September 3rd

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Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is the 365 Bible Reading Plan. Today is September the third, and our chapter for today is the book of Acts, chapter 8. Now Saul was consenting unto his death, that is, the death of godly Stephen. At that time a great persecution rose against the church which was at Jerusalem, and they were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles, that is, they all stayed there in Jerusalem. And devout men, godly men, carried Stephen to his burial, and made a great lamentation over him. What a tremendous tribute to this great man of God, the first martyr that would ever taste death for the testimony of Jesus. He gave an example for all of us how to die with great dignity in the name of Jesus, forgiving those and asking for forgiveness of those who were actually stoning him to death. But now as for Saul, this is Saul of Tarsus, he made havoc of the church. He was breaking up the church, he was breaking into the church, he was trying to destroy the church, and he entered into every house, dragging off men and women, committing them to prisons, moms and dads, people of every sort, every color of Jew. They were hailing them off to prison. Therefore, those who scattered went everywhere preaching the word. Isn't it amazing when the enemy of our souls seeks to destroy the Church of Jesus? Jesus will not allow that to happen. You see, it is under great times of persecution that the church thrives. It's in times of great trouble and trouble in a nation that the Church of Jesus sees revival. Could it be that that is the only hope for America is persecution? Has it come to this, to the point to where we have not learned the lessons of history and we are going to ultimately pay the price for that? But just as in all of the other scriptures, what the enemy means for evil, God turns for good. The children of Israel, those who followed Jesus, those who committed their lives to him, they scattered everywhere, fleeing the persecution, yes, but everywhere that they went, they took the wonderful treasure of the message of Jesus, the life saving forgiveness of Jesus Christ. And because of that the gospel was spread from there into the next region, into Samaria. Now I want you to remember what it says about Saul, that he stood and affirmed and consented to the death of Stephen, and he took up the mantle of the persecutor, of the people of God. Now all of these were Jews, they were his own flesh and blood. But it didn't matter. He was a crazed, maniacal, religious man that was blinded to the truth of God. And we will find out in the next chapter how God meets him on the road to Damascus. But I want to recall to you that he never got away from this stoning of Stephen, when later in the book of Acts he was giving his testimony and his defense, his apologia, his apology before the Romans and before the rulers of Judah. He said, I stood and watched, held the garments of those who took them off so they could get a better wind up to stone Stephen. I watched it all, I oversaw it, and his heart was convicted. You see, Stephen never knew. He knows now, of course, but he never knew what was happening. That his faithfulness to God was going to release conviction in a man that would turn the world upside down with the gospel of Jesus. Yes, the one who oversaw and held the garments of those that would stone him to death. And the scripture says that as they scattered everywhere they went preaching the word. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them, preached Messiah, preached to who? He preached to the Jews. You see, for the first, for the first eight to ten years, the first decade practically of New Testament Christianity, it was nothing but Jews who were followers of Jesus. And so Philip was still preaching to the Jews in Samaria. Well, I thought that would no. Jews populated all of what is modern day Israel today, and they were scattered across the face of the earth because of their disobedience hundreds of years earlier. And why were they there? They were there in the plan of God again to take what was evil and use it for good. Because everywhere they had gone, scattered throughout the earth, they had gathered together in what was called Bait Knessets, later in the Greek period, synagogos, synagogues. And those synagogues became in every community a preaching point for the apostle Paul, as he was called after his first missionary journey. And so this is a tremendous lesson to all of us that it doesn't matter what the devil, what the enemy of our souls, what the demons of hell, what our own flesh brings against us, even with bad choices, God is able with a repentant heart to take what was meant for evil and turn it for good. Let's never forget those lessons. And the Bible says, and the multitudes with one accord in Samaria heeded the things spoken by Philip, and hearing, seeing these miracles which he did, for the unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of many who were possessed, and many who were paralyzed and lamed were healed, and there was great joy in that city. Any time that there is the preaching of the gospel of Jesus and the forgiveness of sins and the healing of the sick, and the great miracles of God, there is great joy. Now let me just say to you that it is important for all of us to remember that God is a miracle working God. And just because miracles are not being done in your particular church, or just because miracles are not being done in your particular life doesn't mean that God has stopped working miracles. God is able to do what he's always done, and when it is time and it is in his will, he still does those. But it's not always God's will to heal, it's not always God's will to raise up, it's not always God to cause the blind to see, it's not always God's will to heal the paralyzed, but sometimes it is. And when God does that, he does it always for a purpose. It is always on purpose that God acts. And so it was in this Samaritan region that God performed these great miracles to validate the message and the preaching of Philip, this godly preacher from Judah. And then the Bible says, But there was a certain man called Simon who previously practiced sorcery in the city, and he astonished the people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great, to whom they all gave heed from the least to the greatest, saying, This is the great power of God, and they heeded him because he astonished them with his sorceries, his witchcraft for a long time. But listen to this, verse twelve, but when they believed Peter, as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus the Messiah, both men and women were immersed. Now, when you're immersed, what you're doing is you're publicly saying, I have died to my old belief system, the way that I thought, the way that I lived, the way that I acted, and I have now been buried, and I am now being raised, brought back to life to a new kind of life, a new thought process, a new way of thinking, a new way of living. And that's what baptism was then, and that's what it is now. Then Simon himself also believed, and when he was baptized he continued Philip, and was amazed seeing the miracles and signs which were done. Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For as yet he had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and when they laid hands on them, they received the Holy Spirit. Now this is amazing simply because remember, the Book of Acts is a book of transition. It is in many ways the taking of the old era and taking hand of the new era and bringing them together. In other words, what happened in the book of Acts, yes, it is a pattern, but the pattern takes time to develop. There were people groups, remember the Lord Jesus said, You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem when powers come upon you. And then in Judea, that's the Roman province in which Jerusalem was, and that had already happened as the preaching of the gospel began to go forth. Now they were in Samaria. Now they were in the place where people were who were of different customs and of different lifestyles. The Lord changed their lives. So the apostles sent Peter. Why? Because it was to validate the preaching of Philip. And so these two of the inner circle of Jesus came, they laid hands on them, and the same thing that happened to the apostles at Shavuot at the Feast of Weeks at Pentecost was now happening in Samaria. And God validated the message of Philip and validated the message of Peter and John by giving the Holy Spirit. And then when Simon, this sorcerer, this man who had been involved in witchcraft, saw the laying on of the hands of the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying, Give me this power also that anyone on whom I may lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit. Well, Peter wanted to set an example that this man had totally misunderstood what was happening. And Peter said unto him, Your money perished with you because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money. You have neither part nor portion in this matter, that is, in the gospel of Jesus, for your heart is not right with God in the sight of God, repent therefore of your wickedness and pray that God, if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you, for I see that you're poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity. You see, it's already said that he believed, and that he carried through on the rituals. But after a man does that, can he still be tainted by his past? You better believe it. And so Peter said, Listen, God will forgive you, but you better immediately get right with God and quit this stuff and turn from this wickedness. Now every believer needs to hear this, because this is the reality of where we're living. The Church of Jesus in America is very much like the church at Corinth. That is, we are carnal to the core, and only God can save us, only God can redeem us, yes. But only God can deliver us from a thought pattern and a lifestyle and actions and ways of living and thinking that we have been caught up in that have brought us back into bondage. Bitterness, iniquity, twisting of things, unforgiveness, all of these things, the gospel of Jesus being sold to the highest bidder, and then Simon the sorcerer, that is, answered and said, Pray to the Lord for me that none of these things which you have spoken may come upon me. So when they had testified, by the way, this is the way that it should be, that Simon, it seems, in this passage, had truly said, I don't want any of that to fall upon me. Now does the fear of God bring us to repentance? Yes. Does the goodness of God bring us to repentance? Yes. Whether it's the goodness of God or the fear of the judgment of God, the main thing is that we're brought to repentance and life change, and a life of obedience, a change from the life of disobedience. So when they had testified and preached the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans. In other words, they just didn't go back to Jerusalem. They preached the gospel on the way. They had gone all the way into Samaria, and as they came back south to Jerusalem, they were preaching the gospel to all the villages along the way. Why? Because Jesus was alive. This was not something they did on the first of the week. This was not something they did occasionally or for a special event. This was a way of life. These people got it. That Jesus is their life. He's not an upgrade, he's not an addendum, he's not an appendix, he's not an add-on. He is their life. That means that whatever they were doing for a living, whether it's fishing, a carpenter, whether it was a tax collector, whatever they did, that was totally beside the point. Now Jesus had arrested them. He had taken them. They are now in his service. They had enrolled in his school, and now they were in his service. I'm telling you, folks, this kind of Christianity will wake America up, but the weak, anemic, noodleback, wet noodleback Christianity that we have today in the pew in the pulpit will never change anyone's life. We've got to have the bold preaching of the Word of God with lives that are backing up what they preach, lives of integrity and obedience. God help us. There's not a preacher walking that does not need to go through a period of repentance at some point in their life that has not gone astray. But whoever we are and whatever we've done that has brought shame and reproach to the name of Christ, at any time, we need to examine our lives, go back and say, Oh, God, forgive me and cleanse me. I want to be used by you, I want to be clean, I want to be whatever. Lord, I'm enrolling in your school today of obedience. You teach me to obey you, and I will do it by your grace, and God will meet us right where we are. Now the angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, Well, you're finished here, arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. Down that Gaza road, that's called the Via Maris, the way of the sea by the Romans. And this is the desert. So he was not in the Shvila, he was not in the foothills, he was not just at the edge, he was all the way down into Gaza going to Egypt. So he arose and went, and behold a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority, under Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury. He was the secretary of treasury for the country of Ethiopia, and he was a proselyte. He was one who had been circumcised, had taken as his own the ways of Judaism and the rituals of the Jews, and he had been catechized, he had been taught by a rabbi, and he had committed his life to following the words of Torah. He had no doubt been circumcised, but he had also been baptized. He had died to his old spiritism belief on his animism, whatever it was that he came out from. They had put him underwater to show that old way of life had been died to. There had been a death, there had been a burial covered in water, and raised to walk in a new kind of life with a new master, a new rabbi, a new teacher, and a new way of life of obedience. You see, we're saved to a life of obedience. We're not just saved so we can say, boy, that's good. I back in um 1970, 1960, 19 at such and such church, God changed my life. Folks, that's an event of the past, and it's wonderful, it's great, and we need to share it from time to time. But my goodness alive, has God not done anything in your life since then that you could share? Has God not done anything in 2022, 2021, 2020? Has God not done anything in 2023, 2024? I mean, w where are we? Are we uh just saved for an event or are we saved for a life of obedience, a life of honoring God with everything that's within us? And so this man understood that. It was a way of life. He had taken it on. And by the way, the evidence is before us. He had made a trip all the way from Ethiopia, a costly trip. And uh it was not on a jet plane, it was not riding in a car. He was riding in a chariot. Yes, that was good transportation for that day, but that's a long way to ride in a chariot. And so he had come proving his faith was real and made a pilgrimage. He was making his way back down that Gaza Strip, back down the Via Maris, to go into uh Egypt and then over to Ethiopia. It was a many, many, many days' journey, and he was being faithful to do that. And why did he come? Well, he came to follow the rituals of the Jews, and the Lord surprised him on the way home. Because you see, as he was reading the scriptures seeking the face of God, God saw that and God began to put everything together, and that's what he did. He brought Philip down, and the Bible says as he was returning and sitting in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. He was probably reading the Torah portion for that week, reading the Haf Torah, the prophet, the prophetic passages that go with the parashah, the Torah reading. Then the Spirit said to Philip, Go near and overtake the chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, Do you understand what you're reading? And the Ethiopians said, How can I, unless someone guides me, unless I have a teacher? I've got to have a rabbi, I've got to have somebody helping me here. This is this is tough stuff. I mean, this this is a messianic passage. And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. And the place in the scripture where he read was this He, that is Messiah, the anointed one, the Christ, was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before his shearer is silent, so he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation his justice was taken away, and who will declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth. So the eunuch asked Philip and said, I ask you, of whom does this prophet say of this of himself or of another man? Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning at the scripture, preached Jesus unto him. Now remember, these people during this era did not have the Breed Hadashai, the New Testament. They only had the Tanakh, the law, the prophets, and the writings, what we call the Old Testament. And so they were reading it, and they had not understood that Messiah had come. And so the Bible says that as they went down the road, they no doubt were still talking about it, and the man was was just marveling at all of this, and the eunuch said, See, here's water. See, water? What hinders me from being baptized? What hinders me from going on with the next step? Uh, you see, when I became a Jew and a follower of Judaism, I went through the ritual of baptism. Is that true for here? Is this what I need to do? Because it would seem to me it would be. And Philip said, Well, if you trust, if you believe, if you have committed with all your heart, you may. And he answered him and said, Well, I believe that Jesus is the Messiah, is the Son of God, and he knew what that belief meant. It was a commitment of life. It wasn't intellectual ascent. It wasn't just saying, Yeah, I believe in Jesus and I believe he died for my sins. And you can believe all that and not be saved. You've got to get under the hoopah. You've got to say I do. You've got to make a commitment. That's what faith is. It's not just intellectual assent. It's not just believing. If that were the case, the demons of hell would be saved because it takes more than that. They know who Jesus is. They claimed that over and over again in the gospels. They recognized him, said, What are you doing here? Why please, please have mercy on us? Don't send us to the abyss. And they went down into the water and he baptized him. Now, if he'd just sprinkled him, he had said to his assistant, Go down there and get me a cup of water. I'm going to sprinkle this man right here so he doesn't have to get wet. He's got on nice clothes, and we don't want to do anything like that. We want to make it convenient for him, you see. No, no, no. You see, Christianity is not about convenience, it's about commitment. And I want to say to you that we've lost that sense today. We want to do what's comfortable, what's convenient. I told my children growing up, I've told my grandchildren, I've told my wife this a hundred times, and I've told my friends, and I've tell myself almost every day of my life, if I'm going to be a follower of Jesus, if you're going to be a follower of Jesus in any age, and you're going to make a radical difference in the generation in which you live, you better get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Because God doesn't call us to comfort, he calls us to courage. And now is the day of courage. And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away so that the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing. Let you and I go on our way rejoicing. As we walk on the way, this is Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org, then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's questions at Tony C R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.