SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/22/2017
9:24 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “The
Proper Response”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 8:36-40
Message of the
verses: “36 As they went along the road they came to some water; and the
eunuch said, "Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?" 37
[[And Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you may." And
he answered and said, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God."]] 38 And he ordered the chariot to stop; and they both went down
into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him. 39 When they
came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; and the
eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip found
himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he kept preaching the gospel to all
the cities until he came to Caesarea.”
We are looking at the last of the three main points from
this last section of Scripture found in the Acts chapter eight which speaks of
the salvation of the eunuch, and as we have learned it contrasts the eunuch’s
salvation with the false claims of what happened to Simeon in the early part of
chapter eight. We will be looking at faith,
confession and then rejoicing as we make our way through these verses.
John MacArthur writes “The Spirit’s preparation and
Philip’s presentation combined to produce the proper response on the eunuch’s
part. That response was threefold: faith,
confession, and rejoicing.”
FAITH
““36 As they went along the
road they came to some water; and the eunuch said, "Look! Water! What prevents
me from being baptized?’”
We don’t know the exact words that Philip spoke to the
eunuch, but from the text that we have we know that he spoke of faith and
baptism because of what the eunuch said in this verse. I remember the first pastor that I sat under
after I received Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord and he use to use this
passage to talk about baptism. The word
baptism is a transliteration from the Greek:
“baptize” and the word means to dip or immerse, so it has nothing to do
with sprinkling as we see in verse 39 that “they came up out of the water.”
After hearing about his need to be
baptized after he became a believer they came upon some water, a pool or stream
in the desert that at the right time they came upon it in order for this man to
publicly testify to his salvation, his saving faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. We can see another example of
the sovereign’s Spirit’s control of the events that are taking place.
CONFESSION
“37 [[And Philip said,
"If you believe with all your heart, you may." And he answered and
said, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God."]] 38 And he
ordered the chariot to stop; and they both went down into the water, Philip as
well as the eunuch, and he baptized him.”
John MacArthur writes “The oldest and most reliable
manuscripts do not contain verse 37, which should be omitted from the
text. Still, something like that
confession must have occurred. Coming to the water, the eunuch ‘ordered the
chariot to stop; and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the
eunuch; and he baptized him.”
REJOICING
39 When they came up out of
the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; and the eunuch no
longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip found himself at
Azotus, and as he passed through he kept preaching the gospel to all the cities
until he came to Caesarea.”
When we read here that Philip was snatched away this is
not the first time that this kind of thing has happened as seen in the Word of
God. “12
"It will come about when I leave you that the Spirit of the LORD
will carry you where I do not know; so when I come and tell Ahab and he cannot
find you, he will kill me, although I your servant have feared the LORD from my
youth (1 Kings 18:12).” “16 They said to him, "Behold now, there are
with your servants fifty strong men, please let them go and search for your
master; perhaps the Spirit of the LORD has taken him up and cast him on some
mountain or into some valley." And he said, "You shall not send’ (2
Kings 2:16).” These two verses speak of
Elijah. Now we will look at Ezekiel “12
Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard a great rumbling sound behind me,
"Blessed be the glory of the LORD in His place.’” “14 So the Spirit lifted me up and took me
away; and I went embittered in the rage of my spirit, and the hand of the LORD
was strong on me.” “3 He stretched out
the form of a hand and caught me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me
up between earth and heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem,
to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, where the seat of the idol
of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy, was located (Ezekiel 2:12, 14; 8:3).”
We have mentioned that the eunuch was certainly not the
only one traveling as there was a caravan who was with him as an important man
like this would not be traveling alone, especially in a remote area like they
were in. With this said we can conclude
that by performing this wonderful miracle that the Holy Spirit did that He
would have confirmed to this entire caravan that Philip was indeed the Spirit’s
spokesman.
Joy is the mark of true believers, and I have to say that
joy and happiness are not necessarily the same for we read in Hebrews 12:2 “fixing
our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of
God.” These highlighted words do not
mean that Jesus was happy, but He was indeed joyful. Jesus knew that after His suffering that many
would come to believe in Him as their Savior and Lord, and He also knew that
because of His suffering and death that He would have fulfilled the plan that
the Father had for Him to do. Remember
when Jesus was a 12 year old boy in the temple He told his mother that He had
to be about His Father’s business and then just before He died on the cross He
stated “It is finished.” That word in
the Greek is the word teleo tel-eh’-o” and this word means to pay in full, and
this word was stamped onto a letter given to a prisoner when he was released
from prison as he had paid the dept.
John MacArthur concludes this section by writing “Luke
does not give us the subsequent history of the Ethiopian eunuch. According the church Father Irenaeus, he
became a missionary to the Ethiopians.
What is clear is that the Spirit’s preparation, coupled with Philip’s
presentation, produced in him the faith that does save.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I trust that the
Lord will in future times give to me the opportunity to tell others about Jesus
Christ, and that I would be read to do so with the confidence that the Spirit
of God has given me a divine appointment.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust that the Lord will work out some
difficulties that are going on in my life at this time.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Mount Hor” (Numbers
20:25-26).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who did Jacob marry before
being allowed to marry Rachel?”
Answer in our next SD.
12/22/2017 10:15 AM
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