November 22, 2023 • 26 mins
Unearth the buried treasures of Scripture with us and Pastor Jason Hubdy, our guide for this episode of Truth Trek. Offering an exciting exploration of the Word of God, we delve into the biblical narrative of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. Recognize the critical role of the Holy Spirit as we journey through Scripture and underline the importance of being flexible, submissive, and open to learning from our guide.
Wrestling with the concept of submission? Discover how it intertwines with our faith and spiritual growth. Together, we'll take a closer look at the term "guide" and its biblical references, acknowledging Jesus as our ultimate guide in the new kingdom. Heed our discussion about the significance of selecting our guides with discernment, as a reminder of the cautionary tale that not everyone who presents themselves as a guide may have our best interest at heart.
Personal Bible study is more than just a solitary act—it's a testament to our responsibility as Christians. Join us as we compare trusting a mechanic to fix our car with trusting a guide to instruct us about the Word, emphasizing the need to verify the teachings we receive. As we wrap up our discussion, we share a sneak peek of our upcoming holiday specials focusing on Bible prophecy. Anticipate riveting episodes during the Advent season, and we invite you to subscribe, share, and join us on this enlightening journey.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
To complete our mission, we must be flexible and
submitted, and we must have theright guide.
Welcome to Truth Trek, where wedive deep into the Bible to
(00:26):
uncover the treasures there.
I'm Pastor Jason Hubdy and Iwill be your guide as we journey
together into Scripture, god'sHoly Word.
In this episode, we're going totake a look at who our guide is
and how.
We do need a guide In order tocomplete our mission.
We must be flexible andsubmitted to a guide.
There are many examples in lifewhere we have needed a guide.
(00:47):
One example is for those whodrive cars, which is most adults
these days.
At some time we had to betaught how to drive a car, and
not only that.
We had to be taught how todrive well enough to pass a test
and to know the rules of theroad so that we could get
licensed.
And as we did that, many of uswent to a Driver's Ed course.
(01:08):
And then, after the Driver's Edcourse, we had a time probably,
where there was a permit wherewe could drive with another
responsible adult and eventuallyget our full driver's license.
When we had that permit, thedriver that was with us was
supposed to be a guide.
They would tell us mistakes wewere making, gently correct us,
(01:28):
hopefully, or, when needed,urgently correct us, and so we
had that guide.
Many other examples exist oftimes where we've needed a guide
, and I could go through a bunch, but I'll leave it there for
now.
But some other examples may beif you've gone into a career and
you've needed to learn yourtrade or your occupation, you
(01:48):
had a guide.
Perhaps you were an apprenticebefore you could become a master
worker in your field, whateverthat is.
But the point is that we needguides.
And when it comes tounderstanding God's Word, how do
we go about it?
While it is true that we canread God's Word and for the most
part, what we need to know issimple enough and clear enough
(02:10):
for us to understand, we alsoneed others to read the Bible
alongside of us and a guide,especially when we're new in the
faith, to help us to learn howto study the Bible.
And this is really importantbecause sometimes we don't
understand fully, until we'vegrown in the faith, how much our
(02:31):
unbiblical worldview affectshow we try to read God's Word.
In other words, as we're stillcoming into the faith and we're
still learning and maturing inthe faith, we may not completely
have the biblical outlook weshould.
And so we may read a passageand we don't know what it means,
and so we go to some sourceoutside of the Bible often to
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try to determine what that means, and there can be some danger
in that.
And so we want to have a guide.
We want to have Bible studieswhere we can sit and learn God's
Word together.
We want to listen to goodpreaching, we want to listen to
Bible teachers that are peoplewho can guide us.
And a great example of thisscripturally and how important
(03:15):
the guide was, is a man who wasreading Scripture but had no
idea what he was reading and howto make sense of it.
And this is the story of Philipand the Ethiopian eunuch found
in Acts, chapter 8.
And it's a great story and agreat reminder to us of how
important it is sometimes tohave someone come alongside of
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us and explain to us what theScriptures mean.
So I want to read the passagevery quickly here, and it's
again in chapter 8 of Acts, fromverse 26 to verse 40.
Now an angel of the Lord saidto Philip Rise and go toward the
south to the road that goesdown from Jerusalem to Gaza.
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This is a desert place.
And he rose and went and therewas an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a
court official of Candus, queenof the Ethiopians, who was in
charge of all her treasure.
He had come to Jerusalem toworship and was returning,
seated in his chariot, and hewas reading the prophet Isaiah.
And the Spirit said to PhilipGo over and join this chariot.
(04:19):
So Philip ran to him and heardhim reading Isaiah, the prophet,
and asked Do you understandwhat you are reading?
And he said how can I, unlesssomeone guides me?
And he invited Philip to comeup and sit with him.
Now, the passage of Scripturethat he was reading was this
(04:40):
Like a sheep, he was led to theslaughter, and like a lamb
before its shearer is silent.
So he opens not his mouth.
In his humiliation, justice wasdenied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away fromthe earth.
And the eunuch said to PhilipAbout whom, I ask you?
Does the prophet say this?
About himself or about someoneelse?
(05:02):
Then Philip opened his mouthand, beginning with this
Scripture, he told him the goodnews about Jesus.
And as they were going alongthe road, they came to some
water and the eunuch said See,here is some water what prevents
me from being baptized?
And he commanded the chariot tostop and they both went down
into the water Philip and theeunuch and he baptized him.
(05:25):
And when they came up out ofthe water, the Spirit of the
Lord carried Philip away and theeunuch saw him no more and went
on his way, rejoicing.
But Philip found himself atAzotus and as he passed through
he preached the gospel to allthe towns until he came to
Caesarea.
This is a great story, and thisis a good example of a man who
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really needed someone to guidehim.
He was almost there, he wasalmost at the place of faith.
He just needed someone tounveil the scripture to him a
little more clearly.
And, of course, we need toalways remember that nobody
comes to full understanding ofChrist as Savior unless the
Father draws them according toJesus himself.
And so we must realize thatGod's Holy Spirit is involved in
(06:10):
every conversion, and God getsthe credit for every conversion.
But God also uses people toguide us and to help us to
understand scripture.
So let's note some things aboutthis passage.
I think the main idea that Iwant to focus on is that there's
a pattern of submission in thispassage.
(06:30):
So first of all, let's look atPhilip.
Philip was submitted.
He had been a deacon, whichmeans a servant.
He was submitted in that way tothe apostles, to the church
leadership.
So Philip was submitted in thatway.
He was submitted also that helistened to the angel.
Remember, the angel told him toleave where he was going and he
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had to leave a place wherethere was actually productive
ministry going on and he was toleave that behind.
And also, philip obeyed theHoly Spirit because he was
prompted by the Holy Spirit toapproach a Gentile, this
Ethiopian eunuch, to present tohim the gospel of Jesus Christ.
(07:15):
Now let's look at the submissionof the Ethiopian eunuch.
He was submitted.
He had been a pilgrim to Israelto worship Yahweh.
He was submitted to the trueGod even though he didn't fully
understand everything about that.
So people would travel toJerusalem.
There were other people besidesthe Jews who would go and
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worship Yahweh.
They would go and make apilgrimage to worship Yahweh.
So he was submitted to knowingthe true God.
He was also submitted in thathe recognized his need for a
teacher.
Now, this was a learned man.
The Bible says he was verysmart.
He was the head of the treasuryfor Candice.
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He was no slouch when it cameto thinking and understanding
and processing things.
He was reading, and yet he waswise enough to know his
limitations.
So he was submitted to the factthat he needed someone to guide
him and show him as well.
He was submitted to the gospel.
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He responded enthusiasticallyand immediately wanting to
demonstrate his submission toChrist.
So there's the two maincharacters, other than the Lord
himself, who was a character inthe story, but the two men who
are characters in the story weresubmitted in various ways.
So, as we consider that we wantto think about ourselves, are we
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submitted?
What are some of the thingsthat we are to submit ourselves
to?
Well, first of all, for thebeliever, we need to submit
ourselves to God's Word.
The biblical authority that wefind there is God's own Word
himself that he gave to us, andso it should hold a very high
position in our lives, in ourstudy, daily study of the Bible,
(09:06):
so that we can understand Godbetter and that we can help
others to grow together with us,that we are being guided by
others and also, hopefully,learning to be guides as well.
So we want to definitely submitto God's Word and then, in the
church, we want to submit toeach other and also to church
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leaders.
The Bible is very clear on this.
We need to submit to those whoare proper authorities over us,
but also we need to submit oneto another, and so we need to
care so deeply for each otherthat we put each other's needs
above our own that we considereveryone else to be more
important than ourselves.
So we need to be submitted tothat as well.
(09:49):
We also need to be submitted toGod's great commission that he
gave us to evangelize, to sharethe gospel with others, and we
need to be submitted to grow andmature in Christ.
I've often said and I rippedthis off from someone else that
I heard from years ago thatsadly, many Christians go
through one year of growth 40years in a row.
(10:10):
We don't want to be those kindof Christians.
We want to grow and mature sothat when we look back each year
, we can say I've come a littleway further with Christ.
I'm a little bit more mature, Ican understand things a little
bit better and I have a betterbiblical worldview, and so we
want to always be maturing inthat way.
(10:31):
Now let's take a look for amoment at the word that's in
this passage I read that wastranslated into English for us
to the word guide.
This word was also used inMatthew 15-14, where Jesus
refers to blind guides who makerules for other people that they
(10:52):
don't want to follow themselves.
In John 16, jesus tells aboutthe Holy Spirit that's going to
be coming, and he uses the wordguide there as well.
He says when the spirit oftruth comes, he will guide you
into all the truth, for he willnot speak on his own authority,
but whatever he hears, he willspeak and he will declare to you
(11:13):
the things that are to come.
In Luke 6-39, this word againwas used as blind guides.
That's a parallel to theMatthew place where it says that
as well.
And then finally, in Revelation, chapter 7, we see the word
guide, and we find it in thiscontext of verse 17.
It says for the lamb in themidst of the throne will be
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their shepherd and he will guidethem to springs of living water
and God will wipe away everytear from their eyes.
So Jesus himself will be ourguide in the new kingdom that
he's going to bring about.
So here's our reminder.
We always want to begin withScripture.
That's what Philip did here,and he had the great opening
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because the Ethiopian wasalready reading the Scripture,
and so we see that he beginsthere.
He takes the very spot wherethe man was reading and begins
there.
And Jesus did the same thing.
In Luke, chapter 24, at verse27,.
This is after the resurrection.
Jesus is walking down the roadwith these men.
(12:20):
It's called the Road to Emmaus.
There's been books written onthis and studies done off of
this.
But it says that in thebeginning, with Moses and all
the prophets, he, jesus,interpreted to them in all the
Scriptures the things concerninghimself.
So Jesus himself, to tell abouthimself, goes to Scripture.
(12:42):
John 5, 46, and 47.
Jesus said If you believedMoses, you would believe me, for
he wrote of me.
But if you do not believe hiswritings, how will you believe
my words?
So we see again.
Jesus himself gave a pattern ofreferring to Scripture Always
go to Scripture to find out whatyou need to know.
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In Acts 1327, it says For thosewho live in Jerusalem and their
rulers, because they did notrecognize him nor understand the
utterances of the prophets,which are read every Sabbath,
fulfilled them by condemning him.
In other words, these men thathad Jesus put to death were
(13:26):
actually doing what wasprophesied about them.
But because they did not fullyunderstand the Sabbath or they
did not believe it or recognizeJesus as the Messiah who was
coming, they actually fulfilledtheir part because they didn't
know.
So again, it says those wholive in Jerusalem and their
rulers, because they did notrecognize him nor understand the
(13:51):
utterances of the prophetswhich are read every Sabbath,
fulfilled them by condemning him.
So, as we consider this passage, we've looked at together Acts,
chapter 8, where we've seenPhilip with the Ethiopian eunuch
.
I hope that you will, with me,recognize our needs for a guide.
We need to be guided ourselvesand we need to be practicing and
(14:15):
learning the faith betterourselves so that we can also
guide others.
But we need to ask ourselves afew questions.
Are we willing to be guided?
Are we willing to be guided byJesus?
Are we willing to be guided bythe Old Testament prophets?
Are we willing to be guided bythe Holy Spirit and are we
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willing to be guided by thoseGod sends us to guide?
So a great question to ask iswho is your guide and how do you
choose a guide?
Well, it's not always as easy aswe'd like it to be.
Nobody goes around wearing asign that says I'm a heretic,
don't listen to me.
They don't wear a sign thatsays I'm a false teacher, don't
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listen to me, I've got badeducation, don't listen to me.
Nobody wears signs like thisright, and it's not always
obvious immediately.
So we have to be really careful.
Who is our guide going to be?
And sadly, some of us havefollowed bad guides for a while
before we had the truth revealedto us.
Many people in the church todayhave been under bad guides at
(15:25):
some point, and so how do wefollow the right guides?
Well, I would say that thereare some marks of a good guide.
One of the marks of a goodguide is someone whose life
represents and exemplifies thelife of someone who's living for
Christ.
It's easy to quickly go aftersome of these multi-millionaire
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preachers out there that do thegospel, the prosperity gospel
and all of those things, and saythat that's clearly a bad guide
.
But that's not even as clear tosome people as maybe it should
be.
Because there's many people whofollow these people and because
their lives make them appear tobe very attractive, then many
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people say I want that life too,and so they think that if they
follow that kind of gospel, thenthey will likewise be rewarded
with wealth, health or otherthings like that or influence.
But sometimes false teachers arenot as obviously false teachers
and they will use scripture andthey'll use a very good voice
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or they'll use a great appeal orthey'll seem very humble, but
their teaching on some points,or maybe a lot of points, is way
off from scripture.
But how can the average persontell?
I mean, you go to listen to apreacher, for example, and you
assume he's been to Biblecollege or seminary or he's got
a master's or even a doctoratesome preachers have and you
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think they must know whatthey're talking about.
And who am I to really knowwhat they're talking about?
And so many people findthemselves in a difficult place.
I am a preacher and so I canappreciate this myself, but
maybe if I give it anapplication outside of the
church for a moment, that mighthelp you.
(17:17):
I'm not the greatest mechanic inthe world, but I know some
mechanics that have been veryhelpful to me in different ways.
Let me put it this way If youtook your car to a mechanic's
shop and they told you hey, Iplugged your car into the
computer and it gave us theseerror codes, so here's the three
things you need to have done onyour car, and you aren't really
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sure because you're not amechanic, you don't have the
computer to plug in, and so whatdo you do?
How do you know whether you'reactually going to pay for a
repair you really do need orthat that's a repair that you
don't need?
Well, you might do what I dosometimes.
I have a friend that has a codereader and he can tell me
whether those codes are real ornot, and sometimes they're codes
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that can be cleared off of thecomputer without really needing
repair, and some of themactually do need a repair, and
so you get a second opinion.
You go and find out.
But there's a step further Icould take.
If I didn't trust my friend orif I didn't trust the shop, I
could actually go and buy my owncode reader.
In fact now they have themwhere they connect to your cell
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phone and they have an app andit'll tell you exactly what the
codes are that you need tofigure out.
And then you can go online andyou can research them and you
can read about your particularcar and what other people have
had.
With that experience, you canactually start diving in on your
own.
So any person that's literateand has access to the internet
and could get one of these codereading machines, I believe,
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could go and figure out what'sgoing on there.
Well, that may be a comparisonwe can draw with knowing
Scripture.
We do have experts out therewho are top experts and they'll
give us a message and we'lllisten to it and we'll process
it and we'll assume that that'sprobably the right thing.
But then maybe we want to checkit out further.
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So we go to someone who knowsthe Bible a little better than
we do and we determine whetherthat is something that's true or
not, the doctrine that's beingtaught, and then we can also go
on our own and we can go andstudy the Bible, read it, read
different translations.
We can pull out a commentary.
Many lay people have access tocommentaries.
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There's many resources online.
You can Google almost any verseout there and find somebody's
comments on it, and what youwill find is that usually
there's some consensus on mostdoctrines.
So you can find out what mostpeople in the church have
believed throughout history,what they believe today.
You can find these things outfor yourself.
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Also, if you really want to dothat, you can get yourself some
Bible software or use it onlineand do some word studies, and
you can go even further and godeeper on your own.
So, just as I could, if I reallywanted to do all that work to
find out whether the mechanicsbeing honest with me you can do
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the work to find out whetherwhat you're being taught about
the Bible is the correctteaching, you have the ability
to do that, and not only that, Iwould argue.
You have the responsibility asa Christian to do that, and this
is why I tell my congregationover and over and over again, I
tell everyone listening to thispodcast, I'll tell it again and
(20:31):
I'll tell you it again and I'lltell you it again you should be
in your Bible every day.
You should be reading the Bibleevery day and have a Bible
reading plan where you can getthrough on somewhat of a
frequent basis through most ofScripture, if not all of it, so
that when you hear a teachingthat doesn't quite ring right,
you'll know If you've neverlooked at anything from the
(20:54):
Bible before.
And you just go on Sunday andlisten to your preacher and he
says five things and you think,well, that's, I'm not sure about
that, but how would I know andhow could I challenge it?
If you've never been in theBible yourself, you're not gonna
know, just as if I've neverdone any mechanical work myself.
And I bring it to the shop andthey tell me I need some blinker
fluid or I need some winter airin my tires or some of those
(21:16):
other things that we kind ofhave joked about.
A lot of people would not knowwhat they're being told when
they go to the mechanic shop.
There's been all kinds ofexposés I remember seeing one
years ago where one of the 60minutes or one of those went
into shops and found how allthese guys will make up a lot of
stories about what's wrong withyour car and charge people more
than they need to be chargedand that kind of thing, and the
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average person does not have thetime or the desire to go and
research the problem.
But today, with the internetand with the ability to get code
readers, a lot of people canget those fairly cheap online.
They can check now and seewhether what they're being told
by the mechanic is true.
But they have to go to theeffort to do it and, just like
that with the Bible, you need tomake the effort to go and know
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the Bible, to go and know theBible for yourself, do some
research for yourself, do somestudy for yourself.
And if you don't have a desirefor that, maybe you need to ask
the Lord to give you that desire, and maybe that's something
that you need to pray about.
Say Lord, help me to have abetter passion for your word, a
more greater desire to know youbetter through your word, and
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that's a prayer I believe thatthe Lord will answer.
So please think about thesethings, my friends.
Who is your guide?
You need to have a guide thatcan guide you through scripture.
But, more importantly, we allneed to be in scripture
ourselves and so that we can beable to tell when we're being
steered in the wrong direction,that we will know how to write
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the ship ourselves.
And there's a lot of perceptionsthat young Christians maintain.
One third about 31% of youngChristians describe the church
as boring.
A quarter indicate their faithis not relevant to their career
or interests.
They 23% say the church doesnot prepare them for real life.
23% say the church does nothelp them to find their purpose.
(23:08):
23% say the Bible is not taughtclearly or often enough, and
one out of five young peopleexpress that God seems missing
from their experience of church.
These might not seem like largepercentages, but they represent
millions of young prodigal kidsand nomads and exiles from the
church.
So I encourage you to find agood guide and that might mean a
(23:35):
little work to find out who isa good guide and then also check
out your guide.
I tell my congregation all thetime don't take my word for
anything I preach.
Go and check scripture to seeif it's true.
Church tracker listeners.
I encourage you to do the samething Never, ever, take my word
blindly for anything, but go toGod's word for yourself and find
(23:56):
out whether it's true, and youwill be blessed for that effort.
And even though it might behard at first to get into a
habit of daily Bible reading,that will reward you in time and
so it'll be well worth it.
So that's my encouragement toyou today in this podcast, and
I've already gone a littlelonger than I wanted to, but, as
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you can tell, I'm verypassionate about this issue.
I want every believer to bededicated to knowing God better
through His word.
So be blessed as you do that.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Truth Trek.
I'm excited to tell you aboutsome things that are going to be
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coming up here during thisholiday season.
This podcast is being publishedon Wednesday before
Thanksgiving.
On tomorrow, on ThanksgivingDay, I'm going to do a very
short podcast.
It's going to be a reading ofAbraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving
Day Proclamation as well as alittle bit from scripture about
(25:00):
our need to be thankful, sothat'll show up on Thanksgiving
morning for you to listen to.
It'll be really short and thencoming up this Sunday and then
every Sunday until Christmas,you're going to have a special
bonus episode of me readingChristmas stories.
I did this last year on anotherpodcast and people really
enjoyed it, so I've re-recordedsome of the ones that were most
(25:22):
popular and done a moreprofessional job of recording
them, so it should be a littlebit better sound for you this
year.
And then on the Wednesdaypodcasts that are being released
each Wednesday throughoutDecember during the Advent
season, I'm going to do specialfocuses on how Jesus, at his
(25:43):
birth, fulfilled some of theprophecies of the Old Testament.
So I'm looking forward topresenting that to you as well,
and so I look forward to havingyou join me for this holiday
season on Truth Trek.
So thanks again for listening.
If you've enjoyed this, pleaselike the podcast, please
subscribe to it and please,please share it with your
(26:04):
friends.
I appreciate it so much.
Have a great day.
To complete our mission, we must be flexible and
submitted, and we must have theright guide.
Welcome to Truth Trek, where wedive deep into the Bible to
(00:26):
uncover the treasures there.
I'm Pastor Jason Hubdy and Iwill be your guide as we journey
together into Scripture, god'sHoly Word.
In this episode, we're going totake a look at who our guide is
and how.
We do need a guide In order tocomplete our mission.
We must be flexible andsubmitted to a guide.
There are many examples in lifewhere we have needed a guide.
(00:47):
One example is for those whodrive cars, which is most adults
these days.
At some time we had to betaught how to drive a car, and
not only that.
We had to be taught how todrive well enough to pass a test
and to know the rules of theroad so that we could get
licensed.
And as we did that, many of uswent to a Driver's Ed course.
(01:08):
And then, after the Driver's Edcourse, we had a time probably,
where there was a permit wherewe could drive with another
responsible adult and eventuallyget our full driver's license.
When we had that permit, thedriver that was with us was
supposed to be a guide.
They would tell us mistakes wewere making, gently correct us,
(01:28):
hopefully, or, when needed,urgently correct us, and so we
had that guide.
Many other examples exist oftimes where we've needed a guide
, and I could go through a bunch, but I'll leave it there for
now.
But some other examples may beif you've gone into a career and
you've needed to learn yourtrade or your occupation, you
(01:48):
had a guide.
Perhaps you were an apprenticebefore you could become a master
worker in your field, whateverthat is.
But the point is that we needguides.
And when it comes tounderstanding God's Word, how do
we go about it?
While it is true that we canread God's Word and for the most
part, what we need to know issimple enough and clear enough
(02:10):
for us to understand, we alsoneed others to read the Bible
alongside of us and a guide,especially when we're new in the
faith, to help us to learn howto study the Bible.
And this is really importantbecause sometimes we don't
understand fully, until we'vegrown in the faith, how much our
(02:31):
unbiblical worldview affectshow we try to read God's Word.
In other words, as we're stillcoming into the faith and we're
still learning and maturing inthe faith, we may not completely
have the biblical outlook weshould.
And so we may read a passageand we don't know what it means,
and so we go to some sourceoutside of the Bible often to
(02:54):
try to determine what that means, and there can be some danger
in that.
And so we want to have a guide.
We want to have Bible studieswhere we can sit and learn God's
Word together.
We want to listen to goodpreaching, we want to listen to
Bible teachers that are peoplewho can guide us.
And a great example of thisscripturally and how important
(03:15):
the guide was, is a man who wasreading Scripture but had no
idea what he was reading and howto make sense of it.
And this is the story of Philipand the Ethiopian eunuch found
in Acts, chapter 8.
And it's a great story and agreat reminder to us of how
important it is sometimes tohave someone come alongside of
(03:35):
us and explain to us what theScriptures mean.
So I want to read the passagevery quickly here, and it's
again in chapter 8 of Acts, fromverse 26 to verse 40.
Now an angel of the Lord saidto Philip Rise and go toward the
south to the road that goesdown from Jerusalem to Gaza.
(03:56):
This is a desert place.
And he rose and went and therewas an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a
court official of Candus, queenof the Ethiopians, who was in
charge of all her treasure.
He had come to Jerusalem toworship and was returning,
seated in his chariot, and hewas reading the prophet Isaiah.
And the Spirit said to PhilipGo over and join this chariot.
(04:19):
So Philip ran to him and heardhim reading Isaiah, the prophet,
and asked Do you understandwhat you are reading?
And he said how can I, unlesssomeone guides me?
And he invited Philip to comeup and sit with him.
Now, the passage of Scripturethat he was reading was this
(04:40):
Like a sheep, he was led to theslaughter, and like a lamb
before its shearer is silent.
So he opens not his mouth.
In his humiliation, justice wasdenied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away fromthe earth.
And the eunuch said to PhilipAbout whom, I ask you?
Does the prophet say this?
About himself or about someoneelse?
(05:02):
Then Philip opened his mouthand, beginning with this
Scripture, he told him the goodnews about Jesus.
And as they were going alongthe road, they came to some
water and the eunuch said See,here is some water what prevents
me from being baptized?
And he commanded the chariot tostop and they both went down
into the water Philip and theeunuch and he baptized him.
(05:25):
And when they came up out ofthe water, the Spirit of the
Lord carried Philip away and theeunuch saw him no more and went
on his way, rejoicing.
But Philip found himself atAzotus and as he passed through
he preached the gospel to allthe towns until he came to
Caesarea.
This is a great story, and thisis a good example of a man who
(05:47):
really needed someone to guidehim.
He was almost there, he wasalmost at the place of faith.
He just needed someone tounveil the scripture to him a
little more clearly.
And, of course, we need toalways remember that nobody
comes to full understanding ofChrist as Savior unless the
Father draws them according toJesus himself.
And so we must realize thatGod's Holy Spirit is involved in
(06:10):
every conversion, and God getsthe credit for every conversion.
But God also uses people toguide us and to help us to
understand scripture.
So let's note some things aboutthis passage.
I think the main idea that Iwant to focus on is that there's
a pattern of submission in thispassage.
(06:30):
So first of all, let's look atPhilip.
Philip was submitted.
He had been a deacon, whichmeans a servant.
He was submitted in that way tothe apostles, to the church
leadership.
So Philip was submitted in thatway.
He was submitted also that helistened to the angel.
Remember, the angel told him toleave where he was going and he
(06:53):
had to leave a place wherethere was actually productive
ministry going on and he was toleave that behind.
And also, philip obeyed theHoly Spirit because he was
prompted by the Holy Spirit toapproach a Gentile, this
Ethiopian eunuch, to present tohim the gospel of Jesus Christ.
(07:15):
Now let's look at the submissionof the Ethiopian eunuch.
He was submitted.
He had been a pilgrim to Israelto worship Yahweh.
He was submitted to the trueGod even though he didn't fully
understand everything about that.
So people would travel toJerusalem.
There were other people besidesthe Jews who would go and
(07:35):
worship Yahweh.
They would go and make apilgrimage to worship Yahweh.
So he was submitted to knowingthe true God.
He was also submitted in thathe recognized his need for a
teacher.
Now, this was a learned man.
The Bible says he was verysmart.
He was the head of the treasuryfor Candice.
(07:58):
He was no slouch when it cameto thinking and understanding
and processing things.
He was reading, and yet he waswise enough to know his
limitations.
So he was submitted to the factthat he needed someone to guide
him and show him as well.
He was submitted to the gospel.
(08:18):
He responded enthusiasticallyand immediately wanting to
demonstrate his submission toChrist.
So there's the two maincharacters, other than the Lord
himself, who was a character inthe story, but the two men who
are characters in the story weresubmitted in various ways.
So, as we consider that we wantto think about ourselves, are we
(08:41):
submitted?
What are some of the thingsthat we are to submit ourselves
to?
Well, first of all, for thebeliever, we need to submit
ourselves to God's Word.
The biblical authority that wefind there is God's own Word
himself that he gave to us, andso it should hold a very high
position in our lives, in ourstudy, daily study of the Bible,
(09:06):
so that we can understand Godbetter and that we can help
others to grow together with us,that we are being guided by
others and also, hopefully,learning to be guides as well.
So we want to definitely submitto God's Word and then, in the
church, we want to submit toeach other and also to church
(09:27):
leaders.
The Bible is very clear on this.
We need to submit to those whoare proper authorities over us,
but also we need to submit oneto another, and so we need to
care so deeply for each otherthat we put each other's needs
above our own that we considereveryone else to be more
important than ourselves.
So we need to be submitted tothat as well.
(09:49):
We also need to be submitted toGod's great commission that he
gave us to evangelize, to sharethe gospel with others, and we
need to be submitted to grow andmature in Christ.
I've often said and I rippedthis off from someone else that
I heard from years ago thatsadly, many Christians go
through one year of growth 40years in a row.
(10:10):
We don't want to be those kindof Christians.
We want to grow and mature sothat when we look back each year
, we can say I've come a littleway further with Christ.
I'm a little bit more mature, Ican understand things a little
bit better and I have a betterbiblical worldview, and so we
want to always be maturing inthat way.
(10:31):
Now let's take a look for amoment at the word that's in
this passage I read that wastranslated into English for us
to the word guide.
This word was also used inMatthew 15-14, where Jesus
refers to blind guides who makerules for other people that they
(10:52):
don't want to follow themselves.
In John 16, jesus tells aboutthe Holy Spirit that's going to
be coming, and he uses the wordguide there as well.
He says when the spirit oftruth comes, he will guide you
into all the truth, for he willnot speak on his own authority,
but whatever he hears, he willspeak and he will declare to you
(11:13):
the things that are to come.
In Luke 6-39, this word againwas used as blind guides.
That's a parallel to theMatthew place where it says that
as well.
And then finally, in Revelation, chapter 7, we see the word
guide, and we find it in thiscontext of verse 17.
It says for the lamb in themidst of the throne will be
(11:36):
their shepherd and he will guidethem to springs of living water
and God will wipe away everytear from their eyes.
So Jesus himself will be ourguide in the new kingdom that
he's going to bring about.
So here's our reminder.
We always want to begin withScripture.
That's what Philip did here,and he had the great opening
(11:59):
because the Ethiopian wasalready reading the Scripture,
and so we see that he beginsthere.
He takes the very spot wherethe man was reading and begins
there.
And Jesus did the same thing.
In Luke, chapter 24, at verse27,.
This is after the resurrection.
Jesus is walking down the roadwith these men.
(12:20):
It's called the Road to Emmaus.
There's been books written onthis and studies done off of
this.
But it says that in thebeginning, with Moses and all
the prophets, he, jesus,interpreted to them in all the
Scriptures the things concerninghimself.
So Jesus himself, to tell abouthimself, goes to Scripture.
(12:42):
John 5, 46, and 47.
Jesus said If you believedMoses, you would believe me, for
he wrote of me.
But if you do not believe hiswritings, how will you believe
my words?
So we see again.
Jesus himself gave a pattern ofreferring to Scripture Always
go to Scripture to find out whatyou need to know.
(13:04):
In Acts 1327, it says For thosewho live in Jerusalem and their
rulers, because they did notrecognize him nor understand the
utterances of the prophets,which are read every Sabbath,
fulfilled them by condemning him.
In other words, these men thathad Jesus put to death were
(13:26):
actually doing what wasprophesied about them.
But because they did not fullyunderstand the Sabbath or they
did not believe it or recognizeJesus as the Messiah who was
coming, they actually fulfilledtheir part because they didn't
know.
So again, it says those wholive in Jerusalem and their
rulers, because they did notrecognize him nor understand the
(13:51):
utterances of the prophetswhich are read every Sabbath,
fulfilled them by condemning him.
So, as we consider this passage, we've looked at together Acts,
chapter 8, where we've seenPhilip with the Ethiopian eunuch
.
I hope that you will, with me,recognize our needs for a guide.
We need to be guided ourselvesand we need to be practicing and
(14:15):
learning the faith betterourselves so that we can also
guide others.
But we need to ask ourselves afew questions.
Are we willing to be guided?
Are we willing to be guided byJesus?
Are we willing to be guided bythe Old Testament prophets?
Are we willing to be guided bythe Holy Spirit and are we
(14:37):
willing to be guided by thoseGod sends us to guide?
So a great question to ask iswho is your guide and how do you
choose a guide?
Well, it's not always as easy aswe'd like it to be.
Nobody goes around wearing asign that says I'm a heretic,
don't listen to me.
They don't wear a sign thatsays I'm a false teacher, don't
(15:01):
listen to me, I've got badeducation, don't listen to me.
Nobody wears signs like thisright, and it's not always
obvious immediately.
So we have to be really careful.
Who is our guide going to be?
And sadly, some of us havefollowed bad guides for a while
before we had the truth revealedto us.
Many people in the church todayhave been under bad guides at
(15:25):
some point, and so how do wefollow the right guides?
Well, I would say that thereare some marks of a good guide.
One of the marks of a goodguide is someone whose life
represents and exemplifies thelife of someone who's living for
Christ.
It's easy to quickly go aftersome of these multi-millionaire
(15:49):
preachers out there that do thegospel, the prosperity gospel
and all of those things, and saythat that's clearly a bad guide
.
But that's not even as clear tosome people as maybe it should
be.
Because there's many people whofollow these people and because
their lives make them appear tobe very attractive, then many
(16:11):
people say I want that life too,and so they think that if they
follow that kind of gospel, thenthey will likewise be rewarded
with wealth, health or otherthings like that or influence.
But sometimes false teachers arenot as obviously false teachers
and they will use scripture andthey'll use a very good voice
(16:35):
or they'll use a great appeal orthey'll seem very humble, but
their teaching on some points,or maybe a lot of points, is way
off from scripture.
But how can the average persontell?
I mean, you go to listen to apreacher, for example, and you
assume he's been to Biblecollege or seminary or he's got
a master's or even a doctoratesome preachers have and you
(16:57):
think they must know whatthey're talking about.
And who am I to really knowwhat they're talking about?
And so many people findthemselves in a difficult place.
I am a preacher and so I canappreciate this myself, but
maybe if I give it anapplication outside of the
church for a moment, that mighthelp you.
(17:17):
I'm not the greatest mechanic inthe world, but I know some
mechanics that have been veryhelpful to me in different ways.
Let me put it this way If youtook your car to a mechanic's
shop and they told you hey, Iplugged your car into the
computer and it gave us theseerror codes, so here's the three
things you need to have done onyour car, and you aren't really
(17:38):
sure because you're not amechanic, you don't have the
computer to plug in, and so whatdo you do?
How do you know whether you'reactually going to pay for a
repair you really do need orthat that's a repair that you
don't need?
Well, you might do what I dosometimes.
I have a friend that has a codereader and he can tell me
whether those codes are real ornot, and sometimes they're codes
(17:59):
that can be cleared off of thecomputer without really needing
repair, and some of themactually do need a repair, and
so you get a second opinion.
You go and find out.
But there's a step further Icould take.
If I didn't trust my friend orif I didn't trust the shop, I
could actually go and buy my owncode reader.
In fact now they have themwhere they connect to your cell
(18:22):
phone and they have an app andit'll tell you exactly what the
codes are that you need tofigure out.
And then you can go online andyou can research them and you
can read about your particularcar and what other people have
had.
With that experience, you canactually start diving in on your
own.
So any person that's literateand has access to the internet
and could get one of these codereading machines, I believe,
(18:44):
could go and figure out what'sgoing on there.
Well, that may be a comparisonwe can draw with knowing
Scripture.
We do have experts out therewho are top experts and they'll
give us a message and we'lllisten to it and we'll process
it and we'll assume that that'sprobably the right thing.
But then maybe we want to checkit out further.
(19:06):
So we go to someone who knowsthe Bible a little better than
we do and we determine whetherthat is something that's true or
not, the doctrine that's beingtaught, and then we can also go
on our own and we can go andstudy the Bible, read it, read
different translations.
We can pull out a commentary.
Many lay people have access tocommentaries.
(19:27):
There's many resources online.
You can Google almost any verseout there and find somebody's
comments on it, and what youwill find is that usually
there's some consensus on mostdoctrines.
So you can find out what mostpeople in the church have
believed throughout history,what they believe today.
You can find these things outfor yourself.
(19:48):
Also, if you really want to dothat, you can get yourself some
Bible software or use it onlineand do some word studies, and
you can go even further and godeeper on your own.
So, just as I could, if I reallywanted to do all that work to
find out whether the mechanicsbeing honest with me you can do
(20:08):
the work to find out whetherwhat you're being taught about
the Bible is the correctteaching, you have the ability
to do that, and not only that, Iwould argue.
You have the responsibility asa Christian to do that, and this
is why I tell my congregationover and over and over again, I
tell everyone listening to thispodcast, I'll tell it again and
(20:31):
I'll tell you it again and I'lltell you it again you should be
in your Bible every day.
You should be reading the Bibleevery day and have a Bible
reading plan where you can getthrough on somewhat of a
frequent basis through most ofScripture, if not all of it, so
that when you hear a teachingthat doesn't quite ring right,
you'll know If you've neverlooked at anything from the
(20:54):
Bible before.
And you just go on Sunday andlisten to your preacher and he
says five things and you think,well, that's, I'm not sure about
that, but how would I know andhow could I challenge it?
If you've never been in theBible yourself, you're not gonna
know, just as if I've neverdone any mechanical work myself.
And I bring it to the shop andthey tell me I need some blinker
fluid or I need some winter airin my tires or some of those
(21:16):
other things that we kind ofhave joked about.
A lot of people would not knowwhat they're being told when
they go to the mechanic shop.
There's been all kinds ofexposés I remember seeing one
years ago where one of the 60minutes or one of those went
into shops and found how allthese guys will make up a lot of
stories about what's wrong withyour car and charge people more
than they need to be chargedand that kind of thing, and the
(21:39):
average person does not have thetime or the desire to go and
research the problem.
But today, with the internetand with the ability to get code
readers, a lot of people canget those fairly cheap online.
They can check now and seewhether what they're being told
by the mechanic is true.
But they have to go to theeffort to do it and, just like
that with the Bible, you need tomake the effort to go and know
(22:01):
the Bible, to go and know theBible for yourself, do some
research for yourself, do somestudy for yourself.
And if you don't have a desirefor that, maybe you need to ask
the Lord to give you that desire, and maybe that's something
that you need to pray about.
Say Lord, help me to have abetter passion for your word, a
more greater desire to know youbetter through your word, and
(22:24):
that's a prayer I believe thatthe Lord will answer.
So please think about thesethings, my friends.
Who is your guide?
You need to have a guide thatcan guide you through scripture.
But, more importantly, we allneed to be in scripture
ourselves and so that we can beable to tell when we're being
steered in the wrong direction,that we will know how to write
(22:46):
the ship ourselves.
And there's a lot of perceptionsthat young Christians maintain.
One third about 31% of youngChristians describe the church
as boring.
A quarter indicate their faithis not relevant to their career
or interests.
They 23% say the church doesnot prepare them for real life.
23% say the church does nothelp them to find their purpose.
(23:08):
23% say the Bible is not taughtclearly or often enough, and
one out of five young peopleexpress that God seems missing
from their experience of church.
These might not seem like largepercentages, but they represent
millions of young prodigal kidsand nomads and exiles from the
church.
So I encourage you to find agood guide and that might mean a
(23:35):
little work to find out who isa good guide and then also check
out your guide.
I tell my congregation all thetime don't take my word for
anything I preach.
Go and check scripture to seeif it's true.
Church tracker listeners.
I encourage you to do the samething Never, ever, take my word
blindly for anything, but go toGod's word for yourself and find
(23:56):
out whether it's true, and youwill be blessed for that effort.
And even though it might behard at first to get into a
habit of daily Bible reading,that will reward you in time and
so it'll be well worth it.
So that's my encouragement toyou today in this podcast, and
I've already gone a littlelonger than I wanted to, but, as
(24:17):
you can tell, I'm verypassionate about this issue.
I want every believer to bededicated to knowing God better
through His word.
So be blessed as you do that.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Truth Trek.
I'm excited to tell you aboutsome things that are going to be
(24:39):
coming up here during thisholiday season.
This podcast is being publishedon Wednesday before
Thanksgiving.
On tomorrow, on ThanksgivingDay, I'm going to do a very
short podcast.
It's going to be a reading ofAbraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving
Day Proclamation as well as alittle bit from scripture about
(25:00):
our need to be thankful, sothat'll show up on Thanksgiving
morning for you to listen to.
It'll be really short and thencoming up this Sunday and then
every Sunday until Christmas,you're going to have a special
bonus episode of me readingChristmas stories.
I did this last year on anotherpodcast and people really
enjoyed it, so I've re-recordedsome of the ones that were most
(25:22):
popular and done a moreprofessional job of recording
them, so it should be a littlebit better sound for you this
year.
And then on the Wednesdaypodcasts that are being released
each Wednesday throughoutDecember during the Advent
season, I'm going to do specialfocuses on how Jesus, at his
(25:43):
birth, fulfilled some of theprophecies of the Old Testament.
So I'm looking forward topresenting that to you as well,
and so I look forward to havingyou join me for this holiday
season on Truth Trek.
So thanks again for listening.
If you've enjoyed this, pleaselike the podcast, please
subscribe to it and please,please share it with your
(26:04):
friends.
I appreciate it so much.
Have a great day.
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