"The Ethiopian Eunuch" (Acts 8:26-40)

Transcript:

Well, let's stand together as we hear the reading of God's word this morning. Our sermon text is from Acts, chapter 8, verses 26 through 40. If you have a pew Bible, this is on page. Starts on page 1089. 1089.

And again it's Acts, chapter 8, starting in verse 26. Hear now the word of the Lord. Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go toward the south, to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert place. And he rose and went.

And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot. And he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, do you understand what you are reading?

And he said, how can I unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now, the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this. Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter. And like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth.

In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation for his life is taken away from the earth. And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom I ask you, does the prophet say this about himself or about someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture, he told them the good news about Jesus. And as they were going along the road, they came to some water.

And the eunuch said, see, here is water. What prevents me from being baptized? And he commanded the chariot to stop. And they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord carried Philip away.

And the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way, rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus. And as he passed through, he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Please be seated. And as you're taking your seats, let's join our hearts in prayer as we prepare to study this passage. Gracious heavenly Father, we do pray that you would pour out your spirit, that you would fill us with your spirit, that you would give us hearts to understand, eyes to see and ears to hear all that is contained in the good news of the gospel of your son Jesus, by whose conception and Birth and life and death and burial and resurrection on the third day. And ascension into heaven has purchased salvation for all the ends of the earth, of which we also are recipients. And we pray that you would help us and lead us, whether for the first time or the thousandth time, to lay hold of those promises afresh.

And so we pray all this in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.

Well, in this morning's text, we find a model, a very early model in the Book of Acts for evangelism, although we've seen some of that, but particularly for missions, foreign missions. Christianity is a missionary faith. The word missionary simply means to be sent. And the missionary nature of Christianity really started with Jesus. Jesus is the eternal Son of God who was sent from heaven by his Father to come into this world, born as a little baby, which we celebrate every year at this time of year, although the significance of this is certainly year round.

And when Jesus Christ had finished the work that his Father had sent him to accomplish, then as Jesus ascended into heaven, he sent his people to bear witness to him and to what he had accomplished for the salvation of, of the world. And this is still our mission today, to bear witness to Jesus, to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus in this way. But the key is not only that we are sent. We're not just to go about and see ourselves as general, generic do gooders. We are also sent with a particular message, a message to proclaim.

And that's what makes this particular passage so wonderful. You see the way the Holy Spirit sends Philip, and you see also the way the Holy Spirit uses the Scriptures, the word of God, particularly in the Old Testament, to bear witness to what Jesus Christ had done, even to this man who represented the far ends of the earth. And the passage that we're reading today and looking at, quoting Isaiah, chapter 53, showing forth Jesus Christ and him crucified, is still what the great apostle Paul declared to be his exclusive focus and must still be ours. He said, for I decided to to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. So as we take up the work of evangelism and missions, we do so because what Jesus did as the suffering servant who suffered and died on the cross, because this is our only hope, the only hope for us, the only hope for the nations and for the whole world.

So our theme today is that the Gospel of Christ crucified announces salvation to the end of the earth. The Gospel of Christ crucified announces salvation to the end of the earth. And we'll see this in three parts. This morning. First, a sent servant.

A sent servant. That's that missionary nature. Second, the suffering servant. The suffering servant. This is Jesus Christ and him crucified.

And then third, saving faith. Saving faith. So we'll start first with a sent servant in verses 26 through 31. Now, we should remember what leads up to this passage, that the man that we are seeing here, this man named Philip, Philip was one of the people who had opened up Samaria by preaching the gospel in Samaria. And once the gospel had begun to take root in Samaria, the apostles Peter and John came up and laid hands on the Samaritans.

So the Holy Spirit fell upon the Samaritans as well. And this follows the pattern that Jesus had outlined for his disciples. He said, you will be my witnesses first in Jerusalem and Judea, then in Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth. Now the Gospel will really start to reach out into the ends of the earth, beginning in chapter two. And we'll look at that story of Cornelius and the way that Peter is sent to Cornelius to bring the Gospel to a Gentile there when we get to Acts, chapter 10.

Before we get there, we have to read about the great apostle to the Gentiles, Paul and his conversion, the conversion of a man named Saul in Acts, chapter nine. But right now, we're seeing the foretaste of this. We're seeing the first fruits of the Gospel going out to the nations of the world by one of the members of the nations in Ethiopian who had come near to Jerusalem to worship. And so Philip is sent from wherever he was, from Samaria. And the angel of the Lord we read in verse 26, tells Philip, Rise and go down toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.

And this was a deserted place, a desert place. Now, the story here, if you're familiar with the Old Testament, a lot of people notice this sounds very similar to the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, where the Holy Spirit would just tell them where to go. You're going to go to here, you're going to go to this widow. You're going to. And sometimes they would bring people to them, Naaman the Syrian.

And so not only were they sent here and there by the Holy Spirit, but Jesus himself observes in Luke chapter four, that the ministries of Elijah and Elisha were particularly marked because they were constantly being sent. And people were being sent to them not from the house of Israel, but from the Gentiles. The Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament and the New Testament had always been sent by missionaries to the Gentiles as well. But here, now that Jesus Christ has come, now that Jesus Christ had fulfilled the promises, now that Jesus Christ had done all that he had been sent by his Father to accomplish, and now that he is back reigning at the right hand of his Father in heaven, there's a new zeal for missions. There's a new energy, there's a new propulsion that is not merely waiting on people to come and see, but that sends missionaries to reach people into the far corners of the earth.

And so here we have a man, an Ethiopian. Ethiopia is not where modern day Ethiopia is. This would have been the ancient Nubian Empire. If you're looking at a modern map, this would be the country of Sudan. And this man from this modern day country of Sudan, this Ethiopian, these would be what the Old Testament called the people of Cush.

These were black skinned Africans. And it was to him that was the first Gentile to whom God sent a missionary to declare the gospel of Jesus. Now, the nation of Ethiopia is particularly important because in the minds of Greeks and Romans, Ethiopia was this exotic place that represented the far ends of the earth. And the representative from this place, having come to Jerusalem, is now headed back to Ethiopia. And as he's doing so, he's reading the gospel or, well, what's sometimes called the fifth gospel, the Gospel from the Old Testament, Isaiah, and trying to puzzle out who is this figure who's being read about.

But before we get to what he's reading, we should also not miss the fact that this man is a eunuch. This man would have been castrated in order to serve as a court official, or particularly here as the treasurer. For the Candace. Candace was not a name, it was a title like Pharaoh or Czar or something like that. Candace was the Candace, the queen, the queen of the Ethiopians.

And this eunuch was a servant in her court. However, he had just come back from Jerusalem and as a eunuch, as one who was disfigured in this way, he was disqualified to come into the courtyard of the temple according to the regulations of the Old Testament. So this is a man who's particularly important. He's far off, he represents the ends of the earth. But not only that, he is ceremonially disqualified from actually entering into worship inside the temple courtyard like the rest of the Israelites could go to.

But here we see a man for whom the Gospel of Jesus holds better promises than what even the Old Covenant could, could offer to him. Now, as he's reading the word that is in Isaiah and He's reading to this. And Philip asks, do you understand what you were reading? And he doesn't understand. And he says, how can I unless someone guides him?

And so Philip comes up, and here's what he is reading. And he's reading something from Isaiah, chapter 53. Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter. And like a lamb before its sheer silence, so he opens, not his. Now, we'll get to the rest of that passage in a moment.

But what's important is that's from Isaiah 53. This eunuch, some people speculate, may have been studying the book of Isaiah, particularly because just three chapters later, in Isaiah chapter 56, we find a great promise of God given to eunuchs and foreigners particularly. I want to read this passage from Isaiah chapter 56. Starting in verse three, the word of the Lord says this. Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, the Lord will surely separate me from his people.

And let not the eunuch say, behold, I am a dry tree. In other words, incapable of reproduction. For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, as this man had to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord and to be his servants.

Everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it and holds fast my covenant. These I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar. For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.

What we are seeing here is the fulfillment of that particular scripture, at least the first part of the fulfillment of this, as the Scriptures are declared, as a lot is going on here about you have this man from the far ends of the earth, a Gentile, a eunuch to whom the Holy Spirit had sent Philip to evangelize this man. The Holy Spirit is clearly at work here, not only to send Philip, but also to open this eunuch to invite eagerly a teacher who could guide him to understand what he's reading and in the Scripture. But it's a scripture passage that he's reading is the next section. We need to turn our attention to where we see a glimpse of the suffering servant. That's the second section, the suffering servant, in verses 32 to 35, where we see the Holy Spirit continue to work in and through the word of God that had been declared hundreds of years before this scene.

So again, Starting in verse 32, I'm going to read this whole passage, verse 32 and 33. This is the passage of Scripture that he was reading. Like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter. And like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation, justice was denied him.

Who can describe his generation for his life is taken away from the earth. Now, this is From Isaiah, chapter 53, verses 7 through 8, from the song of the Suffering Servant that we often read, particularly around Good Friday, as a very precise and vivid depiction and prophecy of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world by laying down his own life as a sacrifice for his people. But of all the parts of this passage, it's really interesting which section the eunuch is reading and studying here, particularly in verse 33, where we read this question. Who can describe his generation? In other words, who can describe the offspring of this man?

Now, the problem with this man depicted in the prophecy is not that he is a eunuch. The reason that the generations of this man are in question is because, as the next line says, for his life is taken away from the earth. But here's this eunuch trying to understand, how is it that there can be generations for someone who is dead? And then just a few chapters later, how can God promise a better name than sons and daughters In Isaiah, chapter 56, an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. He's wrestling with these questions and what Philip does, starting in verse 34, when the eunuch says to him, about whom I ask you, does the prophet say this about himself or about someone else?

Philip, we read, then opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news. In other words, he preached the gospel to him. Good news is another word for gospel about Jesus. Now, he probably started with these two verses, but the rest of that passage in the immediate surrounding context is so vivid to tell us about who Jesus was and what he did. Isaiah 53, verse 5.

Right before the passage the Ethiopian eunuch was reading, we read that he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds we are Healed. Then right after this passage or the two verses that the eunuch is reading, we read, they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death.

And then verse 10, the prophecy shifts to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, where we read that he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The one who died will somehow prolong his days. The will of the Lord will prosper in his hands. In other words, this is a gospel that was announced even in the Old Testament about the coming Savior, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who would suffer and bleed and die and be buried and on the third day rise again from the dead.

And this prophecy, which had captured the minds of so many generations of Israelites and foreigners like this Ethiopian who had converted, who were trying to wrestle out and tease out what is this about.

He now lives in an age, although so many hundreds of years had passed since it was originally preached, where that gospel, that promise, had been fulfilled. And it became the gospel that Peter preached to Jews in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. And it was the same gospel that Philip and then Peter and John had just finished preaching throughout the region of Samaria. And now, as Philip preaches this gospel to a single member of his audience, to one Ethiopian eunuch in particular, symbolically, this is the first scattering of the seeds of the gospel to reach to the ends of the earth and particularly to cleanse those who had been ceremonially counted as unclean. Now, I have been very blessed in my life to have had the opportunity to travel.

I've worshipped with believers in Mexico and in China. I've had the opportunity to preach and teach the gospel in the countries of Colombia and Kenya and Rwanda. And every time I go to one of these foreign countries where there's a different language that's being spoken. It is an extraordinary thing when the songs or the sermons are being translated. For me that you come to realize that even though you can't understand a word of what is saying, when you can understand it through translation, you understand they are reading from the same Bible.

They are hearing the same gospel. They are worshiping the same Savior who was crucified from sinners, whether in Central America, South America, Africa, Asia, Europe, or here throughout the world or here throughout the United States. That worldwide impact of the gospel starts here in Acts, chapter eight, with an African eunuch. And the spread of that gospel has not stopped since. It's not only the same gospel, but we are seeing then in the next section, the same response that is called for all believers in all ages, faith and repentance, particularly expressed in baptism.

So Here comes the third section, saving faith in verses 36 through 40. In verse 36, we read the Ethiopian eunuch. When they came to some water, which was, remember, this was a desert place. So to come across water. And they're not driving through, you know, Minnesota, the land of a thousand lakes.

They're driving through a very desert place where there is very little water. And they come across some water. And he says, what prevents me? See, here is water. What prevents me from being baptized?

Now, this isn't just saying, hey, why not? Should we do this? He's actually saying, does being a Gentile prevent me from being baptized? Does being a eunuch prevent me from being baptized? Those would have been major inhibitions, major prohibitions that would have kept him from worshipping or entering into the worship of Israel where he had just come from Jerusalem.

But now those are no longer things that would prevent him from baptism. Because Jesus as a better priest, the guarantor and the mediator of a better covenant which is enacted on better promises, who has offered himself as the better sacrifice for sinners because of all that Jesus Christ was sent into this world by his Father to do has now been done. Nothing stands in the way of the full inclusion of this Ethiopian eunuch into the household and family of God. And so we read in verses 38 and 39, and he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing.

Now, here we read, and it's so important about the baptism of this man. We are reading again about the full inclusion of this man into the people of God. But then we read that suddenly after this baptism happens, after the evangelization had happened, after the gospel had been preached here, suddenly in a moment, the Spirit of the Lord, and this is where it really sounds like Elijah, Elisha just carried away here and there. The Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away. So the eunuch saw him no more, but he went on his way rejoicing.

If you remember back when we looked at the passage about the lame man whom Peter healed, who was leaping, that was very important language because it echoed Old Testament prophecies in the book of Isaiah about how the lame will leap because the Messiah has come. Well, so also we find promises scattered all throughout the Old Testament, particularly in the Psalms, that talk about how the ends of the earth we rejoice because of God. Psalm 67. Four, Let the nations be glad and sing for joy. Psalm 97, verse 1.

The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice, let the many coastlands be glad. And then Psalm 98. Four, from our call to worship and what has become the large inspiration for the hymn Joy to the World, which we're going to sing in just a little bit, make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth break forth into joyous song and sing praises. And here in this Ethiopian, we see this promise fulfilled. Well, it's for Philip.

We read in verse 40 that Philip found himself at Azotus. Now, this is in the Old Testament, is the Philistine city of Ashdod. It's a different way of talking, a different language that the word has been translated from. But Azotus is Ashdod, the Philistine city. And so it's unclear who he's preaching the gospel to.

Are these more Gentiles? We don't really know. We. All we know is that he is making his way up to Caesarea, and as he does so, he takes every opportunity in every town that he passes through to preach the gospel until he came to Caesarea. Now, this will not be the last time we encounter Philip, although we will not encounter him again until Acts chapter 21, verse 8, in Caesarea, still, where he has a family and four daughters who prophesy.

Now, the gospel is going to continue to go, as I mentioned, to the Gentiles, particularly starting in Acts, chapter 10. But before we get to that story, we need to read about the conversion of Saul, who will be so mighty in bringing the gospel to the other far end of the earth, ultimately in Rome. Well, our application for this passage is very simple. Pray for the Holy Spirit to bring the gospel boldly to the ends of the earth. Again, this passage gives us a vision, a vision for what missions should look like, how evangelism should take place in private, ordinary conversations that we all find ourselves from time to time with people, maybe on a plane or maybe on a bus, or maybe in our neighborhood.

What does this mean? And the first thing that we need to do to prepare us for these situations is to pray. Prayer is not the last thing we should do. It is the first thing that we should do. If you've had the opportunity to share the gospel, often you know that there are times when you feel like you are doing your absolute best, where the Lord is just giving you words to say to very clearly articulate what the gospel proclaims.

For sinners. And yet you see those words, as well as you can form them, falling to the ground, having sort of bounced off of deaf ears. And you may also have seen situations where because of nothing you have said, or when you were just stumbling over yourself trying to tell the Gospel, that you have seen people who just threw themselves at Jesus. In both of those cases, the responses are not because of you. The responses are not a credit to you or a demerit from you.

The responses are not about you. It's about the work or lack thereof of the Holy Spirit to draw this individual at this point, or maybe later on to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ. And so what this means is that we cannot perceive, prepare ourselves only by trying to understand the Bible, trying to maybe prepare ourselves in apologetics about how to respond to objections to the faith. The most important thing that we must do is to prepare ourselves by praying that God himself will bring to us the people that he wants us to share the Gospel with. You probably pray for those that you're aware of who need to know the Gospel.

I would encourage you also to pray for those whom you don't know. Lord, if there is anyone that you want me to share the Gospel with today, would you make that known? Would you bring this? Would this be an Ethiopian eunuch kind of a situation where you see someone reading the Bible? Do you understand what you're reading there?

How can I unless someone teaches me? Bingo. That's the spirit at work. Ask for the Lord to provide those opportunities, because he does. The second part of this application is to clarify what the Scriptures actually teach about the Gospel for the nations.

There are so many false teachings about the relationship of the Gospel to the nations. On the one hand, there is a view of cultural relativism which says that all cultures are unique and therefore all cultures are equal. Equal. Nothing is really true. Nothing is really false.

Certain things just work for cultures. So you would be wrong. You would be meddling to bring the Gospel to people who are just fine where they are worshiping, whoever they worship, however they worship. This is a heresy that denies the exclusivity of salvation that is found in Jesus Christ. But on the other hand, there are also heresies that limit the proper audience of those who can hear the Gospel.

There are various kinds of racism. There is a theological form called kinism, which says that the Gospel can only really save white people. And so if the question of an African Ethiopian would ask, what prevents me from baptism? The answer would be, and this is being promoted in various places the answer would be your black skin does. And this is a heresy that denies the fact that God created all human beings in his image, that even though we have various different colors and we come from different places, we are all part of one human race.

What the gospel does is to oppose both of these views, to say that all people from all cultures need Jesus Christ crucified, and that Christ crucified has actually ransomed people for God from every tribe, language, people and nation. But there are not only heresies about to whom we may preach the gospel, but also about how we do it. There's a heresy called hyper Calvinism. Hyper Calvinism that says that we really should not be preaching the gospel to anyone except those in whom we see the Holy Spirit at work, that if they haven't come, if we haven't seen the Holy Spirit already convert them, then we have no right to tell them about the Gospel of what Jesus has done for sinners. It's a heresy about the way the Holy Spirit has called us to go into the world, and he's promised to work through His Word and through prayer.

But there's also a lesser form of that that I suspect many, if not all of us have been guilty of at some time or another. It's maybe not to have a theological explanation like that to prevent you from bringing the gospel boldly to people, but it's from complacency, cowardice, distraction, and a lack of compassion for the lost. Jesus, however, says, go, go and make disciples of all nations. Now, that's from Ethiopia and from the south suburbs of Chicago and northwestern Indiana. We are called to go and make disciples of all nations.

And if we aren't the ones going, we are called to support the work of missions with prayer in our finances. As the Apostle John writes in 3 John 5, 7, beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God, for they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Our mission partners need your prayers, and if so, lad, they need your finances. So I want to ask the question, to whom to which people has the Holy Spirit sent to you?

Think about Philip. If Philip does not come to this Ethiopian eunuch, where will he hear the Gospel from? He's reading the Scriptures, which gives a vivid picture of what Jesus has done. But who's going to explain this to him? There are people in your life as well, that if you do not share the gospel with them, no one will.

God has actually put you in their in their lives as sort of a fillip arrangement because he intends for you to be the one to share the gospel with these people. If not you, then no one, whether you are called to Lansing or to Cambodia. The gospel is the same that every single person made in the image of God who is fallen in Adam needs to hear about the suffering servant of Jesus Christ and him crucified. So what prevents your friends, your neighbors and your relatives from saving faith? What this passage says is that God spared nothing.

Make sure that what prevents them from believing is not your lack of boldly speaking the word to them. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do pray that you would make us bold to preach Christ crucified to those who need him. Father, we are sinners who did not deserve your mercy. But out of your free grace and love, you poured out lavishly your kindness toward us.

And not only have you just saved us, but you have actually sent us to bear witness to Jesus Christ, to those with whom you have put us in counter or in contact with. And we pray that you would bear fruit, that your Holy Spirit would go forth and draw the lost to saving faith in Jesus. And we pray that even this morning, if there are people here who do not know Christ, that you would lead them to trust in the Son of God who took on a human nature in order that he might lay down his life to save and ransom sinners from every tribe, language, people and nation. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.