A Divine Appointment
Acts 8:25-40
July 8, 2012
Over the course of the last couple of weeks
We have seen a monumental shift take place in the church at Jerusalem.
Thanks to the attacks of Saul, the church has been scattered,
And it triggered the first ever missionary effort of the church.
• So now, the church is moving.
• Now the church is on mission.
• The church is going global and is spreading.
And so now we are really get a good look at evangelism and how it works.
And this is an important thing for us to learn.
I especially want those going to Africa to pay attention to this, but certainly all of us need to understand it as we are all commissioned to be missionaries.
Tonight I’m going to give you what I think is
The most encouraging fact about evangelism,
And one that makes it easier than any other.
If I were to take an honest survey of why people don’t share their faith,
I’m sure we would get a fairly wide variety of answers.
But I don’t think the top reason is hard to discern.
It is a fear of failure.
• What if I don’t know the gospel well enough?
• What if I can’t argue down their false beliefs?
• What if I can’t answer their questions?
• What if I don’t know what to say?
And really the overarching fear is:
“What if when I’m done they still don’t believe?”
It feels like failure.
Would you agree that is a major concern and even roadblock?
Well, if I could eliminate that fear would you find evangelism easier?
If I could just take that issue and make it a non-issue,
Would you find yourself more encouraged?
Well, here it goes.
The one thing you need to know about conquering your fear of failure.
SALVATION IS THE WORK OF GOD,
NOT THE WORK OF MAN
You can’t say anything smooth enough to save someone,
And those whom God is saving you’ll have a difficult time stopping.
Now I don’t want to paint evangelism as a mindless job, it isn’t.
Certainly we want to know the gospel.
But the gospel isn’t difficult.
1 Corinthians 15:1-5 “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.”
My guess is everyone in here already knew that.
“Christ died for our sins”
“He was buried”
“He was raised on the third day”
And if you’ll remember that is all that is required
For a person to believe to be saved.
Romans 10:9-10 “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”
Everyone in here can go and share
• That Christ died for our sins,
• That He was buried,
• That He rose from the dead
• That in order to be saved men must believe that and confess Him as Lord.
So, it is important that you have an understanding of the gospel,
But it’s not as though the gospel is too complex to grasp.
But I want you to know that God is the Savior, not you.
And let me tell you why that is important.
The American church has been plagued by Bible notching preachers.
• I’ve seen them at revival services…
• I’ve seen them at youth camps…
Those who push and push and push in order to get decisions,
So they can go on to the next location and boast their numbers.
One fall-out of course was that we had a lot of people come forward
And make decisions who weren’t really saved at all.
They said they were saved,
But it was nearly impossible to tell what they were saved from.
Their lives remained just as carnal and their convictions just as flat
After salvation as they were before,
Only now they seemed to have a sense of false security.
And we’ve all seen it done.
Because it’s effective at getting results.
Just not spiritual results.
1 Corinthians 3:10-15 “According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”
But results were results and so preachers kept on manufacturing them.
But there was another fall-out to these tragic methods
And that was that it changed the way we view evangelism.
Thanks to these people and their slick speech and explosive success,
It actually influenced many into thinking that
This was how you were supposed to do evangelism.
• That to witness you had to be extremely knowledgeable…
• That to witness you had to know how emotionally move a person…
• That to witness you had to be able to argue down false belief…
• That to witness you had to be able to close the deal…
• Etc. Etc. Etc.
The problem is it made evangelism look impossible for those of us who
• Are unskilled in speech,
• Not good at debate,
• Lacking in memory,
• And just not by nature all that persuasive.
And the average layman in church looked at what the evangelist was doing to secure decisions and said, “I can’t do that.”
And he’s right.
No wonder people became too afraid to witness or share their faith,
They weren’t slick enough or quick witted enough.
And so you know what happened.
Instead of actually witnessing to people (because I can’t do it very well)
The church started doing something else.
They started staging big events with the best speakers
And quit evangelizing and instead started inviting people to church.
“I can’t tell you the gospel in a way that will get a response,
but come hear my preacher, he can do it.”
My guess is you’ve all felt that way at some point or another
When feeling the conviction to share your faith.
• You’ve felt too ignorant…
• You’ve felt too boring…
• You’ve felt too weak…
But what do we do about passages like 1 Corinthians 2?
1 Corinthians 2:1-5 “And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.”
It seems awfully strange that if things like charisma and great knowledge and persuasive skills are so important that Paul had any success at all.
Paul knew what I told you earlier.
SALVATION IS THE WORK OF GOD, NOT MAN
John 6:44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”
And listen, when you finally grasp that into your heart,
You will find evangelism isn’t nearly so intimidating.
And so tonight I want to show you what I have called
“A Divine Appointment”
I want to show you what evangelism looks like when God is at work.
I want us to work through this account of the Ethiopian Eunich
And see how people are really saved.
Three things
#1 A STRANGE COMMAND
Acts 8:25-26
We are aware of what has recently transpired.
• The church was scattered by Saul
• Philip went preaching in Samaria
• People were getting saved
• Peter and John came down and the Samaritans received the Holy Spirit
That alone would stoke the fires of missions and evangelism.
(25) “So, when they had solemnly testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they started back to Jerusalem, and were preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans.”
And of course that makes sense.
God is saving Samaritans, so tell all you can.
Then comes the strange part of the story.
(26) “But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, “Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.)”
They had a perfectly little nice and neat mission trip going on here
And then God comes up with the strangest command.
He tells Philip to take the south road from Jerusalem to Gaza.
(The Strange Part?)
“(This is a desert road.)”
Furthermore there were two roads from Jerusalem to Gaza
And this is the one that was seldom ever used.
• How many people do you suppose live on this “desert road”?
• What sort of evangelistic opportunities do you expect to get here?
This doesn’t make any sense.
Any evangelist who has had any success at all winning people for Christ
Will tell you that you have to go where people are, not where they aren’t.
You need the crowds.
Many times we are taught that it’s first necessary to manufacture a crowd.
• Get talented singers…
• Get funny drama…
• Get muscle bound guys to rip phone books in half…
• We even see Christian magicians (red flag)…
If you want to reach a lot of people, then you need a lot of people.
That is what these guys already had.
They “were preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans”
That made sense.
But this command did not.
That is a strange command.
#2 A SOVEREIGN HAND
Acts 8:27-35
Here we find that God knew something Philip did not
• God knew there was a man on that road.
• It was just one man, not a village, but God knew he was there.
But thankfully Philip obeyed.
(27) “So he got up and went”
And we know he came across this “Ethiopian eunuch”
Now let’s break this down a bit further and see some things about this eunuch.
1) APPARENT CONVICTION (27-28)
Now of course we recognize that at least in the world’s eyes,
This is an important man.
He was “a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure;”
So in the world’s eyes he was an important person.
This really makes no difference to God,
He was equally concerned about the lepers and outcasts.
But this man was a “somebody”
But we also notice:
“he had come to Jerusalem to worship”
That is interesting.
It is especially interesting that he went to Jerusalem
Even though he would not have been allowed access to the temple.
Deuteronomy 23:1 “No one who is emasculated or has his male organ cut off shall enter the assembly of the LORD.”
And he would not have been able to become a full proselyte to Judaism.
At best he would have been rendered a “God-fearer” similar to Cornelius.
This would have allowed him to attend synagogue and read the Scriptures,
But that was as far as he could go.
But he went none the less.
Matthew 7:7-8 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”
(28) “and he was returning and sitting in his chariot and was reading the prophet Isaiah.”
So this man wasn’t just on some token journey
To have his hand stamped in Jerusalem.
This man wanted to find God.
He traveled to Jerusalem, but it is clear his soul is still not satisfied,
For on the way home he has stopped and is reading trying learn more.
There is an apparent conviction taking place in this man’s heart.
And this only comes from God, for man is dead otherwise.
2) DEFINITE CURIOSITY (29-31)
Now this is where it really starts to get unbelievable.
Philip finds the man and “the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.”
We understand this from our witnessing experiences.
We have all had those times when we felt impressed to go and share truth with another individual, even when we really didn’t know why.
(30) “Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet…”
Now put yourself in Philip’s shoes.
Obviously you know you need to witness to this person, would you be relieved to find them already reading the Scripture when you go there?
Sure made the conversation easy to start.
“Do you understand what you are reading?”
We fret and fret about how to start a conversation, God made it easy for Philip.
And notice this answer.
(31) “And he said, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.”
CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?
“he invited Philip”
• Philip had his own mission plan to preach to the Samaritans,
• But God told him to travel a seldom used desert road
• Where he found a convicted man already reading the Scriptures
• Who wanted him to come and explain them.
That is amazing.
It gets even better.
3) UNBELIEVABLE CHOICE (32-34)
Ok, so it’s strange enough that this man is already here reading the Scriptures, but did you catch what he is reading?
He’s reading Isaiah 53.
Isaiah 53:7-8 “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?”
Are you joking me?
Of course they didn’t have the New Testament yet,
But the equivalent would by you finding someone reading John 3:16
This is just unbelievable.
And then notice the eunuch’s question.
(34) “The eunuch answered Philip and said, “Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else?”
“Is Isaiah talking about himself, or is he talking about someone else?”
Talk about having it fall into your lap!
It just doesn’t get any more obvious than this.
4) EASY COMEBACK (35)
I really like how Luke wrote this.
“Then Philip opened his mouth…”
That’s really about all he had to do.
Everything else had pretty much been covered.
But it goes on to say, “and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him.”
• Can we just give a little credit here to the obvious sovereign hand of God?
• Can we all recognize that God was at work long before Philip ever entered the equation?
A Strange Command, A Sovereign Hand
#3 A SAVED MAN
Acts 8:36-40
Don’t you just love the excitement of the eunuch here?
“As they went along the road they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?”
You would think on a desert road he would have been excited about water because he was thirsty, but no, he was excited so he could be baptized.
“What prevents me from being baptized?”
• This is a humble man
• This is a repentant man
• This is a man just wanting to do what God requires of him.
And Philip answers (having been burned already by Simon)
(37) “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”
Philip just wanted to make sure this man was a true and genuine believer.
“And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
(38) “And he ordered the chariot to stop; and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him.”
That is what we call a genuine salvation.
• This man sought God
• This man called on God
• This man added obedience to his belief
Now you could say, “So did Simon”
But notice the eunuch was happy with nothing but Jesus, Simon wasn’t.
(39) “When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing.”
And then we get the conclusion.
(40) “But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he kept preaching the gospel to all the cities until he came to Caesarea.”
And now God snatches Philip away
And puts him back on the missionary circuit.
We call this a divine appointment.
Now let me ask you something.
WHAT DID PHILIP DO HERE?
You could say “nothing” and that would be close to true,
But that isn’t exactly true.
• Philip obeyed to take the desert road.
• Philip obeyed to go up and join the chariot.
• Philip preached Jesus to this man.
• Philip challenged his claim of faith.
• Philip baptized him.
Philip did plenty, and these are the things God is asking of you and me.
Matthew 28:19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
We are all required to do what Philip did.
But let me ask you this, what did Philip not do?
• Philip didn’t make the eunuch seek…
• Philip didn’t draw him in to Jerusalem…
• Philip didn’t convict the eunuch’s sin…
• Philip didn’t coerce the eunuch to stop and read the Scripture…
• Philip didn’t convince the eunuch to listen to the explanation…
• Philip didn’t make the eunuch believe…
• Philip didn’t talk him into being baptized…
God did all those things.
AND THAT IS WHAT I WANT YOU TO UNDERSTAND.
We CAN get decisions, especially if we are good at speaking and slick with our approach, and do a good job setting the mood, etc…
In fact Philip had done that before; remember?
Acts 8:13 “Even Simon himself believed; and after being baptized, he continued on with Philip, and as he observed signs and great miracles taking place, he was constantly amazed.”
Now I certainly am not blaming Philip there,
But you do see the difference.
Simon responded to Philip
The Ethiopian responded to God
DO YOU SEE THE DIFFERENCE?
• With Simon Philip did it all – wowed him, convinced him, called him,
baptized him…
• With the Eunuch, God did it all, Philip only baptized.
Now let me read to you again:
John 6:44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Matthew 15:12-13 “Then the disciples came and said to Him, “Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this statement?” But He answered and said, “Every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant shall be uprooted.”
Do you see what we are talking about?
Evangelism is not the art of you being so knowledgeable and convincing that sinners cannot defeat you in a debate
And end up succumbing to your demands.
Evangelism is when we are available to God,
To be used to share the truth of Jesus
With a heart that He has brought to conviction.
Now if I told you that I wanted you to go to Africa
• And wow them with your powers of healing
• And captivate them with your tremendous knowledge
• And convince them to be saved,
YOU’D BE TERRIFIED.
But what if I told you that
• God has people in Africa that He has already been working on;
• People that He has already brought to conviction…
• People that want someone to help them understand the truth…
That’s not so terrifying is it?
NOW DOES IT ALWAYS HAPPEN LIKE THIS?
No.
Sometimes we are Philip and we get to close the deal, and that is thrilling.
• Sometimes we are the teacher that taught that eunuch in the synagogue back in Jerusalem and first introduced him to Isaiah 53.
• Sometimes we are the believer filled with hope back in Ethiopia that first caused the eunuch to feel the need to go to Jerusalem to find God to begin with.
But the point is NEITHER PHILIP,
NOR THE SYNAGOGUE TEACHER,
NOR THE HOPE-FILLED BELIEVER IN ETHIOPIA SAVED THIS MAN.
GOD SAVED THIS MAN.
HE MERELY USED PEOPLE WHERE HE NEEDED THEM
TO BRING THIS MAN TO SAVING FAITH.
• You don’t have to walk in fear regarding evangelism.
• You don’t have to be afraid you can’t close the deal.
• You don’t have to be afraid you won’t know what to say.
You aren’t doing it anyway.
All God asks is that you be willing to do what He says and fill your part.
• If He asks you to live a certain way, do it, you don’t know who is watching.
• If He asks you to teach a lesson, do it, you don’t know who is listening.
• If He asks you to take a desert road, do it, you might be blown away.
John 4:35-38 “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. “Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. “For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ “I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”
Maybe you labor, maybe you reap.
But don’t worry about success or failure, you are neither.
1 Corinthians 2:1-5 “And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.”
Paul didn’t want to be responsible for their salvation.
Paul simply wanted to be faithful to do his part
To allow the Spirit of God to accomplish His purposes.
So follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, He is working on men.
And when he tells you to approach that co-worker that you just know doesn’t want to hear it, then trust Him and see what He is doing.
You might be shocked.
Can I give you a few examples from my experiences?
• Sedrick Thompson – Terrell Texas at a gas station.
• Unknown kid on Seminary campus
• Group of women in Neshuro
And I can’t even begin to list the number of people
Who have found me to ask me about salvation.
But I can also tell you about people who I have argued with until I was blue in the face and accomplished nothing, realizing that I can’t argue anyone into the kingdom of heaven.
That is why Jesus said:
Matthew 10:14-15 “Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet. “Truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.”
It’s not about success, it’s about faithfulness.
God is the Savior, not you.
You simply do what He asks you to do,
For He alone knows where He is at work.
