Acts chapter 8, and in a moment we'll begin reading in verse 26. The last few weeks, under the heading Religious Confusion, we've been studying how the poor Samaritans, from a thousand year long history of rebellion against God and a state of confusion as to religion, were sent the good news of Jesus Christ. When, in the persecution by Saul, After the stoning of Stephen, the disciples of Jesus Christ were scattered all over Judea and Samaria. Philip, one of the seven, full of the Holy Spirit, went down to Samaria and preached the Lord Jesus Christ there. And the Samaritans, many of them, the account reads as if it were all of them, so it was at least very many of them, believed the good news about Jesus Christ. and were baptized. And so, the salvation that God was bringing, He was sending beyond just Jerusalem and Judea and the Jews, He was sending it on to the Samaritans, the mixed up remnants of the old Israel. And then, right when Philip was in the middle of preaching to this great response in Samaria, the Lord sent him out into a nowhere place in the desert. And there we will see that as if it were not enough grace from the Lord that he sent salvation to the rebellious and idolatrous and mixed-up Samaritans, now he will send his salvation to someone even more unlikely. and will cause even a foreigner and eunuch to be told the good news and brought into the kingdom of heaven. Acts chapter 8, starting in verse 26. Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is desert. So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And sitting in his chariot he was reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the spirit said to Philip, Go near and overtake this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah and said, Do you understand what you are reading? And he said, How can I, unless someone guides me? And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. The place in the scripture which he read was this. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation his justice was taken away, and who will declare his generation? For his life is taken the earth." So the eunuch answered Philip and said, I ask you, of whom the prophet say this? Of himself or some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this scripture, preached Jesus to him. Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, See? Water! What hinders me from being baptized? Let's see today how the Lord's grace was poured out on even a foreigner and eunuch. Will you notice with me first this foreigner and eunuch situation in life? Well, if I'm calling him a foreigner, obviously he's a foreigner. Not that he was a foreigner in his own country, of course. But as regards Israel, as regards God's nation, he was an alien. He was a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, outside of Israel's covenant relationship with God. Also, he was a eunuch. That is, he had undergone castration, a physical mutilation that actually opened the door to the situation of power and wealth that he was in. You see, someone had subjected him, probably when he was a boy, to horribly painful humiliating mutilation of the flesh, which would involve at least castration and sometimes complete emasculation. It had been, of course, someone else's sin that did that to him, but now it was him who had to live with that. But this cutting and this cutting off of part of his body was the defining moment of his life up to that point, because it set the course for what his whole life would be like. Because he had undergone that physical mutilation, he was allowed to enter the service of the queen of that country. You see, eunuchs were highly valuable servants to kings and queens now this is so far removed from us and thank God it is that we don't think in these terms but let's pause and consider this unpleasant situation for a moment to understand what it was like to be a eunuch at that time you see a eunuch with part of his body having been cut off He will have very little temptation to any sort of sexual sins with the queen and the other women in the palace. He won't be driven to that all of the time like he would have been if left in his normal condition. And so for that reason, a eunuch is very valuable to a king and queen to be in his or her service in the palace. Also, and I have read that sometimes this was the more important consideration, a unit with that mutilation having been done to his body, he no longer can father any children. Therefore, he is not tempted to try to gain the throne and establish a dynasty for himself. You know, in a country where We are blessed with periodic elections. Choose a new person to be the governor and a new person to be the president every so many years and we have a long tradition of peaceful transition from one ruler to another. Well, we don't deal with this. But most of the world doesn't live in that blessed situation that we are in. Most of the world deals with dictators and emperors and kings and queens. And you see, when a king is ruling on his throne, he wants to have his son rule after him, and that son after him, so that a thousand years from now, he is known as King So-and-So the First, the founder of this great dynasty, and he pictures himself living in glory in that way. And always, the people around him who have power in his government are likely to be thinking I could somehow get him off the throne and me on. And then my son would be king after me and I would be king so and so the first founder of this great dynasty. But a eunuch knows that he will never have a son. And he therefore can be trusted more than other officials not to be plotting to try to seize power. Because of these two effects, eunuchs were very valuable in the court of these ancient rulers. I'm saying ancient, but in some of the countries of the world, this practice lasted into the 20th century. Well, in the course time, this particular eunuch had risen in rank until we are told here in the scriptures, he was the Queen's chief treasurer, in charge of all her wealth, a very, very high position in that country's government, and it was that mutilation of his flesh long ago that opened the door to him being in that position of power and wealth. But that same mutilation that had opened that door for him to power and wealth during his lifetime also had cut off his hope for the future. As I mentioned, of course, he could have no children. And when he died, that would be the end for him. He would not have a son on the throne and a grandson on the throne. His name would be remembered only briefly and then forgotten. He would not have his name in the records and annals of the kings and would not be famous. He would not have a pyramid built in his honor or a grand monument. His name would be forgotten. His name would not be remembered by any sons of his. His sons would not be known as so-and-so, son of so-and-so. There wouldn't be any of that for him. There would be no grandchildren of his telling stories of what he was like. When this life was over, that would be all for him. His name would not be remembered in any genealogies, so that ten generations from now, someone is still reciting his heritage and his name is in it. There was no such thing for this eunuch and I'm sure he knew it well. So that's the situation that this foreigner and eunuch was in. Now, perhaps already you see a little something of yourself in this foreigner and eunuch situation. Are you a stranger to God's church? You didn't grow up going to church. Your parents don't go to church. You don't really know much of what the Bible says. You've hardly ever read it. And being in an assembly like this, in a church building with church people, you just feel like you are a fish out of water. You feel like this is not where you belong. You don't belong here. You feel like a stranger in God's church. Or, have you had things done to you in this life that make you feel like you are damaged or scarred? And perhaps I think of all the good church people that you're with or around. Perhaps you think that you're not in the same class or category with them. Or is it perhaps that you have done things to yourself or done things yourself that have left you in some way, whether in your body or in your spirit, somehow polluted or marred or scarred and you feel like you're not suitable for being close to God and to God's people? Or do you perhaps have some sort of physical deformity from birth? Or some sort of physical deformity from an accident? Or do you have some sort of disease, chronic condition that makes you feel like you just really can never be quite right anymore? Or maybe can you see that that nothing really bad has been done to like I was talking about. You aren't really a stranger to church. You've been in God's church before. But your sin against God, your rebellion against God's law has left you serrated from his favor. You see yourself as sitting in a church building and yet far, far, far from God and from heaven. Well, if you can see yourself as somehow reflected in this foreigner and eunuch, then maybe you'll see some parallel between your religious experience and this foreigner and eunuch's religious experience. Let's think about this for a moment. What do we know about this eunuch and foreigner's religious experience? Well, as all men do, he knew there was a God. You don't need the Bible for that. to know that this world didn't get to be how it is by accident. He knew there was a God, and of course he wanted God to be pleased with him. Everyone does. If there's anyone who is much more powerful than you, you want that person to like you, or at the very least, to leave you alone. And everyone wants God to be pleased with them and do good things for them, or at the very least, leave them alone. Well, evidently he found no fulfillment of these concerns in the religion that he grew up in. Whatever religion it was that he had as an Ethiopian. And of course, this was this was before Islam. And so although that region of the world, which is called Ethiopia here, but would be pretty much equivalent to modern day Sudan. Although there's a lot of Islam there now, and some Christianity, thank God, those religions did not exist at the time. So whatever kind of pagan religion he was in, he didn't find satisfaction in that evidently. But he had come to know about Yahweh, Jehovah, the God of Israel. What providence of God was it that caused him, a thousand miles from Jerusalem, to know about the one God. Well, who can tell? Some sort of trading between the two countries? Some travel by a Jewish merchant? There's no way to know. But somehow, in God's providence, he had found out about the one true God. And what grace it was for God to do this for him. To share the knowledge of the one true God. All that distance from the land of Canaan. Well, God had said that he came to know about him. And then this man, as part of his religious efforts, had taken this tremendous journey, religious pilgrimage, to worship in Jerusalem. The Bible doesn't say exactly where he lived, and so it's impossible to say. But we're talking about more than a thousand miles worth of travel, riding in a horse-drawn chariot. And that's a very long trip. That's a little bit of a long trip driving in a car. But by horse-drawn chariot, it's a very long trip. He would have had to take leave of his duties as treasurer for some months to do this and travel a thousand miles and more? Well, I'd like to pause there for a moment and ask, is that perhaps you have done? Have you started going someplace as part of your religion, your efforts to get right with God? Have you started bowing to church or going to the bookstore, or going to conferences, or going somewhere. Have you done what this man did? Decided that if you just could go to the right religious center, then you could find some way to be in right relationship with God? Well, that's what he had done, but he had not found what he needed in Jerusalem. He needed somehow to know that he was in God's favor. That he was not an enemy of God, but a friend of God. And he hadn't been able to find that in Jerusalem. You see, in Jerusalem, he was a foreigner, a Gentile, an Iliad, not an Israelite. And so, not allowed into the temple. And there were walls and gates and armed guards by those gates and signs warning that Gentiles would be killed if they tried to pass that gate through the wall into the inner courts of God's temple. So he was limited to being in the outer courts called the courts of the Gentiles. But what was the situation there? Well, as Jesus told the people, those courts, that temple, that temple was supposed to be called a house of prayer for all nations. But what had the rulers of the temple done to those outer courts, the courts of the Gentiles? They had made deals with the merchants and the bankers. not to provide an honest service to the travelers who came as pilgrims, but to set up tables where they would cheat the pilgrims as part of providing them the animals they needed for sacrifice and the currency they needed for the temple. And so there were merchants and bankers cheating the pilgrims who came up to work right where the Lord had said it should be a house of prayer. So imagine the eunuch having made this thousand mile pilgrimage to try to find peace with God came into the outer courts of this temple only to find that it had become a den of robbers. Well, while there He could easily have heard what the law said in the Old Testament law. In Deuteronomy 23.1, as in some other places, the Old Covenant law said that anyone who had undergone that castration or emasculation could not be part of the assembly of Israel. the assembly of the Lord. It's a little hard to know exactly what is meant from that. What exactly they would have been excluded from or allowed to be in. But here in the very place where he was seeking some sort of peace with God, he's told that because of what has been done to him, he can never have a full status in the assembly of Yahweh. Well, what if he heard the teaching there in Jerusalem. What if in the temple courts, in the courts of the Gentiles, some of the chief priests, the Sadducees were teaching. What would he have been taught there? What hope would there have been given to him? Well, those Sadducees didn't believe in an afterlife. They believed that when this life is over, that's all there is. And so this poor man that was so distressed by the fact that there was nothing remaining for him when this light over the Sadducees would have just affirmed him in that despair. Well, what about the Pharisees teaching in the courts or in the synagogues? What would he have heard from them? They would have said to him, if you want to be right with God, you must keep all of these laws. But they would have been talking about the laws God really gave. They would have been talking about their own traditional rules that they had made on top of the laws that God really gave. And the one point that they would have insisted on the strongest, if you Ethiopian eunuch who has come a thousand miles as a religious pilgrim to try to worship Yahweh here in Jerusalem. If you want to be accepted by Yahweh, there is one main thing that you must do, and what is it? Be circumcised. Here this eunuch who has had this mutilation of flesh done to him, and that is the defining thing in his life, he will be told, Further mutilation is necessary for you to become part of the city of God. So has he in Jerusalem found all the fulfillment that he is after? Has he been promised anything real, anything effective? Has he been told there that long ago Abraham believed God when He was not circumcised? And so is the Father of all of those who have trusted in God even though they're not circumcised, and so been justified in God's eyes? No, He hasn't been told that. He's been told, if you want to be acceptable to God, then start by being circumcised, and then follow all of our rules, and then maybe. And so he left from there with his need to be assured of favor of God unfulfilled. Further in part of his religious experience was this. He had tried and failed to understand the scriptures. Apparently, he had bought a copy of the Old Testament or some of it, at least Isaiah, while he was in Jerusalem. and was reading it on the way home. Now, that would have been expensive. You know, you can pick up a whole Bible for 50 cents at any Goodwill or dress sale. Or you could probably just been given one by anybody who's got a stack of them. But that wasn't the case then. You know, they had to be hand copied and that wasn't done lightly or inexpensively. He had to shell out some money for what he had, but it was well worth it, he obviously thought. Indeed it was. But when he went to read the scriptures, he couldn't understand the meaning of what he was reading. So there's the situation of this man as far as his religious experience. Now, is some of that sounding familiar to you? You feel like a foreigner to God and His Church, but when you try to go somewhere to find the truth about being right with God, well, what do you see? You go to church and you see arguing between factions and denominations of churches. You see the modern-day equivalent of the Phagecees and Pharisees. You get messages that are only good for this life. Messages about how to be healthy and rich in this life. You get messages about how you must keep this man-made rule or keep that man-made rule according to different factions and denominations. And so you try to read the Bible. Get your own copy and dive in and read it. But although you basically understand the words, you really don't understand what you're reading. You don't really understand what it's getting at. Well, that is the Ethiopian's religious experience also. Now that we've had a look here and see what this foreigner and eunuch situation was in life, and we've looked and seen what this foreigner and eunuch's religious experience was up to that point, Well, let's look next and see the great love of God for that foreigner and eunuch. Now, as we have already read a little while ago, God had promised long before that he would bring the foreigner to his holy mountain, that he would make him joyful in his house of prayer and would accept his sacrifices. God had been loving this foreigner all along. And had He set that love down in black and white hundreds of years before that the foreigner would not be hated by the Lord and excluded, but would be loved by the Lord. God had promised long before that the eunuch would not forever be a dry tree. A dry tree, that's an interesting metaphor, isn't it? A tree that doesn't have any fruit on it. Like a eunuch who can never have any children, any offspring. Well, God had promised that the eunuch would not forever be a dry tree with no children by whom his name could be remembered. Because instead of that being the case, God would make of the eunuch a monument in his house. In God's temple, God would set up the eunuch as a monument with everlasting name. What God would do for the eunuch would be better than have sons and daughters. In the evil of this world, part of the eunuch's body had cut off. which had been led to him himself being cut off from so much. But God in love would give even the eunuch a place in his temple and an everlasting name that would never be cut off. But of course, as yet, the foreigner and eunuch could not see how this could be. He did not understand what the Scriptures said. So God, in great love, sent Philip, a preacher of the good news, to him, personally. God, in great love for the Samaritans, had sent them Philip to preach to their whole city. But God doesn't love multitudes because they are so many. He loves those for whom Christ died because they are His. And He is willing, if needed, to send the preacher to go down into the desert to an obscure place and preach just to one. And in this case, God did that very thing for this Ethiopian. Now, do you see that this is not just about the Ethiopian? The Bible says that God loves people who do not of Him, or do not even know who He is. This is grace. This is what we mean by grace when we say that all the time. God favoring people who do not deserve His favor, but only His anger. God loves those who are unlovely, unlovable. God loves men and women and boys and girls who have been messed up by the sinfulness of the world. Despite the damage done to them by this world, and even the damage that people do to themselves in consequence of their own sin, God loves even sinful people. And we see in this story the great love of God even for the sinner and eunuch. So then, take note, if you would, of the amazing salvation, the saving, that God has done for this foreigner and eunuch. As already observed, God moved this man to get a copy of the scriptures and to read it. And then God sent a preacher right to him. Did you notice the preacher had to run to get there? Philip was told he needed to go catch up with the chariot. So on foot, out in the depth, he has to go catch up with a horse-drawn vehicle. So the preacher had to run and was willing and ran up and hearing the Ethiopian reading aloud, he said, do you understand what you're reading? Now, God granted this great man the humility to admit that he did not understand what he was reading. Now, think for a moment of the highest officials in government. like we have a Secretary of the Treasury and and think for a moment. If the Secretary of the Treasury were asked by some humble looking person along the road. Do you understand what you're reading? Wouldn't it be a miracle of the Lord? Not really a miracle in the technical sense. Wouldn't it have to be a work of the Lord in that high government official to just admit, I don't understand what I'm reading. How could I? I have a guide to guide me. That's not the spirit of working our flesh, is it? It's not the spirit of this age in this world to admit that you don't understand. the spirit of our age is to pretend you do understand or to convince yourself that you do understand when you don't. But God granted the necessary humility to this high government official to admit that he did not understand but needed a guide. And then he invited Philip to come up into the chariot with him and sit with him and teach him. And so through the preacher Studying the written scriptures, God showed this foreigner and eunuch how the scriptures he was reading point to salvation in Jesus Christ. How this thing that he has been seeking, favor with God, being sure that he is in favor with God, that it is to be had in Jesus Christ. What we see in verses 32 and 33 are a quotation from the writings of the prophet Isaiah, roughly 700 years before. And they are in our way of numbering from Isaiah chapter 53. He was reading there in Isaiah chapter 53, a man, and this is said about him, that like a sheep, he allowed it up to be taken, not fighting against it. And he was in a very humble state. He was in a state of humiliation. And in that state, he was deprived of justice, as of course many who are in a state of humiliation often are. You see, the Son of God has in His character perfect justice. The Son of God is infinitely more powerful than any creature. He always could insist on perfect justice being done. But in order to glorify God by saving sinful people, He had humbled Himself to become a man, and as a man in that humble situation, he was pried of justice by men, condemned to death as guilty, when actually he was innocent." Now, don't be confused on that point as to God's justice. Because when God had His Son put to death, He was put to death as guilty, because although He was innocent, He took the sins of sinners upon Himself. counted himself as guilty for our sake. And God counted him guilty for our sake. So he was killed as guilty on behalf of sinners. But as human relationships, those in the government who declared him deserving of death denied him justice, were treating him unjustly. And it also says there of him that he has no children. More specifically, he has no generation. He has no children because he was killed without having any. None could speak of the children of Jesus of Nazareth. For he had none. He was killed without having had any. Phillip went on from there. And perhaps reading the rest of Isaiah 53, which is wonderful reading about Christ, That's going on to Isaiah 56, where eunuchs are promised a place in the temple. And then, of course, going on to his personal knowledge of all that had happened with Jesus. He tells the eunuch that it is Jesus of Nazareth who allowed himself to be arrested by corrupt men. If you want to know who the prophet was talking about, He's talking about events of not long ago. Because it was Jesus who allowed himself to be considered guilty. Taking upon himself the sins of sinners like you and like me. It's Jesus who was killed to take the penalty that the Ethiopian deserved because of his sin. But then he would tell the Ethiopian something that was the most glorious thing of it all. that Jesus, having been killed as prophesied in Isaiah, was also raised to life, and is now seated on the throne of heaven, and is dispensing forgiveness of sins to all who will turn away from their sins and trust in Him. Well, then God granted to this man, this foreigner in Munich, He granted to this man faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. who had been foretold in the prophecy and preached by Philip. God granted the foreigner a unique faith in Jesus Christ and repentance from sin unto life. The man then gave outward expression to that by asking for baptism. Well, we know from what is recorded of people preaching, we don't get to hear what Philip said to him, in other places in the scriptures there are records of what the preachers preached and they would say at the end something like this repent and be baptized or believe in Jesus Christ and be baptized now the being baptized is not the faith the being baptized is not the repentance sin but the being baptized is what you do in response When you have believed in Christ, when you have repented of sin, you are now saved the wrath of God to come. You're adopted as a child of God. Well, then you submit to baptism as an outward expression of that. And so at some point in Philip speaking to him, the man understood that the response of the believer in Christ is that he seeks baptism. And so the man asked this wonderful rhetorical question, what hinders me from being baptized? Well, as we've already discussed, being a foreigner and a eunuch, he was hindered at every turn from being a full member of the nation of Israel. But what hindered him from being baptized and being a full member of God's new covenant church? What hindered him from being baptized and being a citizen of the kingdom of heaven? Did being a foreigner hinder him from that? He was realizing that the answer was no. Being a foreigner doesn't hinder him from being baptized and enjoying the full benefits of the Kingdom of God. Does being a eunuch hinder him? No. Does having sinned originally in Adam hinder him? No. Does having sinned in his own life in rebellion against God, does that hinder him from being baptized? No. All of that sin is forgiven, paid for by Jesus Christ. Well, he's lived his whole life in ignorance, not knowing about Jesus Christ. Does that hinder him now from being baptized? No. He had attempted a false religious experience in Jerusalem. He had gone up to Jerusalem where the entire religious system had rejected the Messiah when he came. It was now entirely a false religious system. He had sought God there in false religion. Does that hinder him now from being baptized? No. No, for someone who has heard about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and having heard about that, turns away from sin toward God, trusting in Jesus Christ for forgiveness, there is nothing to separate him from the full fellowship that God's church has with him in Jesus Christ, and so there is nothing to keep him from being baptized. What about you? What hinders you from being baptized? Now, by being baptized here, I don't mean that... Just a moment, let me get my straight before I speak. By being baptized, I mean being baptized because you truly trust in Jesus Christ. because you have turned away from sin and are following the Lord Jesus Christ as His disciple. I don't mean just getting dunked. That has no real meaning. I mean, what's keeping you from being baptized if you truly trust in Jesus Christ for forgiveness? Well, what about the fact that you didn't go to church as a kid? That really you're kind of a stranger in this environment. You don't know the hymns, and you don't know how to find the book of Hezekiah in your Bible. That's a little joke, there's no book of Hezekiah. You don't know how to find any place in the Bible, and you don't know what half of the churchy words mean. Does that hinder you from being baptized? No, if you've trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, turning away from your sins to follow Him, then being previously a stranger to God's church does not keep you from being baptized. What about the fact that you have had horrible things done to you by the sinful people of this world? Does that hinder you? Are you somehow now damaged goods that will not be received by the Lord? No. No, that does not hinder you from being baptized and having the full fellowship of the Lord and His church. Does the fact that you have done horrible things yourself to the great damage of yourself or someone else, does that hinder you? No, it does not hinder you. Nothing, nothing hinders you from being baptized if you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ turning away from your sins. you who trust in the Lord for forgiveness. Turn from your sins, repenting. This promise applies to you. This is from Revelation chapter 3. I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. I'm speaking figuratively, not literally a temple. I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out no more I write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down out of heaven from God. And I will write on him my new name." Now, this was true for this foreigner and eunuch. And it's true for you. Nothing hinders you. It will trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, turning from your sins. Nothing hinders you from being baptized and having the full enjoyment of all the benefits of God in Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray to the Lord over this.