The Case of the Unique Eunuch

Good morning. We're going to be venturing into this passage Randy just read for us. Acts of the Apostles, 8.26-40. And so just to kind of bring ourselves up to speed, at the end of chapter 7 of Acts, the beginning of chapter 8, we find there the reporting of the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. And one of the things that we said from that was there are some great spiritual truths that came from that. One is that Stephen gazed intently at Jesus in heaven who was standing for him.

And so this is a great spiritual truth, one that, though not identically presented, is continued to be presented throughout the New Testament. The next, the church was scattered from Jerusalem. So though this was by itself a horrible event, the result of some terrible injustice that was carried out, the church was scattered from Jerusalem into other areas and the gospel went elsewhere. The commissioning that the apostles had to go into Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth began to be fulfilled.

The other thing is, here's Stephen, he is looking at the Lord, he's focused upon the Lord, gazing intently, as we've said there, but he didn't know the outcome, and just recognizing that God does know the outcome, even when we don't. Stephen didn't know what happened next, but we do, and God knows, of course.

The next thing that we saw in last week's passage, Acts 8.4 through 8.25, We see the not the Apostle Philip, but Philip one of the sometimes called deacons, but servants There in Jerusalem who then goes to Samaria In fact, it appears to be the city of Samaria where he heads north that's about a day's journey to the north and so some of the questions that we come from there and We'll be looking in this passage, including last week and this, does God love individuals or whole groups of people? From chapter 8, starting with verse 4, going on into verse 25, Philip goes to this outcast group of mixed Jews and Gentiles, the Samaritans as they're called, and they were mixed and mixed up. They had some things rather confused, but Philip goes to them nonetheless, and the Samaritans, ones that the Jews themselves would often consider unsavable, and that's who Philip goes to. We also have an angel sent from the Lord, sends Philip to another part of Israel, actually just, you know, get going is the way he puts it, get up and get going, to catch up with a eunuch in charge of Ethiopia's money to tell him about the good news of salvation from the book of Isaiah.

So we'll take a look at that. So does God love individuals or whole groups of people? We'll take a look at that too. One other question for you. Have you ever been snatched by the Lord? Well, maybe you don't know quite how to answer that. We'll take a look at that too. Alright.

Here's Acts 8.26, and the timing of this, by the way, is the last half of spring, 35 A.D. Stephen was stoned in April, 35 A.D. These events are sandwiched between then and the summer of 35 A.D. when Paul, then called Saul, becomes a believer, turns from being a serial killer of Christians to being a Christian himself, a believer himself. So that's the timing here.

He says, But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza. So this is a desert road, it actually says in the text. And one of the things to point out, Luke is the one who most often in the New Testament uses that phrase, an angel of the Lord. He also just refers to an angel doing this or that as well. As a matter of fact, quite often, but particularly Luke, Dr. Luke points that out.

He says, get up and go. And that's without all the information. Notice he says, get up and go. And it isn't done. And here's your dossier with all the information about what's going to happen and what you're going to need to do. Right. So he doesn't give them all the information up front.

And I think that's an important thing for us to notice and observe here. Notice also that the road descends. We saw previously that Jerusalem is up and everything in Israel is down from there and so this road heading essentially towards the coast does descend as it heads towards the coast and it increasingly from Jerusalem where things are a bit wetter on down towards the southern part is more of a desert road and he's making note of that. So this is from the center of worship to the way out of Israel, and we're going to see what the purpose for that is shortly. So now, this angel of the Lord, it was a word that also means messenger, and in fact the angel is doing both in this case, right? This angel was a messenger, and that's exactly what he had for Philip here.

We also know that God does not send angels accidentally or incidentally. There's all sorts of old TV series and movies where you've got angels who are tempted. A lot of the angels, if it's a guy angel, a lot of them look like they've been pumping iron for a thousand years. It's incredible what they do. These angels are not accidentally or incidentally sent. God intended this message. That's what an angel gets sent for. The angel's words, get up and go south. And of course, in our lingo, going south means going bad.

That's not what this is. It was to have Philip leave what he was doing right then, whatever it was. and go on the road that leads from Jerusalem down to Gaza. Now, one of the clues here, he doesn't say, you know, get on the road that leads down to Gaza, assuming you're in Jerusalem. So there's, I think, a little bit of a clue here, it's not the only one, that he isn't starting from Jerusalem, although that's not abundantly clear. Now, I also think that Philip may have said, wait, wait, I got questions, you know. And no, that's not what the angel's sticking around for, apparently.

So as to where he started, did he go to Jerusalem along with Peter and John, and then get the directive? Or did he go from Samaria, where he'd been preaching, from Jerusalem to Gaza? And we don't know for sure, but the indications seem to lean towards the idea he was from Samaria. and he traveled from there down to the road that went between Jerusalem and Gaza.

That seems to be the implication from the language here. So we head south again. It's probably about one day's journey from where he is in Samaria to the place where he's to go on this road. He doesn't know what the assignment is. He just says that's where it is. So he has gone from Jerusalem to Samaria. That's what we've seen previously. And from there, he used to go from Samaria down to this roadway that leads from Jerusalem down to Gaza.

So here's Acts 8, 27 and 28. So he got up and went. And there was an Ethiopian unit, a court official of Candace. Queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure, and he had come to Jerusalem to worship, and he was returning and sitting in his chariot and was reading the prophet Isaiah. So we get this much information in verses 27 and 28. And notice in response to get up and go, he got up and went. Hey, that's pretty good. All right. And then the Ethiopian eunuch was a court official of Candace. Lots of specifics we're going to see there, except that it isn't actually a personal name. But anyway, we'll get to the details on that shortly.

He had come to Jerusalem. That is, he had a spiritual purpose, to worship. And so his returning was to head back down to where he'd come from and where he had his official standing and position. He was returned to Ethiopia to his official duties. We call it Ethiopia. It is what today encompasses part of Ethiopia and part of Sudan.

And we'll take a look at that in a minute here. He was in his chariot. This is not an open chariot where you stand and have military activity. This is more of a covered wagon, not the kind where the sides are covered necessarily, but at least the top is covered. and he was reading out loud, as we're soon going to see from the prophet Isaiah, and we'll also see soon why he would read out loud.

So one of the things that we find here, certainly what Philip has revealed to him is supernatural. There is an angel appearing to him, but nonetheless what he has revealed to him is faith in the facts. Did Philip know what he was going to do? What kind of opportunities God was going to provide before he left on his trip?

Apparently not. Apparently he had no idea. Okay, God's sending me down here. I don't know if it's to talk to a thousand people or twenty or what. Doesn't know. He didn't know and one of the things that we see here this Calls to mind Philippians 4 9 expanded and explained, okay The things you have learned as a disciple and received from me your teacher and heard from me and seen as reality in me you must put it into practice by reason of your eternal position in Christ and as you do the God of peace will be with you and so as to provide every resource, his life, for your doing so. So Philip had the circumstance here where the angel from the Lord told him, look, I want you to go here, get going to this place, and he didn't tell him what the rest of it was about. But Philip went ahead and followed through with that, assuming that the Lord's not only going to provide more information, but all the resources necessary to pull it off. And that's really the circumstance we're in. We may not have an angel coming to us, probably not, and telling us exactly what to do.

But for what the Lord has laid out, we can step out in faith, Assuming, because it's a very safe assumption, that the Lord will be faithful to follow through with all of who He is and what He's doing for us to carry out what God has asked. So the way we put it here in order to make it clear, facts, faith, and feelings, we put in this perspective. Faith in the facts is like the train in the tracks, and like the caboose, the feelings follow. We put our trust in what God has revealed to us. In our case, in God's Word, we put our faith and trust in that, and the feelings follow. Our culture has in great part been teaching us to put our faith in the feelings. And even certain portions of Christendom have done that. Put the faith in the feelings instead of trusting the Lord and counting on the feelings to follow instead of leading.

So one of the questions we could ask about this eunuch is who is this guy? And we're given some information. He was an Ethiopian and in that somewhat confused fashion had several different names in what it's called. He was from the kingdom of Moreau, and Moreau was actually a capital city, so it was a kingdom surrounding that. It was also called Cush, and you'll see it spelled with a C as well. or Nubia. Nubia, by the way, is the Egyptian word for gold, right? So all those different names used. It was south of Egypt and south of the Roman Empire. The Romans, a few decades before the time of Christ, went in and tried to take it and decided, eh, this isn't such a good idea, right?

And they backed out and so it remained then its independent country. And as you see, even what's left over here in terms of the civilization of the time, some pretty sophisticated structures, not just huts and places to live. So this would be a picture of some of the pyramids of the Ethiopians or those of the kingdom of Meroe at that time. Actually, the pyramids were in great shape until a couple centuries back when a certain Frenchman decided that he should take the top off of them. So anyway, OK, so here would be an artistic representation of a royal procession among the Ethiopians.

And one of the things you notice is lots of gold. They were noted for having lots of gold there and using it in their royal processions. And that would also be one of the reasons for this Ethiopian to be in charge of the treasury, being in charge of the gold collection. It would be a very significant task. More, he's said to be a court official. He's head of the Royal Treasury.

They were made to be physical eunuchs. Some have postulated, oh, this guy was just a eunuch by, you know, title of some kind. But in fact, he's repeatedly, about a half dozen times, referred to as a eunuch and here as an official. And the two categories of people that they would castrate, make physical eunuchs.

One, those ahead of the treasury. Two, those ahead of the harem. So those two. So this would be his role as head of the royal treasury. So how about Candace? That's the way the translation is. Actually, it's a title. Candace is the title in their language. It translates as queen. which is who she was. The queen at that time, at that point in time, Amanatir was the name of the queen. So Candace was not actually a name, but rather a title, the equivalent of queen.

So this eunuch was likely a God-fearing Gentile. He had been to Jerusalem to worship, and he was at this point headed home to Ethiopia. this kingdom of Meroe or as you see the other names Cush and some other names here. Now what's interesting as you look at the Bible there were various eunuchs at times and Ethiopia itself had a long history with Israel over centuries past and some of those points of history were favorable towards Israel and some were not.

What's interesting in Jeremiah 38 1 through 16 we read of another Ethiopian eunuch Abed Melech and he rescued Jeremiah the prophet from a horrible mud pit and interesting that mud pit by the way has been found and located and It's in just south of the Temple Mount So that mud pit that Jeremiah had been dropped into it was reality. This isn't just a story but So Abedmelech led a rescue of Jeremiah from that pit. In Jeremiah 39, 15 through 18, God promised to rescue Abedmelech from the coming Babylonian attack on Jerusalem. So, real interesting, the Lord kind of returned the favor, so to speak, for Abedmelech's faithfulness.

Now, so this eunuch that Philip encounters is reading from the scroll of Isaiah. This would be, this is actually a Hebrew copy that you see here. This is part of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but it gives you an idea what that would be. It was more likely in Greek for a few different reasons in the scroll that the eunuch had. and that happened to be a very favorable circumstance as we'll see shortly.

There may have been something that drew the eunuch and that is that eunuchs were typically treated rather badly and refused among the Jews. because according to Deuteronomy 23.1, they were forbidden to participate in the actual worship services. They could come to the outside perimeter of the temple. They could go to a synagogue and sit in the back. But they couldn't actually participate and even be converted into a Jew. And same thing with this eunuch. But Isaiah 56, 3-5 says something very, very interesting. And it may have been what attracted this eunuch to the book of Isaiah. Let's look at it here.

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, The Lord will surely separate me from his people. nor let the eunuchs say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths and choose what pleases me and hold fast my covenant, to them I will give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than that of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off. So this is a promise in relationship to the millennial kingdom and on into eternity.

So this may well have attracted the eunuch to this specific Bible book, the book of Isaiah. Here's Acts 8, 29 through 31. It says, And the Spirit said to Philip, Go up and join this chariot. Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said, Do you understand what you are reading? And he said, well, how could I unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. So imagine, here's Philip. Philip's kind of wondering, I wonder why God has me here on this road.

I mean, this is kind of a desert road. Lots and lots of people passing through here, but he sees rather quickly apparently. Here's this guy going along, and he recognizes this guy's reading out of the book of Isaiah, right? And some things to put together.

One of the reasons we say it was very likely the Greek Old Testament is one, what Dr. Luke records here in this chapter in Acts, that's part one. Two, is Philip was a Jew of Greek language and cultural background, okay? So he would have recognized Isaiah in the Greek very quickly and easily, right? It is also more likely that the eunuch would have known Greek than he would have known Hebrew.

So anyway with that, so the Spirit said to Philip, so this is a miraculous communication, go up and join this chariot, which we said was kind of a covered wagon, not in the, you know, moving out west sense, but covered, at least having a cover over the top. Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah. So as he was reading, Philip recognized it. So this would be likely from the Greek scroll.

Do you understand what you're reading? So this is a a question inviting the unit to ask for Philip's help. So, unless someone guides me, he is not saved yet. And we'll see here shortly, this word for guides me is a particular important one. And finally, invite Philip to come up and sit with him in this covered wagon. So that's the sequence here. The Spirit said to Philip to go up and join this chariot.

Is this the way that the Lord reveals truth to us today? Should we regularly expect now to have that kind of communication? Does the Holy Spirit regularly just drop, okay, do this, do that, go here, go there? Is that the way the Lord works? And since our own era, and since the time of the Lord's apostles and prophets, the primary and central means of God's special revelation to believers is in and through the written word of God. You will find groups of Christians who are really big into, you know, God told me this, and God told me that, and the Spirit said this, and I have a word for you, and it is da-da, you know. And so you'll find that kind of thing among a number of believers. That is not the way that the Lord chooses to operate in the vast majority of communications with us through his word.

So he's reading Isaiah the prophet. So the text of Acts is that Philip heard the eunuch read aloud. Now, so one of the things that they would do, especially as they're working through, okay, what is this saying, is reading it aloud was often helpful, especially as Greek was a language that this eunuch had apparently learned, but not necessarily, you know, greatly familiar with.

So he had to kind of work through the words. Also, a lot of the scrolls in the day did not necessarily have all the spaces between the words. So you had to kind of sound it out and, okay, does this make sense? And so sounding it out made more sense. To give you a quick example in English, is it nowhere or now here, right? So that would make a difference. And so you'd read things in context out loud to help figure out, you know, okay, what is this saying?

Philip recognized the passage right away, and it's amazing you could imagine the eunuch for since you left Jerusalem was probably reading through the book of Isaiah the whole thing how amazing Maybe miraculous that Philip just happens to come up to this guy as he's reading through Isaiah 53 So the evidence of God's specific direction in this event includes one Philip was a Jew of Greek language and cultural background who recognized the words from Isaiah. Secondly, Philip met the eunuch at precisely the right time for him to present the good news from Isaiah. So Isaiah has lots of different great things in it. But this specific thing about Christ's death, burial, and resurrection predicted seven centuries in advance. That's right in Isaiah 53.

So do you understand what you're reading? The eunuch didn't understand what he was reading and was apparently honest about that. How could I? Right? He welcomed Philip into his chariot to explain the words he had already been reading out loud. So it isn't a question, can I read it? It's do I understand what I'm reading? Okay, which is a different question.

Actually, we have a similar issue among us in our own culture and in the body of Christ. Do people understand what the Word of God says, both as to salvation and as to the body of Christ learning and understanding what does the Bible say? What does the Word of God say? We also need to understand what we are reading and hearing from the Word of God and our need for it.

Let's take a quick example in that. Is it possible that Christian believers can miscommunicate the gospel? Most certainly, right? And so, making the gospel clear to people is very important, exceedingly important. One of the common miscommunications is to have people say, oh, you need to invite Jesus into your heart. Oh, you just need to make a commitment to Christ and things like that. So a clear understanding of the gospel is what Philip was aiming for here. We also, in other means, need to have a clear understanding of God's Word.

He says, unless someone guides me. This exact same Greek word was the word used for Christ to say that the Holy Spirit would guide the apostles in John 16, 13. But this man wasn't even a believer in Christ at this point in time, right? So he needed guidance, not from the Holy Spirit per se as to what the words were saying. He needed guidance to understand.

So this African eunuch recognized his own need, which is a big an important step here. He needed somebody else to guide him through the meaning of this very special passage here in the book of Isaiah. Philip will lead this unit to eternal salvation through Christ as a result of looking at these words.

Here's Acts 8.32 and 33 that quotes Isaiah 53, 7 and 8.

Now the passage of Scripture which he was reading was this, He was led as a lamb to slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he does not open his mouth. In humiliation his judgment was taken away. Who will relate his generation, for his life is removed from the earth? So this is from the Greek Old Testament, which is one reason why if you read that exact passage in your Bible you say well it's a little different here and yes it is because it's translating from the Hebrew into English instead of from Hebrew into Greek into English. So he was led as a sheep to slaughter.

This of course is referring to Christ. Christ was led as a sheep to slaughter. He submitted himself to that As the land before it sure is silent, he does not open his mouth. It's interesting, all four of the Gospels make reference to Christ did not respond in defense of himself in front of Pilate. So one of the things that comes out of here is that God had inspired Isaiah.

So this passage presents the death of Christ for our sins. the burial and the resurrection of Christ, as well as the eternal life thereafter. It's all there. The gospel is there in Isaiah 53. So we find that this passage is either quoted or referenced in Luke 27, 37, 1 Peter 2, 5, and other passages as well. That's just a quick selection here.

It is a very important passage in terms of understanding seven centuries in advance what God is going to do through Christ. Later, of course, we find out in the New Testament that we in the body of Christ are identified with Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. So that's an additional truth on top of Christ was crucified for our sins. and buried and resurrected. To find that we were identified with Him in those things is the truth on top of that.

Here's Acts 8, 34 and 35, So one of the things we see is this guy is eager. He says, oh, if you have to. He doesn't say, if you have to, I guess you can tell me, or I guess you're going to tell me whether I want to hear it or not. That's not his attitude. He says, please tell me. He wants to hear it.

And then he says, of himself or someone else? And of course, the someone else is Jesus. Philip is going to help him understand that. And finally, he preached Jesus. This literally is good newsed the Jesus. He good newsed the Jesus to him. So one of the things we see here is this eunuch has questions. He does not just ask Philip to answer his question. Rather, he says, please tell me. He does definitely want to know. He wants to know the truth and especially regarding Scripture.

The eunuch knows he doesn't have the answers about this passage in Isaiah. Notice that he, from the outset, says, how can I understand this unless somebody guides me? So this guy, he's not egotistical about it. He's not arrogant about it. He recognizes what he doesn't know. He also asks some of the right questions. Is it this one or this one? So he's starting to ask some very important questions. The kinds of questions he would need to get the right answers.

And guess what? Philip has those answers, okay? So God has led Philip. You can imagine that Philip is, at this time, I imagine he's just rather maybe stunned, amazed, and yet, on the other hand, thinking, well, this is exactly what the Lord brought me here for, right? He recognizes it. God has led Philip to the unit for this specific time, to this place, among many possible others. And we're going to see that Philip goes through lots of different places. But this specific event here is just one event, one place, one guy.

Philip was led by the Holy Spirit to ask the eunuch also the right questions. He was right there to answer the eunuch. Philip went from the revelation of God that was in Scripture. Okay, here's this Scripture that you just read. So it wasn't a question of can you read it? He's going to take them from the scripture to understanding it. And that's key. He is going to, in this case, give him the application that he could come to know Christ personally. To know Christ personally. Here's Acts 8, 36 and 37. As they went along the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, look, water! And I'm sure there's been a lot of times when people have said that, right? But, look, water! And in this case, he asks the question, what prevents me from being baptized? And we want to look real carefully at why does he ask that question that way? What prevents me from being baptized?

And then in verse 37, And Philip said, If you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And notice that has brackets on it. We're going to talk about that in a minute. What prevents me from being baptized? That's an important clue to who this man is and his status under Judaism. And finally we're going to be looking at verse 37 to take a look at, should that be in the Bible or not? Alright, so one of the questions there with, you know, what prevents me?

One of the reasons it appears this eunuch was a God-fearing Gentile, and by the way, Dr. Luke who's recording this is a God-fearing Gentile, right? was that the African eunuch's castration prevented him from being a convert to Judaism and there was no way to fix it.

He was prevented from being a convert to Judaism and he couldn't like, okay, because you have been castrated we got to do this offering, we got to go through this ritual, there was No way to fix the problem. He could not convert to Judaism as much as he might want to. That was not allowed. He could not come into the inner courts of the temple. He was not allowed for that. And he could not be baptized as a convert into Judaism.

By the way, when someone converts from being a Gentile, when they convert to Judaism, The custom of the time said that you were born again. But he couldn't do that because he was a eunuch. So that's why this eunuch would have asked the question, what prevents me from being baptized? Because he previously had been prevented from being baptized into Judaism as a convert.

He could not do it. There was no way to fix the problem. The Law of Moses said that he could not be baptized as a Gentile convert to Judaism. However, he could be baptized as a believer in Christ. What prevents me? Nothing. Yes! This guy is going, right? Alright.

Now, the question is Acts 8.37 Scripture. If you have a New International Version, this verse will not even be in your Bible. You have the King James, which records it. The New American Standard, which we typically read from, has it, but in brackets. And what you will hear from a lot of people is that the first time that this shows up in the manuscripts is about the 6th century and not earlier.

So, do we need to get the scissors out? Right? Snip, snip. Right? Is that what we need to do? Well, hold your horses. Wait a minute. Hang in there. Stop the train. So, upon further investigation, a number of those notes and brackets are oversimplified. And we have references here. Some of the major passages where you find notes and brackets are in Mark 16, 9-20, which is the end of the Gospel of Mark.

Another one is John 7.53 through 8.11, which is the account of the woman caught in adultery. Both of those are ones that have the brackets and little notes to say this is not the best manuscript, etc. But what we find is as we examine those and this one That's not a complete examination of all the evidence. There's other evidence outside of the Manuscripts of the New Testament and by the way, we've got lots and lots of New Testament manuscripts But there is other evidence available.

It so happens that since about over a hundred years ago, we've had about 11 volumes of writings by the early church fathers and that those record quotes of the New Testament matter of fact if we didn't have one single New Testament manuscript handwritten manuscript and we have over 5,000 of them right if we didn't have one single written manuscript we could compose the entire New Testament in from the writings of these early church fathers except for 11 verses. All but 11 verses could be completely made up by these writings. And guess what? Several early church fathers quoted this verse as scripture from centuries earlier than what's supposedly the earliest copy.

So even though you'll find perfectly good Bibles, even though you'll find commentators who are conservative saying this is not in Scripture, I believe that's jumping the gun. I won't go back through all the hold your horses and all that. But I think it's jumping the gun because in fact we have for the woman caught in adultery account in John, we have multiple references that that is actually a valid text and here in Mark 16 9 through 20 Acts 8 37 and a number of other places So I think the the the rush to go and clip this up and that out and cause people to doubt it I think is mistaken anyway, so I believe that's one that should be kept in here's Acts 8 38 and he ordered the chariot to stop this would be of course the Eunuch and they both went down into the water Philip as well as the eunuch and he baptized him, right?

So he ordered him. Here's the one having authority. He was the one who was the head of the Treasury Department for this Empire of the Ethiopians So it ordered the cherry to stop They both went down the water. So this is in order for Philip to baptize the eunuch. So they go down into the water and And then he baptized him.

You've got so many pronouns there, just to make clear. Philip baptized the eunuch there in fulfillment of what the eunuch said. You know, is there anything to prevent me? No. No, there isn't. And so he went and baptized him there. So the eunuch did indeed have the authority. And here's water that's visible.

And part of what that tells you is this guy had wanted to be a convert to Judaism, but was completely prevented. They had the means right there around the temple to have people have baptisms before they go into the temple area and for Gentiles to convert and things like that all around the temple, but he was prevented. In this case, he was not because it was faith in Christ not being qualified for the temple.

So Philip baptized the eunuch in the water that was visible there along the roadway where they traveled. Philip did this with the eunuch, just as he had done with the masses of people in Samaria. Now, while it's not certain, it is possible to probable that Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch in the same stream from which David picked five smooth stones when he took on Goliath at the Ella Valley, or the Valley of Ella as it's called there. So that's actually the likely location. Not certain, but likely location where this actually took place. Here's Acts 8, 39, and 40.

And when they came 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. But Philip found himself in Azotus, and as he passed through, he kept preaching the gospel to all the cities until he came to Caesarea. So as they came out of the water, they just completed the baptism.

You can imagine this eunuch, he says, oh great, here's Philip. Maybe he wanted to say thank you or give him a big hug. Who knows? Philip's not there. The Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away and the eunuch no longer saw him. It's like, whew! Right?

This is the same word as in 1 Thessalonians 4.17 that talks about the rapture. So here's Philip, he doesn't get raptured in the complete sense, but he's just immediately snatched. So I asked the question earlier, have you been snatched by the Lord? Well, probably not like this. But there will come a time when all of us will be snatched by the Lord, and that's called the rapture.

So then he was rejoicing, why? Here is a guy, you can imagine him, he said, I've been wanting, maybe it's for years, maybe it's even for decades, I've been wanting to be a convert to Judaism, and I could never qualify. I could never get over that threshold. There was no way to fix it. And so they couldn't baptize me, and now he said, wow! I've been baptized, why? All I did was put my trust in Christ. I believed that He is the Son of God, died for my sins, was buried and rose again. That's it. God did the rest.

He had a lot to rejoice about, didn't He? And it is He that is Philip, passed through the cities. He kept on preaching. And again, we see this word preaching, it's actually more literally good newsing, right? It's good news in action. Good newsing the gospel, the good news. through all the cities that he came to in Caesarea. And at Caesarea, as we're soon going to see, he established his home and had a family.

So that's Acts 21, verse 8. So here he goes. He started in Jerusalem, went up to Samaria, went there to this place along the roadway between Jerusalem and Gaza. And then from there, he was carried over to Azotus. So he was essentially carried something like about 8 miles, Snatch. Eight miles. There he is at Azotus. He goes up the cities. After Azotus, it doesn't tell us what the cities are. So the arrows that I have here and on page one of your handout are presuming some things. There could actually be a slightly different sequence. But he went up through the cities and ended up at Caesarea.

Caesarea, the next time we find Philip is Acts 21.8. And by that time, he's got a family. Four daughters, to be exact.

Alright, so here's this word that is used for snatching Philip. It's the exact same word used for rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4, 13 through 18. By the way, if somebody tells you the word rapture is not found anywhere in Scripture. Oh, well, but this word is. Harpazo, that one Greek word means snatched up, caught up. is used elsewhere, and it's used here in this passage, specifically in verse 17.

So, that's the real thing. There's no evidence that Philip anticipated that outcome, nor anything else that happened that day, as a matter of fact, nor that the eunuch was expecting to have Philip be snatched away. So Philip was brought to the Ethiopian eunuch in one way, get up and go, meet him here, right? And he was taken away from the Ethiopian eunuch in another way. which is something that we can draw some conclusions from. Unless the Lord has revealed it in scripture, expect that the Lord doesn't have to do things the same way every time. The Lord doesn't have to do it the same way every time.

I'm fond of telling the story of my two grandmothers. On my mom's side, both my grandmothers died about 1887. On my mom's side, My grandmother became a believer at about age 13 in the middle of the 1906 earthquake that rocked San Francisco and the San Francisco Bay Area, right in the middle of the earthquake while the ground was still rocking. The Bible study leader says, now Eva, are you ready to put your trust in Christ? Yes.

My other grandmother, when you talked to her about the gospel, just looked stone-faced. Somebody dropped a curtain. Completely unresponsive until three weeks before she died. We were worried because she was dying of cancer. The family members, myself included, tried to talk to her about the Lord. She would always just shut down. Just no response. We kept praying, though, and neighbors, We had no idea, but neighbors came, told her about the Lord. She became a believer three weeks before she died. So, two grandmothers.

God does not always do the same thing the same way all the time unless He says so in His Word. So, he went on his way rejoicing. He had complete acceptance. Imagine if he had been trying to be a convert to Judaism for all this time. He'd gone up to worship. But he's just turned away. He says, I'm sorry, you can come to the back of the synagogue and you can come to the outskirts of the temple, but that's it. Sorry, I can't help you. You're just out of luck, off limits.

But he now had complete acceptance in Christ, completely apart from the law and complete assurance. And he had the baptism. which was a declaration of the change in faith that he already had expressed here. So he says, he went on his way rejoicing. He couldn't be baptized under the Jewish law, now baptized by Philip in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as a spiritual picture of what this baptism represented. Saved eternally by faith in Christ the Son of God.

You know, I told you a story about my grandmother who became a believer three weeks before she died. She always looked very serious. And if you talked to her about the Lord, she looked even more serious. Right? But when she became a believer, even though she was in great pain, she went around with a smile on her face I had never seen on her face my entire life.

So there are great examples here for us and lessons for us to learn from. So here's Philip who started out chapter 8 among the Samaritans, this outcast group, this group that were unsavable, according to what everybody else thought. But he says, well, it really matters what the Lord thinks. And the Lord thinks these guys are savable, so I'm going to go and give them the gospel, right?

Philip was directed by the Holy Spirit in leading this eunuch to salvation, which couldn't even happen under the law. So the law is going to say, these Samaritans, they're terrible people. The law is going to say, this eunuch, sorry eunuch, I don't care how much you want to, you cannot come into Judaism. Not happening. Philip was led by the Spirit. to this eunuch and was taken away by another means entirely.

God can do things different ways. Unless His Word specifies something particularly, don't be surprised if God does something differently. We were amazed when my grandmother became a believer because, wait a minute, was it you that talked to him? Was it you that talked to him? Was it you that talked to him? No. It was by means none of us expected.

Philip entered this path of the Spirit's guidance in Caesarea. The Lord had Philip jumping around Israel, going from north down to south, bouncing back and forth between the cities up the coast, and ending up in Caesarea, and then staying in Caesarea, for all we know, for the decades to follow. It would be another 20 years, approximately, before Dr. Luke would catch up to him and get these stories down. These accounts, I'll call them. So here's Philip.

He ends up in Caesarea, Acts 21.8. We're going to catch up with Philip once more, where he has become a family man and settled down after all this bouncing around, even including a snatching by the Lord. Right? So does God love individuals or whole groups of people? Is that the right answer? Yes. Right? Yes. And I think that's something for us to remember. There are people that it's easy for us to go and just write off totally.

On the other hand, what we see here is the Lord takes Philip and has Philip go specifically to meet this Gentile who wants to know Him. Specifically to meet Him. just him. Christ died for the whole world including you and me. Let's pray. Lord thank you as we look at this really amazing account of Philip and as Dr. Luke records it for us. Some astounding things in it and yet in it we also see your great love for each one of us. We thank you for that. We pray for these lessons that you have in here for us to learn them by heart. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.