Don’t Forget God
Acts 8:26-40
The story of the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch has fascinated and blessed many readers of the Bible. The Ethiopian’s journey to Jerusalem, his meeting with Philip the evangelist, and his surrender to Jesus Christ, are very well known. However I wonder if the broader implications of this story have passed unnoticed.
We are all too familiar with the....
I. Strange Command (26)
Phillip is picked of God to leave a successful work in the city and despatched to a desert road to Gaza. Philip was involved in a work in Samaria that was very successful. Multitudes of people were coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Leave this revival to go to a desert place was the command. However, behind this command was the foreknowledge of God.
God is far more wiser than His children.
Phillip obeyed without questioning the Lord. From fruitful fields of multidues, he is directed to go to the desert where there appears only the carvan of some traveler returning from the city of Jerusalem. He did not know for what he was sent there, but that ignorance did not trouble or retard him.
The Holy Spirit needs willing, ready, and and obedient hearts.
II. Sacred Cause (27,28)
The eunuch has traveled to Jerusalem in search of some answers, but the bitter disappointment when his questions still went unanswered. However before he leaves he must have purchased a copy of the OT scriptures. He reads the writings of Isaiah looking for some key that would unlock the longing of his heart.
III Strategic Contact (29)
It is a great thing to be so in touch with heaven that our witness and our attempts at soul-winning are directed by the Holy Ghost.
Philip was the right man in the right place.
Three things contribute to his success in soul winning:
1. Following the Spirit got him to the right person.
2. Familiarity with the Scriptures gave him the right power.
3. Faithfulness to share gained the right profession.
Now, we could look at the story by observing the word “man.”
The sinner (27)
The soul-winner (31). The Word written prepared the way for the Word preached.
The Saviour (34)
However, I wonder if we have overlooked some of the broader implications of this story.
I. Don’t overlook God’s FAITHFULNESS
The event was a direct answer to prayer. Do you recall that long before the Ethiopian was born, King Solomon prayed for him?
See 1 Kings 8:41-43.
God is faithful to answer prayer. Believing prayer is a bridge that can be thrown across the centuries of time..
Prayer works because God works in response to the prayers of His children. Adoniram Judson once said, “I have never prayed sincerely for anything but it came, at some time....somehow....in some shape.”
In one region of Africa, the first converts to Christianity were very diligent about praying. In fact, the believers each had their own special place outside the village where they went to pray in solitude. The villagers reached these “prayer rooms” by using their own private footpaths through the brush. When grass began to grow over one of these trails, it was evident that the person to whom it belonged was not praying very much.
Because these new Christians were concerned for each other’s spiritual welfare, a unique custom sprang up. When ever anyone noticed an overgrown “Prayer path,” he or she would go to the person and lovingly warn, “Friend, there’s grass on your path!”
Zacharias and Elizabeth had prayed for a son over the decades of their married life. It was not until they were beyond childbearing age that God answered.
The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use—men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men—men of prayer.
“God’s children can conquer anything by prayer. Is it any wonder that Satan does his utmost to that weapon from the Christian or to hinder him in the use of it?” - Andrew Murray
II. Don’t overlook God’s RIGHTEOUSNESS
See Proverbs 19:17. The best investment of our property is in deeds of loving-kindness. What is given to the poor or done for them, God will place it to account as lent to Him, lent upon interest (so the word signifies); God takes it as if it were done to Him, and He would have us take the comfort in it that it is in good hands.
See Hebrews 6:10.
God has a wonderful way of paying His debts.
See Jeremiah 38:7-13.
Here was an occasion when an Ethiopian rendered service to a prophet, and probably saved his life; now a prophet renders service to an Ethiopian and saves his soul.
The widow at Zarephath was none the poorer for ministering to Elijah in his distress. She found and unfailing cruse of oil and unending supply of meal (I Kings 17:10-16).
III. Don’t overlook God’s WATCHFULNESS
Have you ever watched an ant moving among thousands of others on an anthill? Close you eyes for a second, and it is quite impossible to find the same ant again. Yet upon this earth millions and millions of people move upon its surface and God still sees you.
God’s watch-care is so wonderful that an individual is never lost in the crowd. The Ethiopian might have thought himself alone in the desert, yet he was not for God eyes were upon him.
The meeting of the enunch and the prophet starting so far apart .... ignorant of each other and the purpose of their meeting thrown together reveals the unseen eye and hand of God that moved each on his own path and brought about the intersection of the two at the exact spot and hour.
The eunuch’s conversion does not appear to have been of any importance for the expansion of the church in Jerusalem. Divine intervention and human witness were brought into play simply for the sake of one soul which God’s saw ripe for the Gospel.
God cares for the individual. We must never in thought, limit the range of God’s redeeming love or converting power.
A construction crew was building a new road through a rural area, knocking down trees as it progressed. A superintendent noticed that one tree had a nest of sparrows who couldn’t yet fly and he marked the tree so that it would not be cut down. Several weeks later the superintendent came back to the tree. He got into a bucket truck and was lifted up so that he could peer into the nest. The young were gone. They had obviously learned to fly. The superintendent ordered the tree cut down. As the tree crashed to the ground, the nest fell clear and some of the material that the birds had gathered to make the nest was scattered about. Part of it was a scrap torn from a Sunday school pamphlet. On the scrap of paper were these words: He careth for you. You are of more value to Hm than many sparrows the bible says, and not one of them falls to the ground without His watchful eye.
Conclusion:
I was relieved to find out that I’m not the only one who forgets things. Everyone does at one time or another, according to a John Hopkins’ researcher. Here are the things people most often forget according to the researcher from John Hopkins’ hospital:
1. names
2. where something is
3. telephone numbers
4. words
5. what was said
6. faces
7. and if you can’t remember whether you’ve just done something, you join 38 percent of the population.
However, I feel that God is at the top of the list. How often is He forgotten in our daily life. Yes, we are all too familiar with the preacher and his convert, but we lose sight of God working behind the scenes.
