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Do You Understand What You Read? By Henry Mahan

 I want you to follow along in the scripture now as I speak this evening.
I'll be using a lot of scripture so you have your Bible prepared to follow along.
Acts chapter 8 verse 26.
And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying,
Arise and go toward the south
unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.
And he arose and went.
And behold, a man of Ethiopia,
a eunuch of great authority under Candice, queen of the Ethiopians,
who had the charge of all her treasure and had come to Jerusalem
for to worship.
He was returning and sitting in his chariot reading
Isaiah, that's Isaiah the prophet.
And the spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot.
All right, now I begin this message with several things about this particular man
which we do not know.
There's some things about this man from Ethiopia that we do not know.
The word of God does not tell us. First of all,
we do not know how he came to be interested in the living God,
in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This man's an Ethiopian.
This man's a high ranking officer in the queen's cabinet.
He's in charge of all of her treasures.
And he's interested, he's seeking the living God.
He's become interested in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
the God of eternal glory.
Second thing we do not know about this man is this.
How did he come to possess a copy of the writings of Isaiah?
Wonder where he got it.
Wonder where he, he was sitting in his chariot reading Isaiah the prophet.
Where did he get a copy of Isaiah the prophet?
All right, tell you something else we don't know about him.
He's an Ethiopian now, remember that.
A high ranking member of the queen's cabinet.
How did he, how did he get a knowledge of the Hebrew language?
He was reading Hebrew.
He was reading Isaiah the prophet, which was written in Hebrew.
Now, we don't know those things.
But we do know this.
Almighty God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.
He plants his footsteps on the sea and rides upon the storm.
I was preaching a few nights ago down in Tumut.
I suppose I'm pronouncing that right, T-U-M-U-T.
And a people had come there from all around.
And after I preached I was standing over to the side talking with some folks
and a young man walked up to me, a young man I would say in his late twenties.
And I said, are you from around here?
And I am now, I'm an engineer.
But I'm from Brisbane.
My parents came over here from Finland.
He said, I'm from Finland.
And my parents came over here to Australia when I was 13 years old.
And he said, I'm married and have some children now
and they sent me down here to Tumut to do a job
and I'm going back soon up to Brisbane or wherever that is.
His parents are living.
And I said, well, how in the world did you happen to come to this service tonight?
Do you attend this?
Do you know anybody here?
He said, I don't know so.
He said, I saw this meeting advertised in the paper or on a billboard or something.
I forgot where he said he saw it advertised.
And he said, I'm here.
He said, I'm here because I'm interested in what you're saying.
He said, I'm unhappy with religion.
I'm unhappy with the pressure and emotionalism and sentiment
and all these things that are put upon people to try to get them to make professions.
He said, so I came to hear you tonight.
But he said, I have a question for you.
What in the world is a fellow from Kentucky
doing down here in this little town in Australia preaching?
And I looked at him and I said, so you from Finland
would hear the gospel of Jesus Christ
because our God moves in strange and wonderful and mysterious ways
to bring the gospel to one of his own, one of his sheep.
He's a man. I don't know how he came to seek the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
I don't know where he got a copy of the book of Isaiah.
I don't know where he learned to read Hebrew.
But I do know some things about him.
Number one, I know he was seeking the Lord.
I know that this man was interested in God.
He had a real desire to know the living God.
How do I know that?
Because this man was so interested in knowing God
that he took a long, perilous journey.
Do you know how difficult...
Now, I get on an airplane in Kentucky
and fly to Los Angeles and get on a Qantas airline
and fly down here to Australia.
That's a long ways, but it's not much problem.
They feed me.
They give me a pillow for my head, you know, and a blanket for my feet.
It's an easy journey down here.
But this man, back in this day, rode some kind of chariot
or some kind of wagon all the way across the deserts
and across perilous country from Ethiopia,
you know where that is, all the way to Jerusalem to hear about God.
Now, that's an interest, isn't it?
That's an interest, seeking the Lord.
This man was seeking the Lord.
Some of us won't go hardly next door
or down the street or across the block,
but this man went a long ways,
and I'll tell you this about him.
I know this about him.
He didn't find in Jerusalem what he was looking for.
No, sir.
He went to the feasts.
He attended the ceremonies.
He listened to the Pharisees,
but he did not find what he was looking for.
How do I know that?
Because he wasn't rejoicing.
But after he met this man, Philip,
after he met Philip and heard what Philip had to say,
he went on his way rejoicing.
Now, some of you here, visiting,
may have heard some religious individual
or some ceremony or some traditional service and so forth,
and you're not able to rejoice.
You're not able to find peace.
You're not able to find that rest in God, in Christ, in faith.
Wait till you hear what I have to say tonight.
This man heard Philip and went on his way rejoicing.
I'll tell you this about him.
He was reading the scriptures.
He was reading the scriptures.
That's so encouraging when someone's reading the scriptures.
I'm telling you this.
Salvation is to be found in this book.
That's what a man told Spurgeon one time.
He said, Mr. Spurgeon, he said, I've come to know God,
but I'll tell you how I came to know God.
He said, I came to know God reading the Bible.
He said, I picked up a Bible one day and I said this.
Salvation, eternal life, a knowledge of God
is somewhere in this book,
and I'm going to get in this book
till I find the message of this book.
And that's what the Ethiopian eunuch was doing.
He was reading God's word.
You know, our ignorance can be traced to two things.
Our ignorance can be traced to two things.
One time, our Lord answered some religious fellows' questions.
They were asking him different questions,
and he said this to them.
He said, I tell you, I tell you where you make your mistake.
I tell you where you err.
Two things wrong with you.
You do err, not knowing the scriptures
and not knowing the power of God.
That's the problem.
We don't know the scriptures.
My generation does not know the scriptures,
nor do we know the power of God.
And then another thing I know about this man,
listen, this is so important right here.
He was interested in knowing God.
He was seeking the Lord.
He'd taken a long journey.
He'd listened to the Pharisees and the religious fellows
and gone to the feast and watched the ceremonies
and was going back home unsatisfied, unhappy, not rejoicing.
But he was reading the scriptures.
He knew if he found out anything about God,
it'd have to be from God's word.
But I'll tell you something else about him.
He was reading the essentials.
He was reading a messianic prophecy.
He was reading the essentials.
He was reading about the Lord.
He was reading about the grace of God.
I tell you, so many folks today are interested in non-essentials.
There's no use talking about what's going to happen in the future
until I find some peace in the present.
Do you know that?
Talk about premillennialism and postmillennialism
and armillennialism and all the other things.
I don't need to be interested in that.
I need to be interested in knowing God.
How are sins put away?
How can God be just and justified?
How does a sinner receive mercy?
How does a sinner approach a holy God?
Will God show mercy to sinners?
Those are questions I need to deal with,
not where Cain got his wife.
Those are non-essentials.
This man was reading the essentials,
and let me show you something else.
Look at verse 30 again,
verse 30 of Acts chapter 8.
And you know, in verse 29, the Spirit of God said to Philip,
Now you go join yourself to this chariot.
And Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah.
And he said to him, Do you understand what you're reading?
Do you understand what you're reading?
Now then, don't be offended and don't be upset
if the preacher asks you, Do you understand what you're reading?
Don't be offended.
Men by nature do not understand God's word.
The natural man receiveth not the things of God.
There's foolishness to it.
You know what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians?
He said if they had known the Lord of glory,
they wouldn't have crucified him.
So don't be offended if someone asks you,
Do you understand what you're reading?
Philip got up in the chariot and sat down beside this man.
This man was important.
He was the treasurer of the country of the Ethiopian.
This man was intelligent.
This man was influential.
But Philip didn't hesitate to ask him,
Do you understand what you're reading?
Do you understand?
Now Charles Spurgeon, many of you know who that was.
I'm a great admirer of Spurgeon, and Spurgeon had this to say.
He said, My friends, I do not say that I understand all the Bible.
No man does. No man.
In fact, I could not believe the Bible if I understood it all.
Because if I understood all the Bible,
I would know that it was written by an equal and not by God.
You understand what he said?
If I understood all the Bible,
I would know that that Bible was not written by God,
but was written by an equal because my thoughts are not his thoughts,
and my ways are not his ways.
But he said, I'll tell you this.
All that is fundamental and all that's essential to my soul's salvation
and my soul's well-being can be understood by the grace of God
if a man really wants to understand.
Do you see what he's saying? That's so important.
I don't understand all the Bible.
There's so much of it. It's just an infinite book.
It's a mysterious book. It's a supernatural book.
It's God's book. I don't understand.
If I did understand it, I wouldn't believe it
because I would know it was written by an equal.
But it being written by God and God's word given to men,
there's got to be much of it I don't understand,
and much of it I receive by faith,
and I'll have to wait till his good pleasure enables me to understand.
I know in part. I prophesy in part.
I preach in part. I see through a glass dimly.
But then face to face, I'll know as I've always been known.
But I'll tell you this.
That which is essential to my well-being,
that which is fundamental to my soul's salvation,
I do understand by the grace of God.
And Philip understood.
And when he sat down beside that man, he could say,
Do you understand? Now listen to what the man said.
He said in verse 31,
How can I, except some man should guide me?
And Philip knew God sent him there,
and Philip knew he was that man.
And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.
Now watch this.
And the place of the scripture, verse 32,
which this man was reading was this.
He was led as a sheep to the slaughter,
as a lamb dumb before her shearers,
so opened he not his mouth.
In humiliation his judgment was taken away.
Who shall declare his generation,
for his life is taken from the earth?
And the eunuch answered Philip and said,
I pray thee of whom speakest the prophet this?
Who's he talking about?
This prophet Isaiah.
Who's he talking about?
Is he talking about himself or some other man?
Now watch this now.
And Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scriptures,
the Old Testament scriptures,
the writing of Isaiah, the 53rd chapter of Isaiah,
and preached unto him Jesus.
My friends, here's the Bible, one book,
two covenants, two testaments,
the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The Old Testament has a message.
The Old Testament says from Genesis to Malachi,
someone's coming, someone's coming, someone's coming.
Someone's coming, the seed of woman,
the seed of Abraham.
Someone's coming, a prophet like Moses,
a priest like Melchizedek, a king like David.
Someone's coming, the Lord our righteousness.
Someone's coming, prophet, priest and king.
Someone's coming, high priest of old.
Someone's coming, the root of Jesse,
the lion of the tribe of Judah, the son of David.
Someone's coming, someone's coming to set his people free.
And the New Testament said, he is here, he has come.
Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.
That's what the whole, turn to Luke chapter 24 a minute.
Let me show you something.
Luke chapter 24.
And I want you to read with me verses 44 and 45, Luke 24.
Oh, how important this is.
The Old Testament pictures Christ, prophesies Christ,
promised Christ, portrays Christ, typifies Christ,
the New Testament's Christ in person.
The message of the Old Testament is Jesus Christ, Savior of sinners.
So is the message of the New Testament.
And here our Lord in Luke 24 verse 44 is talking to his disciples.
This is before he ascended to heaven.
And he said to them, Luke 24, 44,
these are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you,
that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses,
in the prophets, in the Psalms, concerning me.
What are the writings of Moses concerning Christ?
What are the writings of Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel,
and Nahum, and all the prophets concerning Christ?
What are the writings of the Psalms concerning Christ?
Watch it, verse 45.
Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures.
Christ is the key to the Scriptures.
To him, give all the prophets witness.
Moses wrote of him.
He said, Abraham saw my day and rejoiced.
He was glad.
Christ is the message of the Old Testament.
And here sits an Ethiopian eunuch seeking the Lord,
reading Isaiah the prophet.
Turn over there to Isaiah.
Turn to Isaiah for a few moments, chapter 53.
Well, we're here in the book of Isaiah,
hundreds of years before Christ came into the world,
hundreds of years before Christ died on the cross,
hundreds of years before the Lord Jesus Christ suffered on Calvary's cross for sinners,
hundreds of years before he rose from the dead.
Here's the prophet Isaiah writing about someone.
And this Ethiopian eunuch said, who's he writing about, himself or some other man?
So Philip sat down beside him, took the passage out of his hands,
and did what I'm going to do right now, preach Jesus.
I'm going to make believe that you're the eunuch and I'm Philip,
and you're sitting there holding the prophet Isaiah, written hundreds of years ago.
And let's see what he says about our Lord Jesus.
All right, watch it now.
Verse one.
I imagine Philip said this.
Let's start with verse one.
Who hath believed our report?
What's that mean?
Who hath believed our message?
You sang about it a while ago.
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of them that bring the message,
the good news, the glad tidings.
That's what he said.
Who hath believed our message?
What is our message?
It's the message of God's mercy and love to sinners.
It's the message of God's grace and mercy in Christ.
It's the message of the Messiah.
You'll see it here, his incarnation, his person, his work, his suffering,
his death, his resurrection, his exaltation.
It's the message that's true and faithful.
It's the message of Christ.
And yet there's never been a prophet, never been a prophet,
who did not mourn over the fact that few there be that find it.
Who hath believed our report?
Who hath believed our message?
Even our Lord Jesus Christ said,
I've come in my Father's name and you don't hear me.
Let another come in his own name and him you will receive.
Who hath believed our message?
And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
What's the arm of the Lord there?
Would you take a guess?
The word, the arm of the Lord.
What is that?
Who hath believed our report?
And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
That's the power of God.
The arm of the God is the power of God.
My arm is not short that I cannot save.
That's what he said.
It's the power of God.
And that's the gospel.
For the gospel is the power of God under salvation.
The gospel of Christ.
Who hath believed this message?
Not many.
To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
Look at verse two.
And he shall grow up before him as a tender plant.
He?
Who is he?
Christ Jesus?
The Messiah?
The Redeemer?
He shall grow up as a tender plant.
I notice most of you men do a little gardening.
And you young people, your dads have gardens in the backyard.
And a garden is a fascinating thing.
It's always fascinating to plant a seed.
And then to go out after a few days and see through that hard ground.
Through that ground comes a little tender plant.
Just a half inch or an inch high.
A little old tender piece of green plant.
Tender plant.
It's so tender it springs up unnoticed out of the earth,
low in its beginning, slow in its growth,
and liable to be trampled under feet.
It's such a tender plant.
And that's what that babe in Bethlehem's manger is.
I was on a sheep farm the other day.
It was two little sheep, little twin sheep.
Just been born two hours before that.
And they were up walking around.
And we picked them up and the little boy three years old with us,
David Patterson, you probably know David.
But David was holding him.
He said, I want a dry one.
This one was still wet, having just been born.
But he's up walking around.
But I tell you, not a child.
When Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem's manger,
couldn't feed himself, couldn't take care of himself,
couldn't nurse himself, couldn't clean himself.
Tender plant.
So fragile, so tender.
Is this the Messiah?
Is this the Christ?
Yes, he was made of a woman.
Born of a woman.
Came into this world just like you did.
Identified with you and me.
Bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh.
He was born into this world.
Is this the Messiah?
This little frail, fragile infant?
Yes, sir.
And you see him there working in the carpenter shop
alongside his foster father, Joseph.
There he is in the carpenter shop and his hands are calloused
and sweat falls from his brow and he saws and nails.
That carpenter is the Messiah?
That's the King of Kings and Lord of Lords?
Who believes that?
I do.
You do, don't you, fella?
I believe it.
Not many do.
To whom?
That's the arm of the Lord.
That's the power of God.
And then it says here, it says a root out of a dry ground.
What's this dry ground?
That's the nation of the house of Israel.
Oh, I tell you, almost extent.
Nothing left.
The Roman heel upon them.
The house of David on the dry ground in ashes.
The house of David is down to nothing.
No glory, no power, no pomp, no ceremony, no glamour.
The house of David is a dry ground and yet out of that dry ground
comes this root of Jesse.
This tender plan.
All read on.
He hath no form, no comeliness, no majesty, no worldly honor,
born of poor parents, poor country, poor cottage, poor village,
poor occupation.
We know him.
He's the carpenter.
We know his mother and his brothers and sisters.
There's no form, no comeliness.
When we see him, there's no beauty that we should desire him.
There's no reason in the flesh to honor him.
There's no reason in the flesh to crown him.
There's no reason in the flesh to bow to him.
His nationality's wrong.
He's a Jew.
His hometown's wrong.
It's Nazareth.
Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?
His vocation's wrong.
He's a carpenter.
His followers are all wrong.
They're sinners and fishermen.
His method's all wrong.
He's a preacher.
His death is all wrong.
He died on a cross.
His burial's all wrong.
He didn't even own a grave.
Mr. Nobody from nowhere.
That's what they thought of him.
No beauty.
He's despised.
Listen verse three.
He's despised.
He's rejected of men.
Everybody who was anybody said, thumbs down on him.
The old Pharisee said to those men,
said, have any of us believed on him?
Do you know any rulers?
Any princes?
Any kings?
Any religious leaders?
Do you know anybody of any repute
who's bleeding on that carpenter?
He's despised and rejected of all men.
He was in the world and the world knew him not.
He came to his own.
His own received him not.
Even his brothers didn't believe on him.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from him.
He is despised and we're esteemed him not.
And he wrote in Lamentations, oh, is it nothing to you,
all ye that pass by and behold and see any sovereign
like my sovereign.
There he hangs, naked, beaten, spat upon.
His beard plucked out.
His bones and joints strained, you could tell them all.
A crown of thorns, a mocking crown of thorns on his head
between two thieves.
That's the Messiah.
Who believes that?
I do.
Nobody believes that.
Is that the pyre of God?
Is that the arm of the Lord?
Is that the savior of sinners?
We hid, as it were, our faces from him.
And yet he said, is any sorrow like my sorrow,
which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me
in the day of his fierce anger, my God.
The Lord forsaken me.
But, oh, Philip, he got to this verse, verse four,
and he said to that eunuch,
but surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows.
Those griefs and sicknesses and diseases and sorrows
which he bore on that tree, they're not his.
They're mine and yours.
He's a substitute.
He's a sin offering.
He's a representative, huh?
That's right.
And he says, and we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God.
Who put him there?
Well, you say men put him there.
Yes, they did, but they did what God determined before
to be done.
That's right, that's what the Bible said.
Both Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Gentiles
and the people of Israel had gathered together
to do what their hands determined to do
and what their wicked hearts wanted to do,
but they did what God determined to be done
before the world began.
That's right.
It pleased the Lord to bruise him.
He was smitten of God and afflicted.
He was God's sacrifice.
He was God's sin offering.
He was God's lamb.
That's what Abraham said to Isaac.
God will provide himself a lamb.
But verse five, he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
All of them.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him.
That's the reason he suffered, the just for the unjust
that he might bring us to God.
Listen, with his stripes we're healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray.
That's right, there's nobody here that hasn't gone astray.
None righteous, none good, none that understandeth,
none that seeketh after God.
There's sinners, I'm a sinner and you're a sinner.
I was preaching on television one Sunday morning
and a fellow up in Pikeville, Kentucky,
a man that has some coal trucks, Hall's Coal,
was watching the television.
And I came on and I said this.
I said, friend, there's a lot of difference
between you and me.
But I said, there's one thing about us that's the same.
I'm a sinner and you're a sinner.
And he said he got so mad he went on
and just turned the television off.
He said, I'm not a sinner.
Made him mad and I called him a sinner.
I'm not a sinner, he told me later.
He said he sat there a minute and he thought,
maybe I am a sinner.
And he went back and turned it on
and said, listen to the message.
And God did something for him.
God revealed the gospel to him.
He's one of my closest friends now.
He goes to church up there in Pikeville.
Are you a sinner?
Oh, we like sheep have gone astray.
We've turned everyone to his own way
and the Lord laid on him,
laid on Christ iniquity of us all.
Let me show you something.
Go back to verse four, five and six.
You got it there?
What's your name?
My name's Henry.
What's your name?
John, Phillip, Gordon, Paul, Peter, another John.
What's your name?
Alan, Don.
Put your name everywhere you see a pronoun.
Put your name.
Let's start verse four.
Don't put my name.
Now put yours.
I'll put my own.
You put yours.
Ready?
Surely he hath borne Henry's griefs
and carried Henry's sorrows.
Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.
But he was wounded for Henry's transgressions.
He was bruised for Henry's iniquities.
The chastisement of Henry's peace was upon him
and with his stripes, old Henry's heel.
Henry, all of us, all us Henry's like sheep have gone astray.
We've turned every wonder his own way
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of Peter, John, Phillip, Don.
Huh?
That's good news, isn't it?
That's what Phillip told that old eunuch up there.
He preached Christ to it.
He didn't preach the Heidelberg or the Westminster
or the London Confession of faith.
He didn't preach during the millennial.
He didn't preach to him where Cain got his wife.
He didn't go back and try to solve all the unsolvable, inscrutable,
unopenable things that nobody knows anything about.
He just told him about the Lord Jesus Christ
and his substitutionary death on Calvary's cross.
And he did it in the scriptures.
And he went on.
He said, verse seven, I'll move quickly.
He was oppressed.
He was afflicted, yet he didn't open his mouth.
He didn't open his mouth against the Father.
He didn't open his mouth against his people.
He didn't open his mouth against the law.
He didn't open his mouth.
He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter
as a sheep before her shearers is dumb.
He opened not his mouth.
He died willingly.
He died willingly.
He suffered willingly.
He was willing to be our Savior.
He said, no man takes my life from me.
I lay it down.
Pilate said, answerest thou not me,
knowing I have power to crucify you and let you go?
Christ said, you could have no power over me at all,
except be given you from my Father.
I lay down my life.
I lay down my life for my sheep.
I know my sheep.
I love my sheep.
And they know me.
And other sheep I have which are not of this pole,
them I also shall bring.
I gave my life a ransom for many.
All right, verse eight.
He was taken from prison and from judgment.
Who shall declare his pedigree
or who shall declare the evil of his generation?
He was cut off out of the land of the living
for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
Christ was a substitute.
Learn that word.
Who made satisfaction.
Learn that word.
And he made his grave with the wicked,
with the rich in his death that crucified him
between two thieves and buried him in a buried tomb,
even though he had done no violence
and no deceit was in his mouth,
yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.
You see, Christ had no sin.
If he had had sin, he couldn't have died for my sin.
Could I show you an illustration
that I've used for young people wherever I go?
Here I am.
Look at it.
This is substitution.
There's my sins.
They're very heavy.
They're very many.
They're very black.
They separate me from God.
Your sins have separated you and your God.
My Lord Jesus came down here, the God-man,
the God-man, perfect, holy, without spot or blemish.
No sin.
He's bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.
He's a man, the God-man.
Being who he is, infinite God, perfect man,
God took all the sins of all believers
of all generations and laid them on Christ
and poured out his judgment and his wrath
from heaven against his Son.
He spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all.
And the wrath of God for my sin
fell on Christ and punished Christ,
and he bore my sins away and was buried.
And God raised him from the dead without sin.
Now then, he has no sin.
He paid for them.
They'll be remembered no more.
And I have no sin because he took my sin and paid for them.
And I'm like Christ.
And when God sees me in Christ,
he sees me perfectly holy.
You see that?
Now you can't get that in the baptismal pool.
You see, you can't wash away these sins in a pool.
And there's no way you can get rid of them
by promising not to do them again because you will.
There's only one way to put away sin.
He put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
That's the gospel.
And it pleased God to bruise him.
Let me bring back that scripture and let me wind it up.
That's an old southern expression, meaning I won't quit.
And I'm serious.
Don't shake your watches now.
I mean it.
All right, listen.
Verse 10, it pleased the Lord to bruise him
and put him to grief
when thou shall make his soul an offering for sin.
Not only his body, but his soul was an offering for sin.
Not just physical suffering, but soul agony.
Read on.
He shall see his seed.
He knows his people known unto the Lord
are all his works from the beginning.
The Lord knoweth them that he is.
He'll see his seed.
He'll prolong his days.
He'll rise from the tomb.
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
God gave him into his hands the deliverance of his people.
And he's going to deliver them.
He said, all that my Father giveth me will come to me
all the time that cometh to me out of no wise cast out.
I came down from heaven not to do my will,
but the will of him that sent me.
And this is the will of him that sent me
that all which he hath given me I lose nothing, nothing.
I'll raise it up at the last day.
The pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
My Heavenly Father put the redemption of sinners
in the hands of a capable, victorious Redeemer.
Don't be a one loss for whom he died.
Read on.
He shall see, verse 11, of the travail of his soul
and be satisfied.
He's not a disappointed, disillusioned, defeated, impotent Jesus.
He's a conquering King of kings and Lord of lords.
By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many.
By his knowledge of God, by his knowledge of the law,
by their knowledge of him, by his knowledge of them,
he'll justify them why, how he'll bear their iniquities.
Therefore, I'll divide him a portion with the grace
and he'll divide the spoil of the strong
because he poured out his soul unto death.
He was numbered with the transgressors.
He bared the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors.
Now let's go back to Acts 8 and see how this Ethiopian eunuch
responded to that message by Philip.
Philip came to the end of the word.
He preached Christ to that man.
He began that scripture and preached Christ to him.
Now look at verse 36, Acts chapter 8.
Back to Acts 8.
Got it?
Let's look at it.
Acts chapter 8.
What's your response?
Who hath believed our report?
To whom is the power of God with you?
Well, watch this eunuch.
Verse 36, Acts 8.
And as they went on their way, they came to a certain water
and the eunuch said, Here's water.
What doth hinder me to be baptized?
Oh, he heard the message.
He believed the message.
He saw the Redeemer.
He saw his death, burial, and resurrection
and he wanted to be identified with the death, burial,
and resurrection of Christ in believers' baptism.
He wanted to show his death in Christ,
his burial, and resurrection to walk in newness of life.
And Philip said, Well, you'll have to come before the elders.
No, he didn't.
Well, we'll have to get a vote in the church.
No, he didn't.
They was out there in the middle of nowhere.
Here's a man been saved.
He wants to be baptized.
He wants to confess to Christ.
Well, I'll have to write home and see if they'll accept you
into the church.
No.
Philip hedged about baptism was one question.
Just one.
Just one.
He said in verse 37,
If you believe with all your heart what I've been preaching,
what we've been reading about Christ Jesus and his work,
you can be baptized.
And that man answered and said,
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
I believe that one who's despised and rejected
and crucified and slain is the Son of God.
I believe that.
And old Philip commanded that church to stand still,
and they went both of them down into the water.
Had to have been some trick if had have been a glass of water
to sprinkle him with, wouldn't it?
Both those fellas going down in that one.
They went both down into the water, Philip and the eunuch,
and he baptized him.
And he confessed Christ.
And when they would come up out of the water,
so you don't bury a fella by sprinkling sand on him,
he'll stink.
You put him in the ground.
That's how you bury him.
We're buried with Christ in baptism.
And when they came up out of the water,
Spirit of God caught Philip away,
and the eunuch saw him no more.
But wait a minute.
He went on his way rejoicing.
Not in Philip.
Philip was gone.
Philip was just a voice.
Philip was just a fella that came by one day.
This man was rejoicing in Christ.
He wasn't tied to a preacher.
His faith and confidence wasn't in a voice.
His faith and confidence was in the Redeemer.
And he went on his way rejoicing, resting in Christ,
believing in Christ, loving Christ.
Isn't that right?
What about you and me?
Well, I say once again,
I say I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Old John Newton said,
Lord, if I have not loved you before,
let me begin today.
Can you say that?
If I hadn't loved him before, let me love him today.
If I've never trusted him before, I trust him today.
If I've never looked savingly to him before,
I look to him today.
I believe Jesus Christ, Son of God.
By the way, thank you, God.