Arise And Go

Arise and Go

Acts 8:26-39

A man walks along a lonely desert road

Dangers lie all around him

The obvious danger of the extreme heat easily takes its toll on even the strongest of men

But being in the desert brings other hazards

Wild beasts, starving, not having eaten in weeks

Ready to pounce on their next victim

Thieves, hiding in crevices or behind rocks

Waiting for that unsuspecting soul to wander into their trap

Peril is all around this man

Why would he ever put himself in such jeopardy?

Why take this barren desert road?

Surely he has a valid reason to put his life on the line

Of course he does

This man is Philip

He has a command directly from the throne room of the God Himself

Sent by His angel that said

Go take the desert road south towards Gaza

So he got up and went

About a 50 mile journey

Jesus’ last words to His followers were a command to take the Gospel everywhere

But they seemed reluctant to leave Jerusalem

It took intense persecution to scatter the believers from Jerusalem and into Judea and Samaria

Where Jesus had instructed them to go

Philip, one of the deacons in charge of food distribution that we first read about in Acts 6

Left Jerusalem and, like most Jewish Christians, spread the Gospel wherever he went

But unlike most of them, he did not limit his audience to other Jews

He preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people other Jews wouldn’t even imagine speaking to

A great example of this is found in Acts 8 with the conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch

READ ACTS 8:26-39

We can learn several things about soul winning from this passage

First we see

Anxiety of the soul (27-28)

It was not frivolous curiosity that brought this Ethiopian nobleman up to Jerusalem to worship

Ethiopia was located in Africa south of Egypt

The eunuch was obviously very dedicated to God because he had traveled such a long distance to worship

The Jews had contact with Ethiopia, known as Cush, in ancient days

So this man may have been a Gentile convert to Judaism

Doubtless he was an earnest seeker after the satisfying truth of God

He was an honest anxious inquirer

Proven by the fact that he had stopped what he was doing

Laying everything else aside

That he might seek this one thing needful

The truth of the Gospel

He was a very important government official in Ethiopia

One who held a position of authority in the queen’s court

That of treasurer, much like a minister of finance or secretary of the treasury

So he held a lot of responsibility, which he set aside to make this trip to Jerusalem to worship

And then on his return trip, took time to literally stop and study the Old Testament scriptures

He came to Jerusalem that he might hear

He searched the scriptures that he might see

Those who seek with all their heart will find God

Jeremiah 29:13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

The anxiety of the soul

Anxiety can be defined a few different ways

It can be a feeling of worry

The soul worries about its fate

As it should, we should be worried about spending eternity in a literal Hell

Eternally dying, eternally burning without burning up, eternally falling, never to meet the bottom and eternally separated from the love of God

But anxiety can also be defined as a strong wish to do something

Our soul has a strong wish to be filled with that love

Man has a desire for God, even though often times not even realizing it is God he desires

Our soul is anxious to fill that void within

To do something

And there is only one way for that void to be filled

To be drawn to God

John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

We are very familiar with this verse

But we should never separate verses 44 and 45

(45) It is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

The significance of verse 45 is that it shows how the Father is seeking to draw men to His Son

By the teaching of the prophetical books and the other books of the Bible

So it is our job as Christians to be teaching so that others can come to Him

That is where our next point comes in

Obedience to God (26-27)

When Philip received the call to “Arise and go…he arose and went”