Acts 8:26 But an angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza: the same is desert. 27And he arose and went: and behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was over all her treasure, who had come to Jerusalem to worship; 28and he was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29And the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot. 30And Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? 31And he said, How can I, except some one shall guide me? And he besought Philip to come up and sit with him. 32Now the passage of the Scripture which he was reading was this,

He was led as a sheep to the slaughter;
And as a lamb before his shearer is dumb,
So he openeth not his mouth:

33In his humiliation his judgment was taken away:
His generation who shall declare?
For his life is taken from the earth.
34And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other? 35And Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture, preached unto him Jesus. 36And as they went on the way, they came unto a certain water; and the eunuch saith, Behold, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? 37And Philip said, If thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. 38And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. 39And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip; and the eunuch saw him no more, for he went on his way rejoicing. 40But Philip was found at Azotus: and passing through he preached the gospel to all the cities, till he came to Caesarea.

The capstone of G. K. Chesterton’s writings as an apologist was The Everlasting Man (published in September 1925). This work has also become a classic, and it is little less famous as a book that served as a catalyst for C. S. Lewis’s embrace of Christianity. Lewis never forgot his first reading of this book:

Then I read Chesterton’s Everlasting Man and for the first time saw the whole Christian outline of history set out in a form that seemed to me to make sense. Somehow I contrived not to be too badly shaken. You will remember that I already thought Chesterton the most sensible man alive “apart from his Christianity.” Now, I veritably believe, I thought—I didn’t of course say; words would have revealed the nonsense—that Christianity itself was very sensible.

What a message to start a new year with! How we should thank God that we are not living in a closed universe and that we are not dependent upon what people in the government are going to do in this coming year, to save us.

God knows all, and He is outside, and He is above, and He is illimitable in His power, in His omniscience, and in everything else. And all His attributes are eternal.

Our hope is that God, the everlasting and eternal God, has not turned His back on this world of ours, but that, on the contrary, He is very concerned about it and has a plan for its redemption, its delivery, its restoration to the condition in which He originally made it. This message tells us that God interferes in this world, erupts into it, enters into it, and is most intimately concerned about it.

“The angel of the Lord said to Philip … go …”

What for? he has an errand, a message. A man is in need, in trouble, so go! That is the great message of the whole of the Bible: God seeking lost man.

What are the characteristics of this plan and purpose of God with regard to this world?

God’s plan for this world is a redemptive plan. Why did He send His angel to meet Philip? In order to redeem the Ethiopian eunuch. That man was in trouble. He was helpless and hopeless, and God’s purpose was a purpose of redemption.

God is displeased with the state of this world today. He sees His marvelous creation marred, defaced, ruined, and He sees man, the supreme creation of all.

This world is not abandoned; it is not left to human beings and their ingenuity and ability and all their horrible plans and purposes. God is concerned, and His plan is a plan of redemption.

Redemption is always the result of God’s initiative. Look at this Ethiopian eunuch going in hopelessness back to his home, expecting nothing. But suddenly he is confronted by a man. Who sent the man there? God sent him.

Salvation is all of God, entirely.

For a long time the plan of God has obviously been to reach the world with the saving truth all the way through the Old Testament and God always designed at the beginning in the Old Testament for all of this communication to come through Israel.

Israel was not a reservoir Israel was a channel. God didn’t expect to dump everything on Israel and then just sort of pet them and stroke them and say, You’re My favorite everybody else can just go to Hell.

He only saw Israel as a vehicle to reach the world but Israel kept up clogging up the channel. Israel never really did its job. You can imagine what must have gone on in heaven this day when
finally the fresh channel was cut known as the church and they finally stepped out and reached the first Gentile.

In the Old Testament Israel was supposed to reach the Gentiles but they got trapped on two extremes. The one was a real separatist nationalism where they didn’t want Gentiles coming in on their God. They liked the fact that God was their God and they weren’t too sure they wanted any Gentiles having anything to do with Him at all.

Remember God said to Jonah, I want you to go and preach to the Ninevites, they were Gentiles and Jonah didn’t want to do it in fact he got on a ship and went the wrong direction and you know the story he took a short trip on a long fish and finally wound up being vomited up.

If it wasn’t that separatistic nationalism then it was such a mixture that they corrupted their own faith. They then brought Baal in and they all started worshipping Baal. They couldn’t seem to find the happy medium being there with the message without getting corrupted by the people they were trying to reach.

Now we see with this man the faith that saves. This is one of those messages that just kind of leaps off the page at you with spiritual principles that apply in so many different cases

The faith that saves must have the proper preparation, a presentation and a proper personal response.

The preparation for it to be real saving faith,

verse 26. “And an angel of the Lord spoke unto Philip saying, Arise and go toward the south”, now go down to verse 29, “Then the Spirit said unto Philip Go near and join thyself to this chariot”. Salvation begins with the Spirit of God. Salvation is God’s work it is not man’s work. The initiative is in the grace of God, it is in God’s will.

Nobody deserves salvation, no one earns it, and on one of his own accord finds it or discovers it. God dispenses it according to His grace and sovereign will in the framework of grace. In 1 Cor. 2:14 we read a familiar verse, “But the natural man”, now we mean man in his natural sinfulness, man apart from God, man in rebellion, man dead in sin, man without spiritual capacity. Just man in his naturalness. “Receive not the things of the Spirit of God they are foolishness unto him.” They just don’t make sense at all. 1 Cor. chapter 1 the apostle Paul says that when you try to preach Christ crucified to the Gentiles it’s foolishness and to the Jew it’s a stumbling block of foolishness. And so the natural man in his own naturalness cannot understand God. It’s all foolish.

2 Cor. 4:3, They’re blinded by their naturalness and they’re blinded by Satan himself. So men exist in double blindness They couldn’t see salvation at all because they’re incapacitated therefore the initiation of salvation is not the work of man it’s the work of the Spirit of God who breaks through the barriers

All that the Spirit is and all that the Spirit does is wholly outside the observation of the unsaved.

In Ephesians 2:1 it says, man is dead in sin. Dead men don’t respond to anything. John 6:44 Jesus simply said this, “No man cometh unto Me unless the Father”, what? “Draw him.” You see, it must be God’s initiating act to break the barrier that is put there by naturalness and Satan himself. The Holy Spirit can move in and when the Holy Spirit shatters the barrier then all that was mystery becomes light.

The Spirit begins to work in this case with the Ethiopian by just getting Philip going the right direction. “And an angel of the Lord spoke unto Philip. Now Gaza was a city of the Philistines. Right through the middle of old Gaza ran the road that ran from Jerusalem to Egypt Gaza was approximately 50 miles southwest of Jerusalem and the road went through Bethlehem, Hebron and through Gaza and into Egypt. So it was a very much traveled road.

“Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot

The submissive will of Philip and the presentation

The Spirit does the work, but He needs a tool.

You’re a tool, and that’s all you are. Don’t ever confuse yourself with the artist. The Spirit is the artist, he’s the craftsman. You’re only the tool but you are a tool.

So you’ve got to have a willing Philip, and he was really willing, the Spirit always uses human instruments, always. But there’s a qualification to be used and that’s holiness.

2 Timothy 2:20 and if you really want to be used listen to this. In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also wood and earth and some to honor and some to dishonor. You want to be God’s tool stay pure, you purge yourself from sin. So God uses holy tools, holy instruments to do His finest work.

And he arose and went”, it doesn’t say he fasted and prayed for three weeks he just went. It doesn’t say he argued with God and said, Now Look, God, I’ve got a proposition for You, we’ve got quite a thing going up here in Samaria, publicity’s out, I’ve got a press interview tomorrow, a big revival going on, now You must have somebody on Your team who’s going from Jerusalem to Egypt who could hit that guy on the way down. Ah, that’s a long trip and once I get there I’ve got to come back and that’s a good 125 miles, Lord, and I’ve got to walk and that’s desert and I mean, there’s lots of other instruments. But Philip was the right shape. God knew it, God wanted him and Philip didn’t argue he arose and went, that’s humility.

To drop everything and head for the desert seems absurd. At a time in Philip’s life when everything was strategic. But God not only calls men unto salvation He calls the instrument He uses to bring them to salvation.

V 30, Philip ran, boldness belongs to Spirit-filled people. The Lord used Peter to reach Cornelius, Paul to reach the jailer, Paul to reach those in Caesar’s household. He’s used you to reach people, me to reach people. He uses us. So the sovereign work of the Spirit also needs the submissive will of a man or a woman of a young person, that’s part of the plan. And Philip was submissive. He didn’t argue, he didn’t hassle with God he just went and he ran to get there. I mean, if we’d attack the will of God with that kind of vigor we’d see something happen in this world.

God honors and meets the searching heart.

The searching worship of the Ethiopian. He was searching for the true God, verse 27; had come to Jerusalem to worship was returning and sitting in his chariot reading Isaiah the prophet.”

He had honor prestige, unlimited wealth. He had everything he wanted at his fingertips but he wasn’t satisfied. He had made at least twelve-hundred mile trip. Now when you’re willing to go twelve-hundred miles you’re after something. This man was hungry for God, He had a searching heart.

Romans 1:18ff says that God plants within a man a consciousness that He exists. That man is without excuse. Here’s a man, took the light that he had and pursued more light and what happened? God met him and gave him the light that he looked for.

Someone always ask, What about the heathen?

I believe that the heathen lives up to the light God has given him and as a searching heart God will give him the light that he needs to come to Jesus Christ.

So he went back from Jerusalem with nothing more then when he had come. But he was seeking and that’s all God asks.

The Lord God pardons everybody who prepares his heart to seek God”. The Lord God pardons everyone who prepares his heart to seek God. 2 Chronicles 30:18 and 19. If you really pursue Him He’ll be found. Jeremiah 29:13, “And you shall seek Me and find Me when you shall seek Me with your heart.”

So the preparation is right; sovereign work of the Spirit, submissive will of Philip and a searching worship of the Ethiopian. One more ingredient is needed for a saving faith.

The Presentation of the Truth, special revelation

Somewhere you’ve got to have the information that brings it all together and he had it in his hand. You just don’t find salvation starring at a tree or at the stars. They can arrest your attention that there is more, and when that happens, God will send the more, the special revelation, His Word.

When he had been in Jerusalem he had undoubtedly paid a good price for a scroll of Isaiah 53, those things didn’t come cheap. Isaiah 53 which is the whole presentation of the death of Messiah and salvation through His sacrificial atonement. It’s right there. Philip is there. Everything comes together. That’s no accident.

If a person really wants to know the truth of God he needs to open the bible and God will reveal it to him if he’s got a searching heart.

Philip runs up and says, Do you understand what you’re reading? He says, No, I need a bible teacher is there one around?

32, “The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter”, he’s talking about the Messiah going to die, “And like a lamb dumb before his shearer He opened not His mouth

So Philip took his opportunity and he taught him the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. Look at verse 35, “Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same Scripture.”.

“Always be ready to give to every man a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear”. You ought to have something to say to every man wherever he’s at. So the presentation of the gospel, then, is constructed the Word.

True evangelism presents the whole doctrine of salvation.

39, “And when they were come up out of the water the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, the eunuch saw him no more”, that was a miracle. Don’t you think that eunuch didn’t know it.

And look at this, “But Philip was found at Azotus and passing through he”, did what? What did he always do? It never was a question of what he did it was only where he did it. So there he goes back, preaching, “preaching till he came to Caesarea.”

Here you have the whole picture of faith that saves.

God prepares behind the scenes,

then he finds a willing person to go and share the Truth of his Word

the Word finds a searching Heart,

the Heart responds to the Word and One is saved.

THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM

The Power of Faith—January 21, 1973

Hebrews 11:8–19

In our continuing series in the book of Hebrews, we come to the eleventh chapter tonight—Christian living by faith. And this is a great, great section to just teach the basic principles of living by faith. There are really only two ways to live in life; one is to live by sight, base everything on what you can see—that’s the empirical approach, the other is to live by faith, base everything on what you can’t see. The Christian lives by faith, we base our lives on what we’ve never seen. We’ve never seen God, we’ve never seen Jesus Christ, we’ve never seen heaven, we’ve never seen hell, never seen the Holy Spirit, never seen any one individual who wrote the Bible, never seen an original manuscript of the Bible, never seen any of the graces that God says He dispenses to us, they’re not tangible, they’re not visible to the eye, the human eye, and yet we bank not only our life but our eternal destiny on those things which we have never seen. That’s how the Christian lives

John F. MacArthur Jr., John MacArthur Sermon Archive (Panorama City, CA: Grace to You, 2014).