular circumstance or the conversion of this man is a good old fashioned conversion. And I guess the reason that they might say that is because there's some new fashioned ones that don't quite fit the story that we have here. So we're going to read this story and see how this man became a Christian. We're going to begin reading in chapter eight, and we're going to start with verse 26. And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south, and to the way, that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose, and went, and beheld a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candacy, queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship. was returning and sitting in his chariot and reading Isaiah, which is Isaiah, the prophet. Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah and said, Understandeth thou what thou readest? And he said, How can I except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. The place of the scripture which he read was this. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb done before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away, and who shall declare his generation, for his life is taken from the earth? And the eunuch answered Philip and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? Of himself or of some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water, and the eunuch said, See, here is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still. And they went down both into the water, and Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way. But Philip was found at Azotus, and passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea." Now, that's the whole account that I've read to you this morning. And this morning, I'd like to look at the characters that we find, look at Philip himself, and see his work and then look at the Ethiopian eunuch and and let's see about his conversion. Now, we're first introduced to Philip in Acts, chapter six. If you want to turn back with me there, it's a very familiar passage of scripture. We've read it many times at the ordination of deacons, and it's a place where he is first introduced to us. We find that in Acts, chapter six, that he is one of the seven that was ordained over the care of the business of caring for widows. Let's look at that in Acts chapter six. The twelve called the multitude of disciples unto them and said, it's not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom whom we may appoint over this business. We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. The same please the whole multitude. They chose seven. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Ghost. And they chose Philip. And it mentions the other five as well. Now, I've come to believe this about these seven men. And remember, we're talking about Philip mainly here. But there's so much information in this portion of scripture that I got thinking about it this morning. I thought, you know, there's a lot of lessons here. So let's kind of consider some of the side information here and then we'll get to the conversion of the eunuch. But I've come to believe that these seven men were really not deacons. If they were deacons, then we're going to have to change the office of the deacons and ask them to preach and to baptize, because as we read about Stephen and Philip mentioned here, both of them preach some powerful messages. Stephen, of course, preached before the Sanhedrin, and he was the one that was stoned to death, calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and asking for them to forgive these men for what they did. And then we read about Philip here, that Philip obviously is going to preach a wonderful sermon to the Ethiopian eunuch, and also he's going to baptize this man. So I don't believe these men are deacons themselves. These men were appointed for the care of the poor widows in the church. We find another mention of Philip as well. If you have your Bibles, of course, turn to Acts chapter 21. And you're going to find another mention of here, and we're going to find out what this man really is. And Acts chapter 21 and verse eight, it says in the next day, we that were of Paul's company departed and came to Caesarea and we entered into the house of Philip, the evangelist. And so we understand that Philip was not a deacon, but he was really an evangelist. And we find him actually carrying out the work of an evangelist. as he's going to this chariot and he's going to preach to the Ethiopian eunuch. And so as I read this, I don't believe he was doing the business personally of caring for the widows himself, or he wouldn't have had the opportunity to do the work of an evangelist and find himself free to go and preach to the Ethiopian eunuch. He was over the business of caring for the widows. And to me, if you read between the lines, that means that that these men that there were men laboring under Philip and the other six men that they laid hands on that day and the people laboring under them were probably the deacons that were really carrying out the very work of of seeing to the needs of the widows. And let's remember at that time in the church that there were over 3000 members of the church. Peter preached at Pentecost. About 3,000 were baptized. And when you've got 3,000, and that day there was no Social Security, there was no Medicare and Medicaid and all of those things. And so you've got over 3,000 church members. And there were some widows, obviously, that were in need. We've got widows in our church that have been in need. They've been sick. They've been in hospitals. They've been in nursing homes. They've needed food. They've needed things. And our church has always been good to care for people. And in that day, of course, they saw the need. There was some criticism going on that the widows were not being cared for, which was one of the responsibilities of a church. And so these men recognized that if they were going to go and preach and go to these places and carry the word of God, they were not going to be able to do both things. It wasn't the fact that they thought it was beneath them to do it. It was just that they knew that they could not do everything and do all of these things. And so by wisdom, and I think by God's wisdom, they appointed some men to be over it. And they had some men laboring under them, going to these homes, knocking on their doors. I believe there was some organization going on. They were dividing up these widows among these men and seeing to their needs. And as we read this, we can see this is exactly what's going on. And that freed their hands for the work of the ministry. And the blessing of this, as we read in Acts chapter 6 verse 7, after they had placed these seven men over the care of the others that were seen to the needs of the church, it says in verse 7, this is a wonderful verse of scripture, I love to read this, it says, The word of God increased, and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, And a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. And the reason that happened was because these men were now free to fulfill their gift and to carry out the work of evangelism and of being pastors in churches and teachers. And so if I were to tell you this is the way I read it, this is what I see. The seven men met with the deacons. They discussed the needs of the widows. They divided the work up. They cared for them. And they had some organization. So we find that Philip, been spoken of in the scriptures as an evangelist, and we see him carrying out the work of an evangelist as he goes and runs along the side of this chariot and calls upon the Ethiopian eunuch and speaks to him and says, Do you understand what you read now? Let's look at this word evangelist. I said there is a ton of information in this that we can gain some knowledge from in our present day when we see Christianity around us. So we see the term used evangelist. What does an evangelist do anyway? We see this term used. He's an evangelist. Well, one thing we see, he isn't asking for any money to go to some foreign country. You know, he is free to go where he wants to go, where God calls upon him to go. They're not sending out teenagers on mission trips, and I know that there's a lot of wonderful people that are involved in that work, but you just don't, I'm just trying to say, you don't see this in the Scriptures. As nice as that sounds, we don't read it anywhere in the Bible, in the ministry of the Word of Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, when you look at the Scriptures, I was looking it up this morning, and so I've got a little computer, and it's got software, and I thought, I'm going to type in there and see, where it has the word mission or missionary in there, and it's not in the scriptures. And I'm not saying that against those churches. We've got some wonderful people in those churches. I'm just saying that the gift that is given for men to go and preach, the terminology that is used in the scripture is an evangelist. That's the terminology that's very biblical for people that go out and spread the gospel and go to places and preach. So I don't want to offend anybody. And I don't want anybody to think I'm running another church down. That's the worst thing you can do in a pulpit is to use another church's name and try to run people down and say we're smarter than everybody else, which we're not. I'm just giving you some biblical information for you to use in your own understanding of the scriptures. So the man is an evangelist. The gift of evangelism is a gift that God gives to some men. An evangelist can be, but is not always a pastor. Usually in the scriptures where we read of the evangelist, he's not at a church every Sunday morning. He is a person that is a member of a church. He is supported by that church. He works with the pastor of that church and he goes places and he preaches and he spreads the word. He has a special gift. And I believe that we have some men among our people that have the gift of evangelism. They are very blessed when they go places and preach at other places. They have a way of converting people to the truth of Jesus Christ. But they work under the auspices of a home church. They have to have a place to go back to and a place where they are members themselves. And so that's what we find the gift of evangelist is in the scriptures. Now, as I've said already, he was Philip was an evangelist, but we also know he was a preacher, don't we? Because he was preaching. And in Luke chapter 10, you don't have to turn over there. I'll just give this to you. We find that after the Lord had ordained the 10 apostles, he appointed other 70 also and sent them to and to before his face and to every city and place, whether he himself would come. Therefore, said he unto them, the harvest is truly great, but the laborers are few. So where does Philip make his advent into this picture? I believe that Philip was one of the 70 preachers that was already preaching. He was ordained after the apostles were. He was a minister of Jesus Christ. He was given the gift of an evangelist. And so here we find him on the stage during the midst of this great in-gathering of the infant church. 3,000 are added to the church. You got 70 preaching. You got the 12 apostles. The 70 are operating under the ministry of the apostles themselves. These seven men have been placed over the care of the deacons. He's a very spiritual man. You recall that in Acts chapter 6, when they chose these seven men to be over this work, they said they wanted some men that were full of wisdom and full of the Holy Ghost. And that's a man that has a zeal for Jesus Christ and has an understanding of the Scriptures. And that's the kind of man that we find here that's going, to this following the Lord's direction to go to a place and preach to the Ethiopian Union. So he's a preacher with a special gift of evangelism. Now, as we read, we find that Peter preached in the day of Pentecost. He preached in the city and he preached to thousands of people. But here we find an evangelist that's not preaching in a city and he's not preaching to thousands of people. He's going into the middle of the desert. And by the way, the Gaza desert is mentioned many times in the news these days, the same place. But he's going to the desert and he's going to preach to one person. And so if you want to talk about the work of an evangelist, they're not always at big places with a lot of people. Sometimes an evangelist is somebody that goes one on one with somebody else. I used to like what Gus Harder used to say. He said, I'm not much of a net preacher. He said, I'm more of a hook and line evangelist. And that meant that he liked to talk to people one on one and share God's word with them one on one and convince them of the truth of God's grace. And sometimes that's the best way to do it is just get one on one with somebody. So he's preaching to one person. And once again, here we see the same thing with Saul of Tarsus. and with the house of Cornelius that you see God working on both ends. You see him working in the heart of the Ethiopian eunuch and you see him working in the heart of the evangelist and he's going to bring these two people together and the man is going to hear the message of Jesus Christ. So that's the best description I can give you this morning in a thumbnail sketch of Philip the evangelist. Now let's look at the Ethiopian eunuch. He's a very interesting character. He's probably one of the most unusual characters that we read of in the New Testament when at the beginning of a church. He is not a Jew. He is from Ethiopia. That means that he is one of the sons of Ham. He is a black man. And I've read accounts of black slaves being members of our churches in the early days of our country. Sometimes they had to gain permission from their owners to go to church or to be baptized. And so we learned that there was a day among our own people when black people were members of our churches. And another interesting thing I find here is that Philip didn't need all the convincing to preach to a black man that Peter needed to preach to a Gentile. You know, he was willing to go immediately. It took a lot of convincing for Peter. The Lord had to drop the sheet at four corners three times to get Peter to go and preach to Cornelius. But the Lord just spoke to Philip, and Philip was ready to go and preach to the black man. And of course, we know that was Peter's character. You know, Peter was like that. But once Peter was convinced of a truth, he was determined to carry it out even to the point of death. But this, but we find that Philip, he was a man full of the Holy Ghost. He was willing to go and preach to anybody that would listen to him. And that's the way a preacher should be. We should be willing to share the gospel with anybody, regardless of who they are. We're no better than anybody else when it comes to a person's soul. Everybody needs the Lord Jesus Christ and they need his truth. And, you know, there was discrimination even in that day, like we see here today. I mean, see today in our society. We read of it in the New Testament about discrimination. In Titus 1 and 11, we find that Paul writes to Titus. He was a preacher, by the way. And he was writing about one of the slanders that was spreading about the people that were referred to in that day as the Cretans. Paul said, a prophet of their own, and that was the Jews themselves. They were referred to as the circumcision. And Paul says, one of the circumcision and one of the Jews said this about the Christians. Now, here's some of their slander. The Christians are always liars. They're evil beasts and they're slow bellies. That means that they can't tell the truth, they're dishonest and they're lazy. And he said, this witness is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith. In other words, It's not for the minister of the gospel to spread slander about another person. These people need to hear the gospel. And probably there were some lazy Christians, but I'm sure there were some lazy Jews as well. But in Titus chapter 1, we find that they did go to the Christians. This is earlier where Paul writes to Titus. He said, Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior for this cause left I thee in Crete that thou should have said in order the things that are wanting. And so he sends this man to this place and they're being slandered by the Jews. But Paul says, I want you to go preach the gospel to them because some of them belong to the Lord Jesus Christ and they need to hear the word of God. We find that the gospel nor the church sees nor observes any racial lines. And that's something that we need to always remember in God's house. We need to treat everybody the same. I'd love to see some Hispanics in our church. I'd love to see some blacks in our church. I'd like to see people from every kindred, tribe, nation and tongue. We talk about that. We say that God has people in every nation, kindred, tribe and tongue. We preach that. We preach that. We preach that. But you know what? Sometimes I wonder if people from every nation, kindred, tribe and tongue, some of God's people that are your brothers in Christ actually came to your church, if some people would be really happy about it. But we should be. We should be. In Colossians chapter 3, verse 10, we read this, there is neither Greek nor Jew. circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all, put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, vows of kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness and longsuffering." Paul breaks down all of those lines as he writes to the churches because he recognizes in the very beginning of the infant church, there was racial tension. There were prejudices. People, you know, didn't like one another because of the color of the skin or maybe where they came from, the city they were from. As I always mention, there was a time that I thought people, something wrong with people of friendship. But, you know, I recognize that, you know, there's not that much difference. I'd rather be from Donaldson, but I mean, you know, I'm just kidding with you. But I'm trying to make a point that, you know, we grow up, you know, if we're not familiar with people, you know, we've got this something built into us. And I do recognize there's differences in cultures. And, you know, I'm not promoting anything else, just saying that in the church there should be people of every tongue and tribe and nation when there can be when there are those that want to be. In Galatians, Paul wrote, You are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ, for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither bond nor free. There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. So even he breaks down, you know, all barriers there, even between men and women, that the church belongs to God's people, whoever they may be. So one thing we learn about this man, he is an Ethiopian. He is of the sons of Ham. He is a black man. And Philip is willing to go and share the gospel with him. There's another thing about this man we find very interesting. I don't know if you've ever done any study upon the word eunuch or not, but this man not only is a black man, but he is also a eunuch. Now, that's an interesting word. We don't use it anymore. And a unique and the most simplest terms was male that had been neutered. That's basically what it was in those days when people were taken captive. That's what they did to some of the males. That's what happened to Daniel when he was taken captive. We read what a holy man that he was. And there were different reasons for them doing that. It was to, you might say, tame them down like you might do a calf. It was the place to put them in a position that they were more subjective and willing to obey the authorities in that day. Some of them were placed over the care of the king's concubines. Some of them were placed in great positions of authority in that day. But there's an interesting statement that Jesus Christ makes in Matthew chapter 19. If you want to turn over there, you know, some of the things that Jesus said were just so full of wisdom. You can read a verse of scripture that Jesus makes, a statement that he makes, and you can dwell upon that for a long time. And sometimes you really don't get it. And I'm sure we don't get all of any statement that he makes. But here is one that I find is really kind of deep, but yet it's interesting when it's in Matthew 19 and 12. Jesus says, For there are some eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb. And there were some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men. And there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. Now, can you receive that? What the Lord is saying here is there are some eunuchs that are eunuchs from their mother's womb. In other words, they were born into this world. And they have No desire to be married. They have no desire for the member of the opposite sex. You can put it like that. Apostle Paul said that he had the gift of celibacy himself in another place. He said one man has one gift and one man has another gift. And I believe really, and this is a very bold statement I'm going to make to you this morning, but I think a lot of men that get confused concerning their sexuality, that they are in this category and that they've they've been made that way. God made them that way. There's some men that just don't have a desire as other men do. And the reason for that is that they might give more attention to their families, to their occupations, and even when they're called of God, they have the ability to have more time to devote to the ministry of Jesus Christ rather than to the obligations of being a husband or being a father or being in a family. But there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men, and I've already told you about that, that some men are neutered and have been made that way of men. And there are some that made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. In other words, they have chosen of themselves to remain single, that they may give their time and attention to the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I've got some friends in the ministry like that. They're not married and their sole purpose is to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and our great respect them for it. And they're wonderful men. So that's something else we know about this man. Another thing we read about him is that he had great authority. He had charge over all of the treasure of the Queen of Ethiopia. Like I said, sometimes men were neutered like that, that they would give themselves personally to their calling, their secular calling. And obviously he was a man that was placed in great authority. And then here we begin to see a little bit about the spirit of this man, that he was a man that could be greatly trusted, wasn't he? I mean, would you give anybody charge of your bank account this morning? You may not want to, even if it's a member of somebody that you love or a member of your family. But this man, we start to see some of the spirit of this man, that he was a man of integrity. He was an honest man. He was a man that could be trusted with great wealth. And not only that, we believe him to be a wealthy man himself. And sometimes, when you find men that are wealthy, that sometimes that corrupts them. And we see a lot of corruption among the wealthy because when you have wealth, it affords you great opportunities that other people don't have. And sometimes I believe the Lord keeps his people poor. Because he doesn't want us to have wealth, because wealth sometimes can lead us into avenues that we should not be going in our lives. And I love the prayer that I think one person made in the Psalms. Don't give me so much money that I will forget where it came from, but yet don't keep me in poverty that I have to go and steal my own bread. That's a great prayer. We need to understand that sometimes that the Lord takes things from us for a purpose. And we thank God for it. We hear people today that want to win the lottery. I forgot to listen to one the other day. It talked about if you get all these numbers, I think five numbers the same, the odds of getting it was one in a billion or something. But if you get it, you get, I forgot, $50 million or $55 million. I thought, what in the world would a person do with $55 million? I know what it would destroy me. I don't mind saying this, but probably most of you here this morning, if you had $55 million, you would not be here this morning. You would be on some long extended vacation somewhere in the Bahamas and drinking on one of those nice little drinks that has the umbrella in it and forgetting that we even existed. Let's be honest, you know, if you had all the money that if you had that kind of money, where would you be today? We thank God that, you know, he knows what we need. We don't want to pray for riches in this world. We want to have what we need and what God trusts us with. I don't want any more than God trusts us with. If the Lord, I don't want God to give me something that I'm going to abuse him or his word or his people or my life or my family. I don't want those kind of things. So we understand God knows what we need and the person that whoever the poorest person is here today may be the most spiritual person in this church. You know, wealth has nothing to do with spirituality. And if you lost in your life, if you've lost money or something, the Lord may have just given you a special blessing. You may have been unfaithful to your husband or your wife. You may have gone somewhere you didn't need to go. You may have got before some people you didn't need to be before. Something bad could have happened to you. Thank God you're here this morning and you've made a choice to be in God's house. And God removes things from us sometimes that take us away from his house on Sunday morning. I've seen the Lord do some things like that, and I thank God that he does. And you know, I've wondered many times if we pray all the time, we hear people praying. I'm kind of leaving the subject here a minute, but allow me this, please, to digress. But we hear people praying in our country all the time that they want our country to prosper. But, you know, prosperity is the problem of this country. That's what's leading people away from God's house so much. You remember in the book of James where James is talking about the prophet? Isaiah, that he prayed that it would not rain for three and a half years and it didn't rain for three and a half years. Do you recognize how remarkable that prayer was? This man wasn't praying for the country to be economically stable. or to have growth and prosperity. This man was asking for dearth in a country where God's people had departed from the truth. And he is saying, I want you to bring dearth upon this country to draw these people back to your house and back to your word. And God blessed him. For three and a half years, they had dearth. And you start seeing a revival, especially when they burned the prophets of Baal. And the Lord came down on Mount Carmel. consume the sacrifice of the prophet, turn some people's minds back to the Lord. And that's what it takes sometimes. And I'm looking for that in this country. I don't want to be a doomsday prophet. But you know what? If it takes that for the Lord's people to return back to his house and back to his truth, it'd be the best thing that ever happened to any of us. So this man is a very wealthy man. And he was worshiping at Jerusalem, as we read here. And I'm wondering where he was at Jerusalem. I don't know if you've ever done any speculation on this part of the book of Acts, but he's at one of two places. He has either gone to one of the synagogues and worshiped with the Jews in a very legalistic way. Or he is where they say in verse 25, when they had testified and preached the word of the Lord, returned to Jerusalem and preached the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans, he could have very well been even under the ministry of the apostles themselves, and he had gone to a church meeting and his heart was stirred. Have you ever been to a church meeting before and your heart was stirred? You started to leave God's house and something had been said from the pulpit and you began to think about it, meditate upon it. You began to try to apply it to your own personal life. You had a lot of questions maybe about something that had been preached. And you went home and you got your Bible out and you said, well, this was said at that meeting. I wonder what that's all about. I'm going to get my Bible out and I'm going to read a little bit more about this. And this is what I believe has happened to this man. He's been to a meeting. He's come home. His conscience has been pricked. His heart is stirred and he wants to know something more about this man in Isaiah 53. Well, we know who that man was. That's the man Christ Jesus. He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. That's a great place to find somebody reading, isn't it? If you want an introduction to a sermon. So I see a lot of credentials about this man that he's honest. He has integrity. He's been given charge over a lot of stuff. His money has not changed his heart. Not only that, he's hungry for God's word. He was seeking the truth and he was poor in spirit. I don't know. I'm kind of reading these beatitudes here as I see this man. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those that are hungry and thirsty for righteousness. They shall be filled. Here is a man, I believe it's already a child of God. There's no question about it, before he ever gets to the evangelist, he's already a child of God. Now, we've got it backwards here today in our society. In modern day Christianity, we've got the evangelist going out and trying to make children of God. But in this old-fashioned conversion, we've got the evangelist out and he's trying to find the children of God. He's trying to tell them about their Savior, Jesus Christ. There's an immense difference in this. And this one, we got God coming first. The other way, we got people coming first. And I think God always comes first. He's always working in the heart first. If you've ever had to work a grace in your heart, I promise you, God got there before the preacher did. But I can tell you, the preacher is going to have some impact upon you if you belong to the Lord, because you're going to love truth and you're going to want to know more about it. That's one of the greatest evidence you'll ever have in your life, that you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, because you want to know about this man in Isaiah chapter 53. You want to know about the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. You want to know about the man who suffered for you. So we see his credentials. I don't think that Philip asked him to recite the sinner's prayer because it wasn't written yet. I don't think he asked him to go down the Romans road in Romans chapter 10 because it hadn't been written yet. And I don't think he asked him to do any of the other things that we hear today in modern day Christianity. I know I keep saying modern day Christianity, but it has changed. It has changed. And people no longer care for the good old-fashioned conversion of a sinner's heart being pricked by the message of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the only Savior of sinners. I can't save anybody, but I know the one who can, and I'll tell you about him. So as they come together, we find that he's riding along in this chariot, he's reading the Bible. That's a wonderful thing. You find somebody and they're riding along and they're reading their Bible. Don't do that while you're driving, by the way, if you're going home today on Interstate 30. Don't read the Bible while you're riding along. Now, I've done that a few times on the way to a meeting. I've had my Bible and my steering wheel. I've been trying to read about it and get my text there. But it's really not a very wise thing to be doing when you're traveling down the interstate. But if you're in a chariot, he's probably had somebody that was under him, a slave that was driving for him. He's not driving the chariot himself, but he's riding along in the chariot, and he's reading the Bible while he's cruising along there, and he's having some good meditation. And the Lord sends Philip over there to talk to him. He says, go draw thyself to the... or go... Join yourself to this chariot and Philip ran to catch up with him and he heard where he was reading from Isaiah. Now, he didn't get up there and start arguing with the man about where he had been or what he was doing or some deep theological, you know, concept. He just said, do you understand what you're reading? That's a great way to start a conversation, I think, is do you understand this or that? And he wanted to try to help the man understand. I can tell you the heart of a preacher. They want to help people understand things. That's my heart, is I like to help people understand the scriptures. And if I can do that, then I've fulfilled what I've been called to do. And the Ethiopian said, how can I accept some man should guide me? Now, if you want the job of a preacher or of an evangelist, a pastor, that's their job. They're to help people understand the word of God. That also means that you're probably reading the scriptures on your own by yourself at home. You got some questions, you need somebody to help you understand it. And I find that that is another great problem with much Christianity today is they're not reading the scriptures. That's why some people can say things to them about the Roman road or about reciting the sinner's prayer. And they hadn't read the Bible themself to know that nobody ever did that in the Bible. I don't mean, again, I'm not trying to criticize. I'm just trying to point out some things that I think are important for God's people to hopefully understand that can bring them more to a better knowledge of Jesus Christ and their relationship with him and what he has done for them. If you have a love for the Lord Jesus Christ this morning, it's because he loved you first and that he chose you before the world began that you belong to him, that you're going to live with him one day in glory. So as we read this, he joined himself, he said, do you understand what you are reading, and in verses 32 to 34. The place of the scripture which he read was this, he was led as a sheep to the slaughter and like a lamb done before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth and his humiliation, his judgment was taken away. Who shall declare his generation? Who's going to declare all this, my friends? Who's going to talk about Jesus Christ and his success? This is going to talk about his generation of people that he died for, that are going to live with him in heaven one day. You know, hopefully the evangelist will do that. The minister of the gospel will do that. And then his question to Philip is this. Who is the prophet talking about here? Is he talking about himself? Or some other person? Up to this point, the Ethiopian eunuch has no knowledge of Jesus Christ. Or if he does, he doesn't understand that that's what this verse of Scripture is referring to. But in verse 35, Philip opened his mouth and preached unto him Jesus. Now, if you turn back to Isaiah 53, which is something that we usually do when we come to this portion of Scripture, because we just like to show people where this man was reading. Of course, we understand this part of the Bible was already written in that day. The New Testament wasn't written, but this was written. And you read in Isaiah 53. In verse 3, he's despised, rejected of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. We hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, and we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions, and et cetera, et cetera. Now, we don't have the full sermon that Philip preached on that day. I'd like to have it. I'd like to know exactly what his points were. As a preacher, I would like to know what that sermon was. But if I were to speculate this morning, I would say that Philip probably said, that man is not talking about himself. The prophet is talking about the Lord Jesus Christ that was to come into this world and save his people from their sins by dying upon a cross. I believe that he would have talked about what happened in Jerusalem when Christ was born. that he would have talked about the wise men, that he would have talked about the star, he would have talked about the angelic visions, that he would have talked about the miracles that were performed. I think he would have talked about the teachings of Jesus Christ, that the man went about doing good, performing miracles, that he healed a man with a withered hand, that he healed an impotent man. I think he would have talked about sinners and how that the Lord Jesus Christ told the Pharisees, he that is without sin, let him cast the first stone. I think he would have talked about the Jesus Christ that rose from the grave and that he was seen of the apostles and then several others and that he walked upon the earth for 40 days and then he ascended into glory. I think he would have talked about the fact that the apostles began to spread the gospel in Jerusalem and places round about that they were in prison for it. And some of them, I think he would have talked about John the Baptist being put to death. I think it would have talked about even maybe Philip being stoned if that had happened. No, that hasn't happened yet, has it? But I think it would have filled him in on everything that had happened. I think it would have represented Jesus Christ as successful, not as somebody that came down from heaven to make man savable or to do the preliminary work so that the preachers could finish it up. I think he spoke of Jesus Christ as a savior of sinners that died for men and women upon the cross and that his blood was sufficient payment for their sins. And I think he would have talked about the day of Pentecost when three thousand were converted and they were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And we talked about the church and the precious saints that were there. And the goings on at the church and the fellowship of the saints, and and I tell you, when when he got through preaching and talking about all of that, the Ethiopian eunuch looked at him and said, Why can't I be baptized? That's basically what he said. He said, what does hinder me to be baptized on this wonderful story you've just told me about? You know, if I like the answer that Philip gave him. If you believe with all your heart. You may, it is a wonderful privilege to be baptized in the name of your savior, Jesus Christ, you may. That's an interesting question and a very important one. Because belief is the greatest evidence that you can find in a person's life that they are a child of God. Belief. Belief that Jesus Christ is who he claimed to be. Belief that Jesus Christ was verily God manifested in the flesh. Belief that Jesus Christ died for your sins. The book of First John is spoken of many times as the book of evidences, and there's a lot of evidences there that we look to to find. Am I a child of God? Am I going to heaven? Did Christ die for me? And you can read the book of First John and find a lot of evidences, and one of them is about belief. In First John 5 and 1, we read, Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. Pretty simple statement. That's about an elementary sentence there. It doesn't say if you will believe, but it says whosoever believe us. In other words, it's kind of like saying if you're if you're breathing, you're alive or if your heart is as beating, you're alive. It doesn't say if you'll get your heart to beat, you'll be alive today or if you'll start breathing, you'll be alive today. It's saying if you do this, if this is a part of your spiritual makeup, then you are a child. You're born of God. Let me give you the opposite of that. If you do not believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Then you're not born of God. Now, I know some people can be brainwashed and they can be confused. But it's always been. One of the primary evidences of the Christian church historically to understand that a person that believes in Jesus Christ is already a child of God. That's the evidence that any preacher is always looking for. Somebody were to come into our church this morning. And if they attended it for years and they came up to the front of this church and said, I'd like to be baptized, but I don't believe that Jesus Christ, the son of God, I can tell you, I'm not going to baptize. And they can haul me away and throw me in jail and cut my head off, but I would not do that. So what we have is a believer's baptism. Believer's baptism, that's what the church has always had. And when it comes to the partaking of the divine ordinances of the church, we have believers. When we partake of the bread and wine of the Lord's table, it's believers that partake of the Lord's table. Same thing. Same thing. That's why we have what's called closed communion. Some people have wondered, why do you have closed communion? And I respect that question. It's a good question. It's a question that people are thinking they want to ask that question. But that's the reason that we have it. It's not that we're trying to say that we are above anybody else. It's just saying that we want evidence. We want people to know that people are believers before they partake of those things. And, you know, when we're talking about the ordinances, we're talking about baptism. It's a figure of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And we baptize people. And that's the way that God has called upon them to confess that this death, burial and resurrection was for me. I believe this was for me. So I want to declare it publicly. And when, as a church body, we meet together and we partake of the bread and the wine, which we're going to in a few weeks at our communion table, we are saying something there. It's symbolic. We see the blood, the wine represents the blood of Jesus Christ that paid for our sins. We see the body, the bread is the body that suffered for our sins. But it's believers that make that confession. And somebody might say, well, I believe and I would like to do that with you. And of course, that's easy. Be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and make that confession. And you can observe that that ordinance as well. So he's qualifying Philip here, and I think he already knew before he said anything to him. But another interesting point here, as I said, this is full of information. If you really examine everything that's going on here from every angle. And if we believed if Philip believed in baptismal regeneration, I'll just mention that he wouldn't have asked him any of those questions. He would have just said, let me baptize you so that you can be regenerated. But he already knew the man was a believer. He already knew this man was hungry and thirsty. So anybody that would believe in baptismal regeneration, which was, you know, has been something that's been taught in places. Then obviously, he would have jumped on and baptized him immediately. But he believed before he was baptized. He was alive spiritually before he's baptized, you know, the Apostle Paul, when he wrote the letter to the church at Corinth, he said, I thank God I baptized none of you except Christos and Gaius. And you mentioned a few. He wasn't a minister of the gospel just to count how many people he could baptize. He wanted. to convert them, that they would walk in a way honorable of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We like to baptize people. I like to baptize people. I like to see people make a confession of Jesus Christ. I like to see the church enlarged. But we want to see believers confessing and wanting to do so. So another interesting thing as we read this, we find that The Ethiopian eunuch was not only asking the question, but he was things started clicking in his mind as he was talking to to the evangelist. And apparently they'd come to a pool of water and. He said, see, here is water, what does hinder me to be baptized, so. I feel quite certain that when Philip was preaching to him, he must have talked about what baptism was, that it's not sprinkling water upon your head. Now, again, I'm not trying to run anybody down. I'm just trying to point out what happened here. You know they had a canteen in the chariot. I mean, if this man's traveled across the desert, you know he's got some water with him. And these are all doctrinal points that the Bible, the Bible is not using all this ink to tell us all these little details just to take up space in the Bible. This is to try to keep us on the right track as Christians, that we would do things the way God wants us to do them. Some people think we're being critical when we mention things and we're not being critical. We're just trying to show you that this is what is in the scriptures. And so rather than sprinkling, it says they both got out of the chariot and they went down into the water. into the water with both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. That means that he immersed him. The word baptized means to immerse or to dip. And so he immersed him. And as we read the spirit of the Lord called Philip, the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing. And I rejoice when somebody is baptized and I rejoice when I was baptized. That was a great blessing in my life. And Another thing we notice here is that when he preached Jesus and he said, what hinders me to be baptized? The the evangelist didn't say, well, we've got a series of classes you need to attend and all notebook we're going to give you. We want you to study this before you're going to be admitted into our church. And we want you to go through a series of of lectures and then you can be a member of the church. You don't find any. I know that's getting popular Christianity today. But when he saw the person was was a believer, they were ready to baptize him. Now, where did this man go after his baptism? I know that some people might think that he was baptized all out on his own. He was never a member of a church. You know, I don't believe that we read, you know, where these people, all of them were members of churches. It's most commonly believed that. He became a member of the church there at Jerusalem. And so some people have asked the question, would you become a member of the church before you're baptized or after you're baptized? And so, you know, you can ask that question. I'm going to tell you, I think it's about the same time for me. I think that, you know, the church, usually the way we do it is that people come before. We've got organized churches now, which they didn't have so much in that day. So I believe this man became a member of the church there at Jerusalem where he probably had attended and heard some things. And that's where Philip was operating out of. And so that was a large church. And I believe he became a member of that church. So that's just a good old fashioned conversion. A lot of information there. I hope I didn't hurt anybody's feelings about any of the comments I made about anything else. It wasn't intended to do so. It's just to try to help you with some terminology and see some things that happened in the very beginning of the church. And I've got family members in a lot of different kinds of churches. I love every one of them and they're good people. And, you know, we disagree on some things in the scriptures and. I'm sure when we get to heaven, the Lord's going to straighten us all out and let us know where we're wrong and where we're right. But I'm trying to give you what the word of God has to say in my study. So I trust it's a blessing to you and no one's been offended by anything. If you're here this morning, you'd like to be a member of our church by letter or baptism. We give you that opportunity as we stand and sing. Thank you for visiting Harmony Primitive Baptist Church. This has been Elder Neal Phelan, Jr. preaching for regular Sunday morning services.