The Book of Acts 8:1-24 - Saul Persecutes the Church & Philip Witness 1
Acts 8:1-24 · Roger Henderson · May 11, 2014
Acts (2014), No. 19
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492642761231

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well today we started in chapter 8. And actually, I want to apologize. The titles that I created for these lessons, I created back when I hadn't gone through the whole book. And so, you know, they're somewhat correct and somewhat, you know, they can be improved upon, it's what I'm trying to say. So as we go through the lesson, you'll see.

So basically, today, we're going to finish up the last part. And actually, Jeremy covered a little bit of it last week. In chapter 7, we have when Saul is persecuting the church. He just talks about that. We're going to cover verses 1, 2, and 3 on that. And then we're going to jump into Philip's witness in Samaria.

And that kind of carries on. So actually, the fact that it's 1 and 2 is probably not Precisely correct. And then we'll get out in chapter nine. We're going to solve some version and so on. So that's coming weeks. So this is probably a little bit more. And that's six, eight through nine. Thirty one. There's three significant events. And we've already seen the martyr. Most even.

And that actually goes on through Paul's interaction with that. And we're going to see that through 8.3. And starting with 8.4, we're going to have the ministry of Philip to Samaria and other ministries as well. And then we're going to have, starting in chapter 9, we're going to have the conversion of Saul of Tarsus to Paul. So that's kind of what's coming. Alright, so let's look at the, can I get someone to read these first three verses? You can just read them off the overhead or from your Bible. And Lonnie, are you ready to read?

Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death. And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. Some devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him, but Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house and dragging off men and women he would put in prison.

Good, thanks. OK, so we're going to see this is Saul's interaction with, as a result of, you know, Saul was a devout Jew. I mean, he was zealous. And he says that over and over again in his writings that he was zealous. He was a zealous Jewish Jew. person and this kind of points that out. So let's just look at this in a little more detail.

So Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him, and that would be Stephen, to death. Hearty agreement is the idea, this kind of shows you his bet. Because he felt they were contrary to God's to the nation of Israel, he was in hearty agreement with that, hence to approve it. And actually Acts 22, 19 and 20 kind of give a little more insight into that. So if some of you want to read Acts 22, 19 and 20, this gives a little more detail. Paul's actions here during that time period. And he was... 2219 and 2219? Yes.

And I said, Lord, they themselves understand that in one synagogue after another I used to imprison and beat those who believed in Thee. And when the blood of Thy witness, Stephen, was being shed, I also was standing by approving and watching out for the cloaks of those who were slaying him. And here he realizes, this is after his conversion, he realizes that Stephen was God's choice, his anointed. I was also standing by approving, watching out for the cloaks of those who were slaying him. So he was guarding the cloaks while they were throwing the stones.

And we're going to see more of Paul's conversion. That just kind of shows you his hearty agreement, his intent to, in his mind, purify the Jewish religion of these Christians. And actually, I have even more contrast. If you look in, and we don't have to read all of these, but in Timothy, in fact, actually, Timothy is going to read. First Timothy.

1 Timothy 1.15. And this is how Paul views himself after he comes to faith in Christ. Does someone have the King James? Could they read 1.15 in 1 Timothy?

Yeah. Wendy, I got a new American. OK. OK. All right. Well, I want you to say, well, you get one time. Yeah. Because a little stronger across a lot stronger than that. So go ahead and read through in mind. It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners among whom I am foremost of all. And the King James has, I am chief of all. So Paul viewed himself, it's interesting, he had such great revelation from the Lord and he was taught by the Lord But he saw that his sinful actions, and he called himself chief of sinners, which is pretty interesting.

It's kind of arrogant. You can argue that way too. I don't think he saw it that way. Actually, let's look at Philippians, the other passage, 3, 7 and 8. It talks about the value of knowing Christ in comparison to everything else that he gained. You probably know these verses pretty well. Bonnie, could you read those? What was that Philippians 3? 3, 7 and 8.

But whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ. So he makes a comparison. He had all this marvelous learning and teaching in Judaism, and he counts that loss for knowing Christ.

So interestingly enough, this is going to be, on that day, a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem. So that was a significant day. It was an awful day for Stephen. He was martyred here on that day, or killed or stoned to death. And here's an interesting thing. Constable had an interesting observation here. Because persecution is going to come about, and we're going to see that it's scattered All the believers in Jerusalem except for the Apostles, they kind of stayed put.

But Kostolakon points out that Stephen was a Hellenistic Jew. Remember what a Hellenistic Jew was from back in chapter 6? We talked about the Hellenistic Jews. Remember what that was all about? This is a quiz. They were Jews who were Greek speaking Jews. They could either be born Jewish or they could become converted, but they were Greek speaking. It would be like saying we had French speaking Christians here in Denver. It would be a body of Jewish people. who were Greek speaking.

So we're going to see that, you know, Samaria, we're going to see Samaria wasn't the Jewish, the strict Jewish people's favorite venue. That wasn't high on their, let's go visit list. In fact, we read a couple of verses where they, you know, it's pretty, and think about this, who was a good Samaritan? What kind of Jewish person was he, right? He was a Samaritan, right? Samaritans and the Jewish, the Hebrews were not, you know, They were at odds with one another. They weren't full Jews or something. Well, they were half Greeks, yes. That was part of the problem. They were the Jewish faith, but they had their own ideas. We're going to see a little bit more of that shortly. It seems pretty important that Stephen was persecuted, which led to more persecution, which led to them leaving and spreading the word. Because otherwise they might have just sat around there.

Some people will look at this and they'll say, well, what this means is you've got to get out of your comfort zone. You've got to get out there and you've got to push the envelope. If you're a believer, you've got to push the envelope and try really hard to get the word out. That could be one conclusion, but then you begin to look at what Paul teaches in his life and what we see in the epistles and it's no, it's Christ. It's Christ's life through you that's going to get the message out. use an awful situation like this and force you to leave your comfort zone.

But it's not you getting out of your comfort zone. Whenever I hear that it kind of bugs me a little bit. That's my hot button if you will. Get out of your comfort zone. Get out there and do this and that. Bust a gut for that. This was his plan. But you're right. This forced the church to...

They scattered. They didn't sit around and say, I wonder if this is God's plan for me. They're like, we're going. If you saw somebody stoned to death and the crowd was screaming, I don't know, I don't want to be stoned to death. You got out. They moved on. And that had a big effect. And that's going to be a real turning point here in getting the word out here. OK, so let's go into the second part here. And they were all scattered. And the word all kind of intrigued me. And I kept thinking, all? All is? And that's that word panta, without exception. They were all scattered. But it makes an exception.

They were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. So the apostles apparently stayed put. They didn't go any place. Apparently they may have went into hiding or whatever. They stayed in Jerusalem because they're asked to come down to Samaria from Jerusalem later on here.

We'll see. They're all scattered. I was thinking we're going to see some were scattered. to Judea and Samaria somewhere scattered to really the remote part of the, known world at that time. We're going to see a verse here shortly about that. Scattered here is to scatter abroad. It's like the sowing of a seed throughout the seed. The seed gets kind of scattered all over the field for planting or some seeds, it's used in terms of are dropped in various places. So let's look at here, the regions of Judea and Samaria was the initial scattering, but later other areas also. Let's look in this kind of talks to that point. Let's look in Acts 11, 11, 19. Can someone read Acts 11, 19 for me?

Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen's staff traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only. But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.

Thanks, Tom. Actually, other verses were good, too. So, interesting enough, as a result of this persecution, of Stephen being stoned, they went to Phoenicia, Cyprus, Antioch, speaking the word. Interestingly, it says, speaking to no one, I'm sorry, it was Jews alone. So their mission, and that's why we're going to see why Paul is going to be so significant, down the road we're going to see Paul, his ministries to the Gentiles. That's going to expand even farther. But the Jewish people, what they were scattered here, they spread the word to Jews alone, but to all these different places where the Jews were scattered.

And I just pointed out, actually I think it was Constable, or someone said, I mean Merriman, they thought the Apostle might be in hiding, the Apostles. But they were accessible because they're going to hear about what happens in Samaria. And they're going to come down to talk to Simon the magician. And so some devout men, reverencing God, they buried him.

But in contrast to that, so here's the rest of Paul's Right now, Paul is enraged over these Christians. He's ravaging them. That's the idea. It's like a wild boar in a field. I found there's one reference to that in the Psalms, talking about ravaging like a wild boar in a field, making havoc, entering house to house, and dragging off both men and women by their feet along the street.

It was brutal what he was doing. So other people helped him, right? He was a small guy, wasn't he? He was a big guy, but he was into this. He was on fire for putting these Christians out of business. And they say, you put them into prison. And it crossed my mind, people who control the prisons, the official prisons would be the Romans. I couldn't find anybody to talk about that. I didn't spend a lot of time. What prison were they going to? Did the rabbis have their own secret prison? I don't know.

This is something to think about. It was brutal. His actions were just amazing. He sees that later on down the road. Now we kind of get, Now I'm going to change to the ministry of Philip here. Could someone read 4-8? Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and began proclaiming Christ to them. Crowds with one accord were giving attention to what was said by Philip as they heard and saw the signs which he was performing. For in the case of many who had unclean spirits, they were coming out of them shouting with a loud voice. And many who had been paralyzed and lame were healed. So there was much rejoicing in that city. OK.

So I thought, let's just, here's a chart by Vern. Just kind of get an idea here. Here's Jerusalem down here. So Samaria, from what I can tell, is both talked of as a city and also a region. Because it's not talking about the Sidiya scenario. What's interesting here is Judea. Judea is kind of a region as well. They were scattered from Jerusalem which is right here. They were scattered kind of northward and also in Judea. Then eventually to many parts of the earth.

What's interesting here, you go back to Acts 8.1, when Christ said, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and we've been studying that through chapter 7, and now in chapter 8, and all Judea and Samaria. So this prophecy that Christ made is being fulfilled before their eyes. So, unclean spirits. Aren't all their spirits unclean?

Well, hold that thought for a second. Actually, we'll get to that in just a second. OK, so let's talk about preaching. There's a couple of interesting words here. The first word, it says, therefore, First I have to remember they were scattered. It was the church that was scattered. So I kind of thought some were scattered. It's considered you can be scattered pretty close, kind of out of sight. And some were scattered down to some area here. And that seems to what we're addressing here. So it says Philip went down. Why do you think it says he went down? This is a total myth, but an interesting one. Do you have an idea of why it would say down? I thought he said he went south. He went north. Do you have an idea of why?

I think Jeremy knows. I think Bonnie knows too. Elevation. We were fortunate to go to Jerusalem. It's at 2,000 feet. They get snow there. in Jerusalem. It's interesting. We were there. It reminded me of Denver a lot actually. Kind of an arid place. I think it was December when we were there. It was December when we were there. It was snowing. Anyway, he went down to Samaria. So scripture is accurate, right? He went down to Samaria. You said he went down from Ludville, or went down from Aspen, or I don't know, to Denver.

The first thing here, this is interesting. preachings to bring or announce glad tidings. This is the word that we evangelize we get. And actually, it's the idea that if we say when we say something like preaching the good news or preaching the gospel, this word, this word for preaching here is the idea of like an ax. Let's just look at the least here for a second. We surrenders it. bringing the good news of the word. So bringing the good news is actually a translation of this Greek word.

So a wrap-up of that word is bringing the good news or bringing the gospel and it's used that way in other passages like in in Romans 115 it says I am eager to preach the gospel to you and then actually and we'll see later on In 8.12 it's translated, Philip was preaching the good news.

So the first preaching up here, there's actually two words for preaching we're going to see. Preaching the word is actually getting out the gospel. That's the first one. And then the second one says, Philip went down to the city of Samaria and began proclaiming, here he is, he went down, he's proclaiming Christ. And proclaim here is a different word than the other word, to preach or herald or proclaim.

So he's getting the good news out in one case. He's not getting out. Those who are scattered are getting the word out, getting the gospel out. And down here it says he's proclaiming or heralding Christ. So the crowds were all of one accord. They were giving attention to Philip. The crowds heard and saw the signs which he was performing.

The signs here are these attesting miracles. That gets used quite a bit. So we have to think about the Jewish people. Their history and the way God interacted with them, they're the nation that saw Moses part the sea. All these miracles were performed to validate God's action among them. So when a person came and said, I'm from God, they expected some kind of miraculous thing.

In fact, that's somewhat why we're going to see Simon was so popular. Because Simon was doing magic and sorcery and all kinds of stuff. He had a pretense. He was a faker, we're going to see. But what validated was God's word. There was some attesting miracle that went along.

So what's interesting is here we have Philip's not an apostle. Remember Philip is one of the seven that was chosen to serve the tables. So Stephen was one of the seven, and Philip's the other one. So what's amazing is these two gentlemen, they're not apostles, but they both are able to do signs and wonders. And that validated what they were preaching. It's almost like even though they were really selected just to serve tables and do the scut work, God overruled the apostles and said, hey, they're more valuable than that.

It shows that the selection of these men, you select men based upon their walk with the Lord, not upon their ability to pass the plate or to manage this other stuff. That job needs to be done. It exceeds mere arithmetic knowledge. It's your relation to the Lord that is the main factor, not that your ability to do this or that supports that.

Roger, there was a disciple called Philip, but this is a different one. Yes, this is not. For the best I can tell, There was some discussion about that. This is Philip the one, if you go back to chapter six, there were seven of those guys. Stephen was one and Philip was the two gentlemen. Philip was one of the ones that was chosen to serve tables. Or actually better to manage the food. Remember we talked about that in chapter six. He was a food manager. Serving the table was part of it, but he had to get the food in there to be served. OK.

Who were the Samaritans? Who were the Samaritans? You guys remember? In fact, we haven't gotten to your question, Holly, yet. We'll get there eventually. Who were the Samaritans? I mentioned that they weren't the good buds of the normal Jewish person, right?

Well, let's turn to John, John chapter 4. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. where his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore, the Samaritan woman said unto him, how is it that you being a Jew ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman? For Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans.

Right. And then that last part, they basically did not have any dealings. And so both Constable and I think Merriman kind of talked about the Samaritans. And basically, they were half-breed Religiously, they had their own temple. They didn't like rebuilding the temple, the one that Harris Temple did. They didn't go along with that. They were not full 100% Hebrew. There were some mixed blood there. They had their own temple on Mount Gerizim. So there was a tension and they basically had no dealings with one another.

So now we have Philip going down to Samaria. And one thought is, humanly speaking, he was sort of a hack. He was a Greek-speaking Jew, so he already Maybe wasn't viewed so harshly conceivably. But we're going to see. They welcomed Peter and John that came down later on. So I don't know. I kind of take that for the grain of salt. So that's the Samaritans. They saw the signs and the attesting miracles.

And what's interesting, if you look at Acts 5.12, this is exactly what the apostles did. The apostles did attesting miracles. And now we have the selected men by the apostles doing attesting miracles. So that validated in the eyes of the Jewish people that they were from God.

Many had unclean spirits which came out of them. I kind of go that's another example in scripture where someone will have a demon and Christ command the demon to come out of these people. To us it seems kind of foreign. From reading scripture you see that there are, in that time period, there were people possessed by demons or unclean spirits. So that's what I think it's referring to. And Christ had the power to command them out. And it seems like the apostles, including Philip and Stephen, also had the power to cast out these demons. So are demons still around? As best we can tell, they are.

But it seems like for whatever reason, in our world, I hear people talk about if you go to third world countries, and some African countries, that you see witch doctors and all that kind of stuff. That's conceivably you see more of that in our society. It's about the horrible things that people do. And then you could argue some of the things like Columbine and all those kinds of where you see people just do horrible things. You could maybe make up. a case for that, I don't know. We don't have scripture to, see scripture told us that Christ told us about a situation how they cast out these spirits. When we observe a person, we look at them and I don't know how I would ever tell.

Of course there's plenty of movies out there, plenty of books. You can just go wild with this. You have people that are going to cast out demons and stuff. And people think there's a demon underneath every bush. And people take an excess. Without some reliable source, without scripture guiding us, I don't know. Anyway, that's a whole other topic. If anybody has any other thoughts on that, I'm certainly open. How about the movies? The Exorcists and all those kind of things. People claim that they can cast out demons and all kinds of things.

It's questionable because we don't know that. But Bonnie has a good point. We see awful, horrible things. People doing just ferociously terrible things. Is that... just their sin nature going wild. I mean, we know sin nature can do anything. It's capable, it's desperately wicked. Who can know it? So we know it's certainly capable of that.

And demons... Holocaust. Demons would be like fallen... Fallen angels, yes. Well, I was just going to say, yeah, there's definitely things that are hard to explain, what would seem like supernatural occurrences. You talk about movies. There's a movie that came out a couple of years ago called The Exorcism of Emily Rose. The guy who made it is actually a Christian. And it's based on a true story.

This court case where this girl, Emily Rose, supposedly was possessed. This priest tried to exorcise the demon. And in the end, he ended up failing and she ended up dying because of injuries and other stuff, and so he was taken to trial. Whether or not he was neglectful, he was taken to trial for criminal neglect.

But the director who made it definitely believes in evil. Not that that says anything, but it's interesting to see another Christian's perspective, and how he uses that for his... There's a line that I think comes from her actual diary, where she said, you know, how can you say that God is dead if I can show you the devil?

And that's kind of what he does in a lot of, and he definitely, I mean, I follow him on the internet and stuff, and he writes about all this weird stuff that goes on. So I don't know. I don't know if there's any validity to exorcism and stuff like that, but We clearly see it in the New Testament times that this happened. There's no reason to think that it wouldn't happen nowadays. And yes, there can be a lot of extreme stories. People can take it out of context, but I don't think there's any reason to think that that type of stuff doesn't happen nowadays.

I think today we would more point to mental health or something like that. But you know what? It's kind of like, not like these demons would be running amok. I mean, they would still be doing what they do. God would be allowing it. So there would still be some, you know, even if there were and if the demons were around, that God would use it for good. Right?

That's what's interesting about that movie I mentioned. The way that it's approached, it takes place in the trial and of course the prosecution says this girl is sick, this has mental issues, she needed medicine and the priest eventually told her not to take the medicine because she said it's not helping, you actually have a spiritual issue. So it tries to take an objective look at this. But that's what the girl in her diary wrote down. Basically, has God allowed this to happen to me? To show the world that there's evil in the world, but there's also God in the world. And she talks about a vision of Mary and talking to her, so who knows about that?

But it's interesting to look at it from an objective level. It's interesting to see how the world, well, it's just mental illness. Well, it very well could be, but It could very well also be demon interaction. And to be able to decide which is which, it's an interesting, it's off topic, but it is a very interesting field of discussion. Well, thanks. We better move on. Yes. Anyway, I don't think we're going to. OK, so it's obvious, you know, that they were they were taking care of the unclean spirits. And here they were. Many who were paralyzed or lame were being healed.

We see Christ doing these miracles, the testing miracles. We see the apostles doing the testing miracles. Now we see these men chosen by the apostles and they're doing the same. So we see a consistent pattern here. They're preaching the word and they're testified by these testing miracles. And basically, why wouldn't they be rejoicing? These people are being healed. Roger, real quick.

So we talk about attesting miracles, right? And throughout the book of Acts, God validated, or the message was validated through these great miracles. Not so much for discussion now, but just I guess for our thought, is what is What attests to the truth that we're speaking nowadays?

I don't think it's a miracle. I think that's pretty clear. We're after the time of these miracles, but I think it's worth asking. How about this, Jeremy? This is just off the top of my head, but it says that we are epistles, right? I think we are the attesting, I'm not trying to say me, look at me, but I'm saying us as believers are the attesting miracle that this is a life that's been changed by the Lord Jesus and we testify to that through our lives and it's Christ in us. So I think that's part of the attesting miracle.

Well, it's interesting because too many, a lot of Christians are, well, they'll, by our works they'll know us, and I don't drink, smoke, chew, and hang out with those who do, so that's our sign to them when they talk about our testament. It's the life of Christ in us, it's the love of God that's in us, and I think that's worth thinking about as we, this is one of the areas in which we can look at what God did evangelistically in Acts, and realize it's not going to happen the same way for us. And this is something where, okay, let's look at how God works out through our lives now, and what attests to the truth that we're speaking now. And I do think we are the epistles, but for me at least, it's something worth Also, too, I would say as a more younger Christian that I would say what would attest to it, like for me, is like what happened in my life as a result.

So not even necessarily looking, because before as a Christian I would have looked at other people and say, you don't do this and that, you're just being all, you know, high and mighty or whatever. But becoming a Christian, it's like seeing the stuff in my own life. You know what I mean? Yeah, for ourselves, but I'm saying for others. Why should people listen to us? What makes our words different? It's the Holy Spirit. It is. Bottom line. I think you hit it. You can look at people, they've got every duck in order. You're just a pious believer. I think at times it's almost the grace of God.

It's our mistakes as much as our perfections that demonstrate God has changed our lives. Also maybe the way a particular believer handles a trial or difficulty. a death in the family, his own death, or whatever. And we talk a lot about our brother Hal. Hal is, to my mind, he comes to mind, and I think of other believers too, that in their death or in their life, the last few years of their life, that was a testimony to me about God working through them. But a testimony to a person who's already a believer.

Yeah, that's true. And actually to others who are not. I've had some people talk about, well, so-and-so Something's different about that person. And they realize, they don't know, they can't put their finger on it. This is unbelievable. And they'll say, well, that person's different. He reacts differently. When this comes along, he reacts differently. He doesn't react like Sam, Joe, whatever, Sally. He reacts differently.

And why is that the case? They don't understand that. And that's how you know. But also, too, maybe these people would have believed anyways without the testing miracles? Yeah, maybe it's just because standard, that's how they did it then. So here I'll throw some in. We're going to see here, we don't have to hurry. Let's just move on. I skipped the reading, we're just going to jump into Simon here. Simon was a magician, he was a cracking sorcery and the like.

He was assigned to the people of Samaria. He was claiming to be somebody great. So he wanted to get notoriety. That's what it says. All the people from the smallest to the great were giving him attention. So he was a notable figure in the city of Samaria. And the people were saying, I just took the verse and bulletized it basically. This man is what's called the great power of God. So by whatever he did, that was impressing people, and they said, that's the great power of God. And it kind of validates the fact that they looked at a testing miracle. In fact, they almost flipped it around. They said, give me the miracle first, and then I'll think about it if that's from God. So here's this guy. And they can still be duped. I know. And they're being duped. We're going to say they're being duped. He's the great power of God, and he's not the great power of God. And for a long time, he astonished them with his magical arts. And they kept giving him attention.

So this is going to change. So first of all, the Samaritans believe Philip's preaching of the good news. And there's two parts here, and this is kind of a subtle point, but I actually kind of picked up on a thing. Philip preaches the kingdom of God, which is actually, if you look carefully, Verne went through this in the main service, and that's actually the gospel of the kingdom. And then he preached the name of Jesus Christ, basically the gospel of salvation. So both messages, who Christ is and what he did, were proclaimed by Philip. And I have a chart later on that talks to that. and they were being baptized, men and women alike.

I was interested to note here, you notice how in the Jews, women didn't have a first class position in the world. You notice how we get into Acts here, and the Holy Spirit calls out that both men and women were being dragged off by Paul, and both men and women are being baptized.

So it's interesting, women are included. It's not a biggie, but interesting is In other parts, the Jews thought of the Jewish man as the center, and the women were sort of also around. But here, women are in view, unlike Christ talking to the Samaritan woman.

I mean, that was probably unheard of for a normal Jewish person to do that. And she said, why are you talking to me? She was amazed. So I mean, just kind of a change in when God's message is proclaimed, it's a message for all. Also she was least likely to succeed is what they probably saw.

It says even Simon himself believed. Some have doubted that Simon actually truly believed but boy you'd have a heat from the scripture here. He believed, from what I can tell. There's not much doubt about that. The Samaritans believed and Siam believed after being baptized.

But he had a problem. He'd been so long in this magical arts, he just couldn't let it go it seems like. He observed the signs that were taking place. He observed the great miracles taking place. He was constantly amazed. He just still, even though he believed in the Messiah, Christ, and he accepted him, he still was hung up on these... He was in the wow format.

Exactly. So he thought, wow, look at this. Look what Philip's doing. So here's just this is for your own. And if I have this from the long race series, but this is just a chart about the gospel substitution, the gospel of the kingdom. So that's for your study. So now let's just look here. So actually, what happens here is, let's go back. So this happens.

So apparently, word got out that a large number of Samaritans believed, and Simon believed as well. So what happens is, this reaches Jerusalem. And so basically, the apostles who were in Jerusalem, they heard that the Samaritans had received the word of God. They sent Peter and John. who came down and they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. So we are going to see a different pattern here. Back in chapter 2 we saw that the Holy Spirit was given miraculously on the day of Pentecost. There was speaking in tongues, there was all these miraculous things.

Well here, these people believed but they didn't have the Holy Spirit. So it took a separate action of the apostles to come down and pray for them. And then we see that the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen upon them. They had simply believed in the name of the Lord Jesus. So they were believers but without the Holy Spirit. So there are some things that are unique here at Acts. And they began laying their hands on them and they were receiving the Holy Spirit. And Jesus himself said salvation is of the So that's the reason for all that happening I suspect. So here's another bird chart that I thought was valuable. Here's Acts chapter 2 and here's all the things that accompany the coming of the spirit.

The sound of the wind, tongues of fire, speaking in tongues, they received the act of believing, the spirit received it upon believing. In this case, it wasn't tied to believing. Later on, it will be. There was prayer involved. I think what this chart is trying to show here is that the early church, God for whatever reason, had the giving of the Holy Spirit It was at his pleasure. He did it according to his will. But we see when we get into the New Testament, there's a different pattern. The Holy Spirit's given once you believe. And in fact, Paul makes that clear just verse after verse after verse. He'll talk about that. Let's just read one of those just to kind of put it in perspective here.

But the Holy Spirit in the church age, the Holy Spirit Galatians 3.2. In the church age, which we are right now, the Holy Spirit is given upon belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. So that was not the church age then? Remember, this is a period prior to...

Actually, that's a good point. I've got to be careful about that. The church has started, but this was the early church age. And please, as we're going to see an ax. Things started out very Jewish and we're going to see them move gradually away from that. And there'll be there'll be a consistency that Paul will talk about through the rest of the epistles. But you're right. The church did start. Go ahead.

Well, I think part of it is that because of this transition period, there seems and I think one of the commentaries we have Baker implies that Even at this time, the offer of the kingdom was still outstanding. There is still the sense that if the Jewish leaders had accepted Christ, that he would have set up his kingdom right there. When you look at some of these passages, I can see why they would say that. Philip is talking about the kingdom. Paul, to an extent, talks about the kingdom. Peter continues to talk about the kingdom.

Because of that, there is a sense that as the Jewish leaders continue to, well, they're persecuting him, they're not accepting him, God is opening up, if you will. Kind of that pattern in Jerusalem, in all Judea, then Samaria, so almost step by step he's opening up, and each time he includes another group within the giving of the Spirit, he's doing it in a very particular fashion there. You're right. The church started, but as Jeremy said, there's a process that starts here. And that makes Acts a little bit tough in the sense that it's not going to be the fully accomplished, not until we get the completed period, those 30 years in Acts, that things are what we'll see in the rest of the New Testament.

But this passage in Galatians here, Galatians 3.2, this is the only thing that This is the only thing I want to find out from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing with faith? So basically, the Holy Spirit is given when we come to faith in the Lord Jesus.

In this time period, as Jeremy commented, it's somewhat different. Here's the giving miraculously, the day of Pentecost, with all kinds of miraculous things going on. Here's the Samaritans. Basically the apostles prayed for them. We are going to see another pattern here with John the Baptist's disciples. So the giving of the spirit was different in the early church. Maybe because John was teaching them about the Holy Spirit.

We have the scriptures so we can read about it. And we're looking back at the rest of the story. But at that time it was like, this is a whole new, some new things here. It's like he has to teach them. Because they're familiar with the Holy Spirit, but just like temporarily, right? Exactly. The fact that he would indwell you and be a permanent part of you was something they didn't.

And that's why Simon was so kind of enamored by this. He saw that the spirit was bestowed through the laying of hands of the apostles. So he offers him money. This is pretty wild. He offers him money. He says, give this authority to me so that everyone who I lay my hands on will receive the Holy Spirit. So you can kind of see why. So Peter's going to respond to that.

You can see why people would say, well, wait a minute. Was he really saved? Was he really saved? And I think that actually Peter's response, Peter's response to him kind of says that he really was saved because we're going to see Peter's going to respond to him and tell him some things here. But but we know that our simple nature can do all kinds of things. So I think he was just.

Plus it makes it look like a job. It makes it look like, you know, this is what I did for my living. So if you could like, you know, let me do that. Probably like the Pharisees and all that, too. It's like their job. Right. Well, he also was the unbeliever. I don't see that in the church today, do they? Yeah, right, right. I don't want to lose my job here. I'll give the Holy Spirit out. OK, so here's a Peter. Peter wasn't too happy about this, as you might guess. May your silver carries with you because you have because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money.

You have no part or portion in this matter. Actually, that's a little bit hard to understand. But I think, actually, I had some other translations here that helped. Part or portion, he's actually saying, it's not going to happen through you. The Holy Spirit's a gift of God. There's no power that you have. It's not your part to do this. That's what he's saying to him. And he says, your heart's not right before God.

What an awesome lesson in that. People think if I just give more money or whatever. You didn't read this part, did you? Here's why I think Simon is safe. Peter says, therefore repent. If you aren't a believer, It means nothing. He's telling them to repent. And there's also another important key here. He says, therefore repent of this wickedness, change your mind, and pray that the Lord, and this seems like it's kind of iffy, but that's what they call a first class condition. It's assumed to be true, so you could render it, and it's possible, And it's assumed to be possible that the intentions of your heart may be forgiven. So he assumed that if he repented of that, he would be forgiven. And that's consistent. But of course, once again, Simon's a young believer. He doesn't have 1 John 1, 9. He doesn't understand the interaction in nature. He doesn't know any of this. Nor do a lot of others. Right, unfortunately.

So Peter says, for I see that you are in a gall of bitterness, and actually there is a better translation, for I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound up by iniquity or unrighteousness. And Simon comes back. His answer seems kind of terse. His answer is, he tells Peter, pray to the Lord for me yourself. Which seems a little bit like in your face. But after looking at this, so that nothing of what you said may come upon me. I think he's so amazed by this. And he has Peter and John. These are the guys. They're the head of the church.

And he's saying, you're asking me to pray for this? He doesn't understand. Well, you pray for that, so that nothing bad will come upon me. So it seems like in your face, I don't think that's his intent. It's more like, well, shouldn't you pray for me? Shouldn't that be, you're the guy. You pray for me. I know this is bad, what I did. Anyway, that's my two cents on that one. It seems kind of harsh there. It almost seems like in your face, you pray to the Lord for me. OK.

And so this kind of ends up so that when when they Peter and John had solidly testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they started back to Jerusalem. So possibly they filled in some of the blanks that disobedient ex-magicians mind. That's where he could understand because he didn't get that fresh. So we're going to see next week Phil is going to do another miraculous thing. So it's kind of interesting. There's a lot of questions that come up about this.

Some of them the Lord hasn't given us all the details. But we know that eventually as we go through this transition of Acts, we see that Paul comes in the scene and he consistently gives us the message of salvation and the Holy Spirit's coming. And we see that's consistent through all of the New Testament. Whereas this period we kind of see a little bit of Judaism, we see a little bit of, we see other things being talked about and it makes it Maybe God was waiting for Paul's letters to get out there.

You know what I mean? Like a form of communication without actually having someone physically being there to lay hands on you. Then if you did have Paul's letters in the New Testament, then you could read it. You wouldn't need a quote of testing miracles. You have God's word to validate that. As well as we talk about having your life that Christ works through. Any other thoughts? Dear Father, we thank you for this time, Father. We thank you for the blessings we have. We thank you for our Savior. We thank you for our time in Acts. In Christ's name, Amen.