THE MAN WHO DISAPPEARED
Acts 8:27-40
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
1. There was a professor of preaching who demanded that his students come up with catchy sermon titles. He said, “They must be so engaging that someone riding by the church on a bus, and seeing the sermon title, should be impelled to get off the bus and walk into the building to hear the sermon.”
2. The professor found a small church by a bus stop and had the students post their sermon titles on the sign to see how many people were interested enough to get off the bus. The students were graded on the bus-rider’s response.
3. Most of the students got low marks, but one enterprising student came up with the perfect sermon title, which induced most of the people to get off the bus.
4. When the professor asked the title of his sermon he replied, “There’s a Bomb on that Bus!”
B. THE MAN WHO DISAPPEARED
1. In 1971, a man named “Dan Cooper” boarded a Northwest Airlines flight in Portland. Soon after takeoff Cooper opened his briefcase and showed a stewardess it contained eight red cylinders connected to a battery, and told her it was a bomb.
2. He demanded $200,000 and four parachutes. He allowed the passengers to exit at the next stop. After dark, he opened the rear door of the plane and jumped off over Nevada. The next day the police and FBI searched the area was but no trace was found of Cooper. He disappeared completely.
3. The FBI maintained an active investigation for 45 years following the hijacking; it’s the only unsolved air piracy case in American aviation history.
4. WE’RE GOING TO READ ABOUT ANOTHER MAN WHO DISAPPEARED:
C. TEXT & TITLE
35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. 36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?” 37 Then 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 So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. 39 Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.” Acts 8:35-40
1. Long before Science Fiction thought of “beaming” transporter technology, God was already doing it!
2. We’re going to look at the unusual case of “The Man Who Disappeared.”
I. VISIT OF THE TREASURER OF ETHIOPIA
A. HIS IDENTITY
1. This story begins 1,570 miles south of Jerusalem in the heart of Africa. There was a powerful Kingdom called Kush that ruled 1,000 years (785 BC-350 AD). It had 1.2 million inhabitants at its height. From AD 22-41 it was ruled by Queen Amantitere (her title was Kandake, Candace).
2. This Queen had a high ranking official, the Royal Treasurer. He had heard of the God of Israel, how He had sent the 10 plagues on the Egyptian Empire and opened the Red Sea and given the Israelites victory over the 7 nations of Palestine, and how they had built a Temple for God’s name. THE EUNUCH LONGED TO KNOW ABOUT THE TRUE GOD!
B. HE BECAME HUNGRY FOR GOD
1. God says, “You shall seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your hearts” Jer. 29:11. We must desire God if we would know Him.
2. If you’re spiritual hungry, you’ll go to the Word of God; you’ll make whatever sacrifices necessary to eliminate what stands between you and God.
3. If you’re spiritually hungry, you won’t be satisfied with “just enough.” If we ARE satisfied, it’s a sign that either we’ve been filled with something else, or for shallow results.
4. Hunger is a sign of health. A person who’s not hungry is sick. Lack of hunger is a sign that there’s something wrong in our lives.
5. The Ethiopian Eunuch was hungry for God! You must get YOUR hunger back! God will always meet us on the level of our hunger for Him.
C. HIS JOURNEY TO GOD
1. So the Eunuch began his 1,570 mile journey. First he travelled down the Nile River to Cairo, Egypt by boat (1,000 miles), then he joined a camel train for 461 miles (approx. a 20 day trip) up the coast to Gaza, then to Jerusalem.
2. Imagine his joy as he topped the last hill (Mount of Olives?) and saw the Holy City and the Temple across the valley! He got to enter the Court of the Gentiles and pray there, and supposing he converted, made sacrifices through a proxy.
3. After his pilgrimage, he finally started for home, feeling like he’d done everything possible, and was reading the Book of Isaiah, trying to puzzle its meaning, when a man offered to explain it to him. The man was named Philip. Coincidence? No!
II. GOD’S FAITHFUL, OBEDIENT SERVANT
A. PHILIP’S AWESOME OBEDIENCE
1. Philip was a deacon of the Jerusalem church and had been the preacher in a tremendous revival in Samaria with 1,000s saved and many miracles. An angel appeared to him. Why? Because it may have taken an angel to get him to leave the revival and go to a little-used desert road to Gaza. He didn’t hesitate but left immediately.
2. As soon as he got to the road he saw a royal chariot. The Spirit “Join yourself to it,” literally to “glue” himself to it. (We need to pay attention to what the Spirit is saying.) Philip RAN to the chariot! How often do we RUN to do God’s will?
3. As Philip approached, he heard the Eunuch reading the Greek O.T. version (Septuagint) of Isaiah 53. This as no coincident but a divine appointment. This passage has the most clear description of Jesus’ suffering, death, and atonement in the Bible. Think of GOD’S PERFECT TIMING in this! The Eunuch asked Philip to help him understand it.
B. PHILIP “PREACHED JESUS TO HIM!
1. The Early Church were convinced that the solution to everyone’s problems was Jesus Christ.
2. In America, people think we need a political solution to our problems! Educators believe education is the solution; Corporations think money is the solution; but friends, there’s only one solution to the world’s problems, and that’s Jesus Christ!
3. Philip didn’t beat around the bush. He didn’t get caught up in theology. He didn’t get sidetracked attacking certain sins. Instead, he led the Eunuch straight to the answer – to Jesus!
4. Only the preaching of Jesus Christ can set men free; only
Jesus can revolutionize a person’s life; only He can change their base nature, making them into new creations!
3. Philip “preached” Jesus as the incarnate Son of God. Philip believed in His Virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in Jesus’ substitutionary death for us on the Cross, and in His bodily resurrection on the third day!
4. JESUS CHRIST IS THE ONLY SAVIOR!
a. David Platt told about going to a Hindu temple and asking the Hindus how they get to heaven. Platt summarized their view for them; “Do you think salvation is like a mountain with many paths that led to God?”
b. They said, “Yes, that’s what we think.” Then David said, “What if I told you that we can’t get to Him by any of those paths, but instead, God came down the mountain to get us!”
c. The Hindus were shocked. “We must know of this One who has come down!” they said. You see, all other religions are our attempts to get to God. Christianity is God coming to get us!
5. If you want to make an eternal difference in people’s lives tell them about Jesus!
III. THE EUNUCH’S UNIQUE SALVATION
A. THE EUNUCH’S CONFESSION & BAPTISM
1. Philip must have mentioned the importance of water baptism, for the Eunuch asked for it. 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.” Have you made your good confession yet?
2. What do you think about Jesus? Albert Einstein said, “I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene....No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrase-mongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot (witty remark).” [George Sylvester Viereck, "What Life Means to Einstein," The Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929.]
3. Jesus asks you today, “Who do YOU say that I am?” The Eunuch took a stand; He said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” He then followed Jesus into water baptism.
4. The description of baptism by submersion is one of the
clearest in the Bible. If you have been sprinkled you need go a little deeper in the water and be “buried with Christ” (Rom. 6:4). The Western Greek text says that the Spirit fell on the Eunuch during his baptism! Praise God!
B. PHILIP CAUGHT AWAY
1. At the moment the eunuch was baptized Philip was “caught away by the Spirit” from Gaza to Azotus (Greek form for Ashdod), a 20 mile trip in the blink of an eye! Apparently the Spirit gave Philip a supersonic ride over the coast to Azotus!
2. The Greek work translated “caught away” is “harpazo” and is the same word used for the Rapture of the Church in 1 Thess. 4:17. One could say Philip got a foretaste of the Rapture!
3. Enoch and Elijah were transported to heaven, but only Ezekiel and Philip were transported by the Spirit from one earthly location to another.
4. Ezekiel described his experience; “Then the Spirit took me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing. So the Spirit lifted me up, and took me away, and I went…in the heat of my spirit; but the hand of the Lord was strong upon me. Then I came to…the river of Chebar, and…sat… among them seven days” Ezek. 3:12, 14-15. A journey of over 500 miles!
5. We aren’t told whether the Spirit-transportation of Philip occurred for Philip’s sake or the Eunuch’s. It does say in Heb. 11:5 that Enoch’s translation occurred because he “pleased God.” It carried Philip toward Caesarea, where he settled for the rest of his life. Paul met him there.
6. Maybe this miracle was God’s joyously firing fireworks to celebrate the Eunuch’s conversion. Jesus said there’s tremendous joy in heaven when even one sinner comes to repentance (Luke 15:7). This Eunuch was the first Gentile converted in Acts and I’m sure he was awe-struck, with the disappearance of Philip, as long as he lived.
7. The early Church historian Irenaeus tells us (Against Heresies III:12:8) that the Ethiopian Eunuch became a missionary among his own people and that there was a strong church there by the 4th century.
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: MISSIONARY 30 MINUTES LATE
1. Native missionary M.V. Varghese has often witnessed among the crowds who gathered at the Ganges. It was he who came upon Alila that day kneeling in the sand crying uncontrollably and beating her breast. With compassion he knelt down next to her and asked her what was wrong.
2. Through sobs she told him, "The problems in my home are too many and my sins are heavy on my heart, so I offered the best I have to the goddess Ganges – my first born son."
3. Brother Varghese's heart ached for the desperate woman. As she wept, he gently began to tell her about the love of Jesus and that through Him her sins could be forgiven.
4. She looked at him strangely. "I have never heard that before," she replied through her tears. "Why couldn't you have come thirty minutes earlier? If you did, my child would not have had to die."
5. Thank God for Philip leaving the limelight of Samaria and running to the chariot! Only God knows how many thousands were saved by his instant obedience. Are we demonstrating such an “instant obedience” to the Lord?
B. THE CALL
1. Who is this Jesus? “A young man grew up working in his father's carpenter shop. One day he puts down his tools and preached on street corners for three years. He was arrested, tried and convicted, and executed at age 33 along with two common thieves. His family couldn’t afford a burial, so he was put in a borrowed tomb. Is this the end of the story? No, this uneducated, property-less young man who...left no written documents of his own, & lived 2000 years ago; Yet He has had a greater effect on the world than all the rulers, kings, emperors, conquerors, generals and admirals, all the scholars, scientists and philosophers who have ever lived -- all of them put together. How do we explain that?...unless He really was who He said He was.” (Attributed to Ronald Reagan.)
2. Will you make the great confession that the Eunuch did, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God”? If you will, stand up and let’s confess Him together.
3. How many of you know someone who needs to hear about Jesus? Will you be God’s spokesman/ woman to them? If you will, stand with me and let’s pray for God to use us. PRAYER.
