November 24, 2025 • 16 mins
When pressure hits, does faith shrink or spread? Acts 8 shows how persecution in Jerusalem became the spark for a wider move of God, sending ordinary believers into Judea and Samaria with courage, clarity, and power. We walk through Stephen’s aftermath, Saul’s crackdown, and the surprising ways the gospel took root where no one expected it.
We zero in on Philip, a deacon turned evangelist, whose preaching in Samaria is marked by deliverance, healing, and tangible joy. Crowds who once followed magic finally hear the truth about Jesus and the kingdom of God. The clash with Simon the sorcerer exposes a timeless temptation: treating the Holy Spirit’s gifts like currency. Peter’s response calls for repentance, purity of motive, and a return to grace over status. Along the way, we address a common question about the Holy Spirit—received at conversion or in a later experience—and focus on what matters most: continual growth, unity, and a life that bears fruit.
Then the scene shifts to a desert road where obedience becomes personal and precise. Philip follows a prompt, meets an Ethiopian official reading Isaiah 53, and starts from that very passage to reveal Jesus. The official believes, asks to be baptized immediately, and carries the good news home with joy. In a startling twist, Philip is transported miles away to keep preaching, a reminder that God directs both our steps and our leaps. Through it all, the thread holds: adversity can be an accelerant, Scripture opens doors, and the Spirit empowers ordinary people to do extraordinary work.
If this journey stirred your faith, subscribe for more chapter-by-chapter breakdowns, share the episode with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a review to help others find the Bible Breakdown Podcast. Your support helps the message go further—where did Acts 8 challenge you most?
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Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast.
Every day, we take one chapterof the Bible, dig deeper, and
discover that the more we dig,the more we find.
You can find out more at theBibleBreakdown.com.
Now let's grow in God's Wordtogether.
Well, hello, everybody.
Welcome back to the BibleBreakdown Podcast with your
host, Pastor Brandon.
Today, Acts chapter 8.
(00:22):
And I think a good title fortoday would be Persecution
Fertilizes the Gospel.
Persecution fertilizes thegospel.
One of the true ways to tell ifsomething is for real or not is
how does it respond toadversity?
It was Mike Tyson that famouslysaid, everyone has a plan until
they get hit in the mouth.
(00:43):
And that is truly the situationfor a lot of times, right?
What do you do when you facepersecution?
Well, it turns out persecutionis well on its way to the early
church, but man, God's got a lotin store.
And so we're going to get intothat in just a moment.
But as always, if you like whatwe're doing here, make sure that
you are like, sharing, andsubscribing to the YouTube
channel.
Make sure you're commentingbelow on what God is doing in
(01:05):
your life.
Listen to the podcast, you're myfavorites.
And I would love you to leave usa five-star review and let us
know how the podcast isimpacting your life.
It really is encouraging to knowthat the more we dig, the more
we find.
And I would love you to go toour Facebook group at Bible
Breakdown Discussion and let usknow questions, answers,
(01:25):
whatever's going on in your lifeand how we can grow together.
Because once again, the more wedig, the more we find.
And that's the case in thischapter.
As we've been talking about, theoverall idea of the gospel, or
not, excuse me, the gospel, butthe book of Acts is that if you
were, if you were nominated byyour class to be the most likely
to succeed, if everything seemsto work out for you and just
(01:48):
everything's always good in yourlife, I've got good news for
you.
God can still use you.
And that's great.
But God often uses the leastlikely to succeed, the people
that you wouldn't expect.
God is in the process of usingordinary fishermen, farmers,
what the world would considernobody's to shake the world.
(02:08):
And if God can use fishermen andused up Pharisees to shake the
world, what can he do in yourlife if you would just give
yourself fully to him?
And that's what we're seeing.
The gospel says Jesus came, diedon the cross, rose again, and as
he was going back to heaven, hesaid, Don't worry, I'm sending
the Holy Spirit, the thirdperson of the Trinity, and He is
(02:29):
going to be with you, and He'sgoing to give you power to
spread the gospel.
And that's what happens in Acts2.
The Holy Spirit comes and hebegins to empower the church to
do the work of ministry.
But as we started to see, theopposition starts to grow, and
the opposition starts to grow,and things start to happen until
last chapter we see theculmination of all that
(02:50):
opposition.
We have the first martyr for thefaith, Stephen, who is stoned to
death because he tells thesepeople, You crucify Jesus.
He rose again and it's yourfault.
And they stone him.
Well, when the men put theircoats down so they could, you
know, swing better to stoneStephen, they laid their coats
(03:11):
down at a young Pharisee by thename of Saul, and he watched
their coats while they went anddid this horrible work.
Well, Saul at this point beginsto feel like it is his personal
mission to stop these peoplethat are called the followers of
the way.
Before we were calledChristians, we were called the
followers of the way becauseJesus said he was the or is the
(03:31):
way, truth, and life, right?
And so he's just decided he'sgonna end it all.
So heavy persecution starts tocover all the church.
But what's amazing ispersecution doesn't end the
church, it fertilizes thechurch, it causes the church to
grow.
And I don't know this, but Iwonder if one of the reasons why
(03:52):
persecution came in thissituation was because Jesus
said, You will be my witnessesin Jerusalem, then in Judea,
which will be the surroundingcountryside, then to the
uttermost parts of the world.
Well, at this point, they're allstaying in Jerusalem.
So I wonder if almost like Godkind of said, Hey, look, I need
you to separate, and if the onlyway you're gonna do is for that,
then so be it, because this hasgot to, I don't I don't know if
(04:14):
that's the case, but itdefinitely is what ended up
happening.
Because of the persecution, theystart to spread out and do
exactly what Jesus called themto do.
So let's read this, and as weread, the more we're gonna find.
So if you have your Bibles opento Acts chapter 8, the New
Living Translation, let's readtogether.
Verse 1 says this Saul was oneof the witnesses that agreed
(04:36):
completely with the killing ofStephen.
So he's not a good guy at thistime.
A great wave of persecutionbegan that day, sweeping over
the church in Jerusalem, and allthe believers except the
apostles were scatteredthroughout the region of Judea
and Samaria, which by the way iswhat Jesus told them to do.
Some devout men came and buriedStephen with great mourning.
(04:59):
Verse 3.
But Saul was going everywhere todestroy the church.
He went from house to house,dragging out both men and women,
throwing them into prison.
So what Saul is doing is he isgoing everywhere he can and just
arresting and grabbingChristians and throwing them
into jail.
Like he becomes the centralfocus of opposition against the
(05:21):
young church.
Verse 4 But the believers whowere scattered preached the good
news about Jesus everywhere theywent.
Philip, for example, he was oneof the seven deacons, by the
way, went to the city of Samariaand told the people about the
Messiah.
Crowds listened intently toPhilip because they were eager
to hear his message and see themiraculous signs he did.
(05:43):
Many evil spirits were cast out,screaming as they left their
victims, and many who had beenparalyzed or lame were healed.
There was great joy in thatcity.
A man named Simon, who had beena sorcerer for many years,
amazing people, the people ofSamaria, and claiming to be
someone great.
Everyone from least to greatestoften spoke of as the great one
(06:05):
and the power of God.
They listened closely to himbecause for a long time he had
astounded them with his magic.
But now the people believedPhilip's message of the good
news concerning the kingdom ofGod and the name of Jesus
Christ.
As a result, many men and womenwere baptized.
Then Simon himself believed andwas baptized.
(06:26):
He began following Philipeverywhere he went, and he was
amazed by the signs and greatmiracles that Philip performed.
When the apostles in Jerusalemheard about the people in
Samaria and that they hadaccepted God's message, they
sent Peter and John there.
As soon as they arrived, theyprayed for these new believers
to receive the Holy Spirit, andthe Holy Spirit had not yet come
(06:46):
upon them, for they had onlybeen baptized in the name of the
Lord Jesus.
Then Peter and John laid theirhands upon these believers and
they received the Holy Spirit.
Then, when Simon saw that theSpirit was given, when the
apostles laid their hands on thepeople, he offered them money to
buy this power.
Let them ha let me have thispower too, he exclaimed, so that
(07:08):
I may lay hands on people andthat they may receive the Holy
Spirit.
But Peter replied, May yourmoney be destroyed with you for
thinking that God's gift can bebought.
You can have no part in this,for your heart is not right with
God.
Repent of your wickedness andpray to the Lord.
Perhaps he will forgive you ofyour evil thoughts.
For I can see that you are fullof bitter jealousy and are held
(07:30):
captive by sin.
Oh, pray for pray to the Lordfor me, Simon exclaimed, that
these terrible things you saidwon't happen to me.
And after testifying andpreaching the word of the Lord
in Samaria, Peter and Johnreturned to Jerusalem and they
stopped and they stopped in manySamaritan villages along the way
to preach the good news.
(07:51):
Now this is amazing because upuntil then Jewish people and
Samaritans had nothing to dowith each other.
And so already you can see thatthe gospel is beginning to
spread not just in Jerusalem,but in all the other areas as
well.
As well.
And the interesting thing hereis the Bible said that they had
believed on the name of Jesus,but they had not yet experienced
(08:15):
the fullness of the Holy Spiritin their life.
And one of the things we have tobe careful with is there is this
big controversy in the churchthat says either when you
receive Jesus, when you acceptJesus, you receive an infilling
of the Holy Spirit at thatmoment, and that's all the Holy
Spirit you're ever going toneed, but we grow into a
continual awareness of who heis.
(08:36):
But then there's other peoplethat say that no, when you
receive salvation, you receivesalvation, but then somewhere
down the line, you receive thebaptism of the Holy Spirit.
There's this great debate in thechurch world as to which one of
those is the case.
And on one side, you can look atthis and you can see where it
seems like they have beenbaptized in the name of the Lord
(08:56):
Jesus, but yet they had notreceived the baptism of the Holy
Spirit.
However, in other places you cansee that as soon as the people
believed, they immediately beganto experience the overflowing
power of the Holy Spirit.
And so the answer to the greatriddle of which is it is yes.
The answer is you receive theHoly Spirit.
(09:17):
Now, and I don't think it'sreally that important that we
split hairs over when this is,because in either case, whether
you receive all of God you'reever going to get at the moment
of salvation or a secondary workafter salvation, the either,
either way you do it, the bottomline is you receive more of God
(09:38):
as you go along.
So the end result is the same.
As a matter of fact, if youthink that there is a secondary
experience of the Holy Spirit,you may end up having this have
and have nots in the in thechurch world because you have
some people who will say, Well,I have the baptism of the Holy
Spirit, and others don't.
So it's almost like you're ajunior member of the body of
Christ, which is not true.
(09:59):
And so I think we need to becareful to make sure that we
major on the majors and notmajor on the minors and say, no
matter whether you receive allof God at the beginning, or if
you you receive more of Godlater, there should always be a
continual walk and a continualgrowth in the power of God.
Let's continue on.
Verse 26.
(10:19):
Philip, man, he's he's gettingit done, right?
He's the one who went toSamaria, and then it says in
verse 26, as for Philip, theangel of the Lord, an angel of
the Lord said to him, Go south,down to the desert road that
runs from Jerusalem to Gaza.
So he started out and he metthere a treasurer of Ethiopia, a
eunuch that had great authorityunder Kandaki, the queen of
(10:43):
Ethiopia.
The eunuch had gone to Jerusalemto worship, and now as he was
returning, he was seated in hiscarriage and he was reading
aloud from the book of theprophet Isaiah.
The Holy Spirit said to Philip,Go over and walk alongside the
carriage.
So Philip ran over and heard theman reading from the prophet
Isaiah.
Philip asked, Do you understandwhat you are reading?
(11:05):
The man replied, How can Iunless someone instructs me?
And then he urged Philip to comeup into the carriage and sit
with him.
The passage of scripture he hadbeen reading was, He was led
like a sheep to the slaughter.
As a lamb is silent before theshearers, he did not open his
mouth.
He was humiliated and receivedno justice.
Who can speak of his descendantsfor his life had been taken from
(11:28):
the earth?
So actually, what is happeninghere is this very important
person, someone who has been hotpretty high up in the royal
hierarchy of the Queen ofEthiopia, he has come to
Jerusalem to worship, and itjust so happens.
This is amazing how God doesthis.
That he's reading Isaiah 53,which is one of the most
(11:48):
important prophecies aboutJesus, because it just depicts
so clearly Jesus' death on thecross.
But since he didn't know aboutJesus yet, he hears this and
it's a mystery.
So watch what happens.
Verse 34.
The eunuch asked Philip, Tellme, was the prophet talking
about himself or someone else?
So beginning with this samescripture, Philip told him the
(12:12):
good news about Jesus.
As they rode along, they came onupon some water, and the eunuch
said, Look, there's some water.
Why can't I be baptized?
So he ordered the carriage tostop, and they went down to the
water, and Philip baptized him.
Now listen to this.
This is crazy.
When they came up out of thewater, the Spirit of the Lord
snatched Philip away, and theeunuch never saw him again, but
(12:34):
went on his way, rejoicing.
Meanwhile, Philip was foundhimself farther north at a town
called Azotas, and he preachedthe good news there in every
town along the way where he cameto Caesarea.
Now you're gonna have to look upand find this out for yourself,
but as best as my memory serves,that's like 20-something miles
away.
Can you imagine that you get soexcited about the Lord in his
(12:58):
baptism Sunday at your churchand someone's getting baptized
and then come up out of thewater and you get so excited you
just show up 20 miles away?
Can you imagine Philip is like,well, this wasn't on my plan for
today.
I was gonna go to the grocerystore, but I well guess I guess
now I'm here 20 miles away.
And it's amazing what happened.
(13:18):
And what's even more amazing isthat persecution has happening
to the church.
But instead of it shutting downthe gospel, it's causing the
gospel to spread.
And what does that mean to us?
Well, first of all, let's lookat what happened to Philip with
this Ethiopian.
If he did not know God's wordfor himself, when this Ethiopian
(13:39):
needed to know the gospel,Philip wouldn't have known.
So it automatically speaks to usthat we need to know God's word
so that when God opens doors ofopportunity, we're ready to walk
through.
The second thing we know is thatnot all persecution, not all bad
things end with bad things.
(14:00):
The persecution that came didn'tend with destruction, it ended
with furthering the gospel.
And it's hard to do.
It's easy to say whenpersecution happens, we just
celebrate, but we don't do that.
It's hard.
It's difficult.
It's difficult when people don'twant to talk to you anymore
because of your walk with God orbecause your stance on true
(14:20):
matters and different things,it's hard.
But to realize that even badthings, God can use to do
something amazing.
And maybe that's someencouragement for you today.
Maybe you're going through aseason when because of you
speaking up for truth ortrusting God in some different
ways, people have started toseparate from you.
People don't want to beassociated with you.
(14:41):
It's not politically correctsometimes to stand on the word
of God in truth.
Well, here's the thing even whenwe go through bad days, God has
amazing ways of turning allthings for our good.
So don't stop because you neverknow.
You may come across somebody whoneeds to know the gospel.
And if it hadn't have been forthat bad day that got you to
(15:03):
that place, you wouldn't be ableto be the instrument that God
uses to bring salvation.
Think about that for a moment.
If it hadn't have been forpersecution, Philip wouldn't
have been in that place to reachout to this Ethiopian.
Man, it's so exciting to realizethat even the bad things God can
use in great ways.
If we just never stop followinghim.
(15:23):
Let's pray together.
God, thank you so much thatyou're for us and not against
us.
I thank you, God, that your wordis unsearchable.
Lord, that it we can never getto the bottom, we never get to
the end of your goodness, but itis our joy and our pleasure to
seek you out.
And I pray that as we do that,God, we will continue to grow in
your presence and that you willuse us to make a difference in
(15:43):
this generation.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Don't forget, God said, Jesussaid in Acts chapter 1, you will
receive power when the HolySpirit comes upon you, and you
will be my witnesses to the endsof the earth.
My prayer is that you willexperience the power of the Holy
Spirit, and you will be hiswitness in your world today.
(16:04):
I will see you tomorrow for Actschapter 9.
Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast.
Every day, we take one chapterof the Bible, dig deeper, and
discover that the more we dig,the more we find.
You can find out more at theBibleBreakdown.com.
Now let's grow in God's Wordtogether.
Well, hello, everybody.
Welcome back to the BibleBreakdown Podcast with your
host, Pastor Brandon.
Today, Acts chapter 8.
(00:22):
And I think a good title fortoday would be Persecution
Fertilizes the Gospel.
Persecution fertilizes thegospel.
One of the true ways to tell ifsomething is for real or not is
how does it respond toadversity?
It was Mike Tyson that famouslysaid, everyone has a plan until
they get hit in the mouth.
(00:43):
And that is truly the situationfor a lot of times, right?
What do you do when you facepersecution?
Well, it turns out persecutionis well on its way to the early
church, but man, God's got a lotin store.
And so we're going to get intothat in just a moment.
But as always, if you like whatwe're doing here, make sure that
you are like, sharing, andsubscribing to the YouTube
channel.
Make sure you're commentingbelow on what God is doing in
(01:05):
your life.
Listen to the podcast, you're myfavorites.
And I would love you to leave usa five-star review and let us
know how the podcast isimpacting your life.
It really is encouraging to knowthat the more we dig, the more
we find.
And I would love you to go toour Facebook group at Bible
Breakdown Discussion and let usknow questions, answers,
(01:25):
whatever's going on in your lifeand how we can grow together.
Because once again, the more wedig, the more we find.
And that's the case in thischapter.
As we've been talking about, theoverall idea of the gospel, or
not, excuse me, the gospel, butthe book of Acts is that if you
were, if you were nominated byyour class to be the most likely
to succeed, if everything seemsto work out for you and just
(01:48):
everything's always good in yourlife, I've got good news for
you.
God can still use you.
And that's great.
But God often uses the leastlikely to succeed, the people
that you wouldn't expect.
God is in the process of usingordinary fishermen, farmers,
what the world would considernobody's to shake the world.
(02:08):
And if God can use fishermen andused up Pharisees to shake the
world, what can he do in yourlife if you would just give
yourself fully to him?
And that's what we're seeing.
The gospel says Jesus came, diedon the cross, rose again, and as
he was going back to heaven, hesaid, Don't worry, I'm sending
the Holy Spirit, the thirdperson of the Trinity, and He is
(02:29):
going to be with you, and He'sgoing to give you power to
spread the gospel.
And that's what happens in Acts2.
The Holy Spirit comes and hebegins to empower the church to
do the work of ministry.
But as we started to see, theopposition starts to grow, and
the opposition starts to grow,and things start to happen until
last chapter we see theculmination of all that
(02:50):
opposition.
We have the first martyr for thefaith, Stephen, who is stoned to
death because he tells thesepeople, You crucify Jesus.
He rose again and it's yourfault.
And they stone him.
Well, when the men put theircoats down so they could, you
know, swing better to stoneStephen, they laid their coats
(03:11):
down at a young Pharisee by thename of Saul, and he watched
their coats while they went anddid this horrible work.
Well, Saul at this point beginsto feel like it is his personal
mission to stop these peoplethat are called the followers of
the way.
Before we were calledChristians, we were called the
followers of the way becauseJesus said he was the or is the
(03:31):
way, truth, and life, right?
And so he's just decided he'sgonna end it all.
So heavy persecution starts tocover all the church.
But what's amazing ispersecution doesn't end the
church, it fertilizes thechurch, it causes the church to
grow.
And I don't know this, but Iwonder if one of the reasons why
(03:52):
persecution came in thissituation was because Jesus
said, You will be my witnessesin Jerusalem, then in Judea,
which will be the surroundingcountryside, then to the
uttermost parts of the world.
Well, at this point, they're allstaying in Jerusalem.
So I wonder if almost like Godkind of said, Hey, look, I need
you to separate, and if the onlyway you're gonna do is for that,
then so be it, because this hasgot to, I don't I don't know if
(04:14):
that's the case, but itdefinitely is what ended up
happening.
Because of the persecution, theystart to spread out and do
exactly what Jesus called themto do.
So let's read this, and as weread, the more we're gonna find.
So if you have your Bibles opento Acts chapter 8, the New
Living Translation, let's readtogether.
Verse 1 says this Saul was oneof the witnesses that agreed
(04:36):
completely with the killing ofStephen.
So he's not a good guy at thistime.
A great wave of persecutionbegan that day, sweeping over
the church in Jerusalem, and allthe believers except the
apostles were scatteredthroughout the region of Judea
and Samaria, which by the way iswhat Jesus told them to do.
Some devout men came and buriedStephen with great mourning.
(04:59):
Verse 3.
But Saul was going everywhere todestroy the church.
He went from house to house,dragging out both men and women,
throwing them into prison.
So what Saul is doing is he isgoing everywhere he can and just
arresting and grabbingChristians and throwing them
into jail.
Like he becomes the centralfocus of opposition against the
(05:21):
young church.
Verse 4 But the believers whowere scattered preached the good
news about Jesus everywhere theywent.
Philip, for example, he was oneof the seven deacons, by the
way, went to the city of Samariaand told the people about the
Messiah.
Crowds listened intently toPhilip because they were eager
to hear his message and see themiraculous signs he did.
(05:43):
Many evil spirits were cast out,screaming as they left their
victims, and many who had beenparalyzed or lame were healed.
There was great joy in thatcity.
A man named Simon, who had beena sorcerer for many years,
amazing people, the people ofSamaria, and claiming to be
someone great.
Everyone from least to greatestoften spoke of as the great one
(06:05):
and the power of God.
They listened closely to himbecause for a long time he had
astounded them with his magic.
But now the people believedPhilip's message of the good
news concerning the kingdom ofGod and the name of Jesus
Christ.
As a result, many men and womenwere baptized.
Then Simon himself believed andwas baptized.
(06:26):
He began following Philipeverywhere he went, and he was
amazed by the signs and greatmiracles that Philip performed.
When the apostles in Jerusalemheard about the people in
Samaria and that they hadaccepted God's message, they
sent Peter and John there.
As soon as they arrived, theyprayed for these new believers
to receive the Holy Spirit, andthe Holy Spirit had not yet come
(06:46):
upon them, for they had onlybeen baptized in the name of the
Lord Jesus.
Then Peter and John laid theirhands upon these believers and
they received the Holy Spirit.
Then, when Simon saw that theSpirit was given, when the
apostles laid their hands on thepeople, he offered them money to
buy this power.
Let them ha let me have thispower too, he exclaimed, so that
(07:08):
I may lay hands on people andthat they may receive the Holy
Spirit.
But Peter replied, May yourmoney be destroyed with you for
thinking that God's gift can bebought.
You can have no part in this,for your heart is not right with
God.
Repent of your wickedness andpray to the Lord.
Perhaps he will forgive you ofyour evil thoughts.
For I can see that you are fullof bitter jealousy and are held
(07:30):
captive by sin.
Oh, pray for pray to the Lordfor me, Simon exclaimed, that
these terrible things you saidwon't happen to me.
And after testifying andpreaching the word of the Lord
in Samaria, Peter and Johnreturned to Jerusalem and they
stopped and they stopped in manySamaritan villages along the way
to preach the good news.
(07:51):
Now this is amazing because upuntil then Jewish people and
Samaritans had nothing to dowith each other.
And so already you can see thatthe gospel is beginning to
spread not just in Jerusalem,but in all the other areas as
well.
As well.
And the interesting thing hereis the Bible said that they had
believed on the name of Jesus,but they had not yet experienced
(08:15):
the fullness of the Holy Spiritin their life.
And one of the things we have tobe careful with is there is this
big controversy in the churchthat says either when you
receive Jesus, when you acceptJesus, you receive an infilling
of the Holy Spirit at thatmoment, and that's all the Holy
Spirit you're ever going toneed, but we grow into a
continual awareness of who heis.
(08:36):
But then there's other peoplethat say that no, when you
receive salvation, you receivesalvation, but then somewhere
down the line, you receive thebaptism of the Holy Spirit.
There's this great debate in thechurch world as to which one of
those is the case.
And on one side, you can look atthis and you can see where it
seems like they have beenbaptized in the name of the Lord
(08:56):
Jesus, but yet they had notreceived the baptism of the Holy
Spirit.
However, in other places you cansee that as soon as the people
believed, they immediately beganto experience the overflowing
power of the Holy Spirit.
And so the answer to the greatriddle of which is it is yes.
The answer is you receive theHoly Spirit.
(09:17):
Now, and I don't think it'sreally that important that we
split hairs over when this is,because in either case, whether
you receive all of God you'reever going to get at the moment
of salvation or a secondary workafter salvation, the either,
either way you do it, the bottomline is you receive more of God
(09:38):
as you go along.
So the end result is the same.
As a matter of fact, if youthink that there is a secondary
experience of the Holy Spirit,you may end up having this have
and have nots in the in thechurch world because you have
some people who will say, Well,I have the baptism of the Holy
Spirit, and others don't.
So it's almost like you're ajunior member of the body of
Christ, which is not true.
(09:59):
And so I think we need to becareful to make sure that we
major on the majors and notmajor on the minors and say, no
matter whether you receive allof God at the beginning, or if
you you receive more of Godlater, there should always be a
continual walk and a continualgrowth in the power of God.
Let's continue on.
Verse 26.
(10:19):
Philip, man, he's he's gettingit done, right?
He's the one who went toSamaria, and then it says in
verse 26, as for Philip, theangel of the Lord, an angel of
the Lord said to him, Go south,down to the desert road that
runs from Jerusalem to Gaza.
So he started out and he metthere a treasurer of Ethiopia, a
eunuch that had great authorityunder Kandaki, the queen of
(10:43):
Ethiopia.
The eunuch had gone to Jerusalemto worship, and now as he was
returning, he was seated in hiscarriage and he was reading
aloud from the book of theprophet Isaiah.
The Holy Spirit said to Philip,Go over and walk alongside the
carriage.
So Philip ran over and heard theman reading from the prophet
Isaiah.
Philip asked, Do you understandwhat you are reading?
(11:05):
The man replied, How can Iunless someone instructs me?
And then he urged Philip to comeup into the carriage and sit
with him.
The passage of scripture he hadbeen reading was, He was led
like a sheep to the slaughter.
As a lamb is silent before theshearers, he did not open his
mouth.
He was humiliated and receivedno justice.
Who can speak of his descendantsfor his life had been taken from
(11:28):
the earth?
So actually, what is happeninghere is this very important
person, someone who has been hotpretty high up in the royal
hierarchy of the Queen ofEthiopia, he has come to
Jerusalem to worship, and itjust so happens.
This is amazing how God doesthis.
That he's reading Isaiah 53,which is one of the most
(11:48):
important prophecies aboutJesus, because it just depicts
so clearly Jesus' death on thecross.
But since he didn't know aboutJesus yet, he hears this and
it's a mystery.
So watch what happens.
Verse 34.
The eunuch asked Philip, Tellme, was the prophet talking
about himself or someone else?
So beginning with this samescripture, Philip told him the
(12:12):
good news about Jesus.
As they rode along, they came onupon some water, and the eunuch
said, Look, there's some water.
Why can't I be baptized?
So he ordered the carriage tostop, and they went down to the
water, and Philip baptized him.
Now listen to this.
This is crazy.
When they came up out of thewater, the Spirit of the Lord
snatched Philip away, and theeunuch never saw him again, but
(12:34):
went on his way, rejoicing.
Meanwhile, Philip was foundhimself farther north at a town
called Azotas, and he preachedthe good news there in every
town along the way where he cameto Caesarea.
Now you're gonna have to look upand find this out for yourself,
but as best as my memory serves,that's like 20-something miles
away.
Can you imagine that you get soexcited about the Lord in his
(12:58):
baptism Sunday at your churchand someone's getting baptized
and then come up out of thewater and you get so excited you
just show up 20 miles away?
Can you imagine Philip is like,well, this wasn't on my plan for
today.
I was gonna go to the grocerystore, but I well guess I guess
now I'm here 20 miles away.
And it's amazing what happened.
(13:18):
And what's even more amazing isthat persecution has happening
to the church.
But instead of it shutting downthe gospel, it's causing the
gospel to spread.
And what does that mean to us?
Well, first of all, let's lookat what happened to Philip with
this Ethiopian.
If he did not know God's wordfor himself, when this Ethiopian
(13:39):
needed to know the gospel,Philip wouldn't have known.
So it automatically speaks to usthat we need to know God's word
so that when God opens doors ofopportunity, we're ready to walk
through.
The second thing we know is thatnot all persecution, not all bad
things end with bad things.
(14:00):
The persecution that came didn'tend with destruction, it ended
with furthering the gospel.
And it's hard to do.
It's easy to say whenpersecution happens, we just
celebrate, but we don't do that.
It's hard.
It's difficult.
It's difficult when people don'twant to talk to you anymore
because of your walk with God orbecause your stance on true
(14:20):
matters and different things,it's hard.
But to realize that even badthings, God can use to do
something amazing.
And maybe that's someencouragement for you today.
Maybe you're going through aseason when because of you
speaking up for truth ortrusting God in some different
ways, people have started toseparate from you.
People don't want to beassociated with you.
(14:41):
It's not politically correctsometimes to stand on the word
of God in truth.
Well, here's the thing even whenwe go through bad days, God has
amazing ways of turning allthings for our good.
So don't stop because you neverknow.
You may come across somebody whoneeds to know the gospel.
And if it hadn't have been forthat bad day that got you to
(15:03):
that place, you wouldn't be ableto be the instrument that God
uses to bring salvation.
Think about that for a moment.
If it hadn't have been forpersecution, Philip wouldn't
have been in that place to reachout to this Ethiopian.
Man, it's so exciting to realizethat even the bad things God can
use in great ways.
If we just never stop followinghim.
(15:23):
Let's pray together.
God, thank you so much thatyou're for us and not against
us.
I thank you, God, that your wordis unsearchable.
Lord, that it we can never getto the bottom, we never get to
the end of your goodness, but itis our joy and our pleasure to
seek you out.
And I pray that as we do that,God, we will continue to grow in
your presence and that you willuse us to make a difference in
(15:43):
this generation.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Don't forget, God said, Jesussaid in Acts chapter 1, you will
receive power when the HolySpirit comes upon you, and you
will be my witnesses to the endsof the earth.
My prayer is that you willexperience the power of the Holy
Spirit, and you will be hiswitness in your world today.
(16:04):
I will see you tomorrow for Actschapter 9.
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