Speaker 1: When I was in high school I had a friend who came to a rally.
Speaker 1: It was an old-time tent rally, evangelistic Crusade, in Ballarat actually, or Bendigo one of those over there, it's across the border who cares.
Speaker 1: And my friend responded to the altar call, went forward to receive Christ.
Speaker 1: But I noticed over the coming days and weeks that there was actually no change to his life, didn't display a love for the Lord or the things of God.
Speaker 1: He didn't start going to church.
Speaker 1: There was no evidence of the Spirit in his life.
Speaker 1: Was he really saved?
Speaker 1: If you've been following along with our going through Acts, you might remember that last week we began the story of Philip.
Speaker 1: Philip was one of the seven deacons chosen to administer the church's welfare program.
Speaker 1: But we're told he was spirit-filled and, as we find out, he was a powerful evangelist.
Speaker 1: And so he moved north from Jerusalem to Samaria where he preached the gospel after persecution broke out in Jerusalem and we read that the Samaritans gladly received his message.
Speaker 1: They were freed from demons, they were healed, there was miracles, all sorts of things happening.
Speaker 1: There's great joy in the city as they received the gospel.
Speaker 1: Today's reading from continuing on in Acts 8 homes in on one of those converts in particular, and his story a man named Simon.
Speaker 1: So let's read that A man named Simon had previously practiced sorcery in that city and amazed the Samaritan people while claiming to be somebody great.
Speaker 1: Simon had previously practiced sorcery in that city and amazed the Samaritan people while claiming to be somebody great.
Speaker 1: They all paid attention to him, from the least of them to the greatest, and they said this man is called the great power of God and they were attentive to him because he had amazed them with his sorceries for a long time.
Speaker 1: So Simon had been a sorcerer before he was saved.
Speaker 1: Now the Greek word for what's translated sorcery here is actually the word we get magic in the English from, and the word could have different connotations depending on the context.
Speaker 1: So the three or not three, but the wise men, the magi who came to worship Jesus used this word to describe them, but they were probably more down the road of astrologers.
Speaker 1: What we see here with Simon is probably something that taps into a spiritual power, using incantations and so on, and I think it's important that we just park here just for a minute because, as the empty promises of secularism in our society give way to a general disillusionment, we're finding that particularly young people but not only young people are coming back to various spiritual practices.
Speaker 1: They're seeking something with a deeper spiritual significance and many are turning to what can broadly would be called sorcery in the Bible.
Speaker 1: So we see practices even like voodoo becoming acceptable.
Speaker 1: Tarot Reiki you may have had some contact with that Crystals and New Age beliefs in general with various practices are making a comeback.
Speaker 1: But, friends, as Christians, these aren't acceptable for us.
Speaker 1: Deuteronomy 18, 10 to 14 says let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire.
Speaker 1: Let that sink in for a moment.
Speaker 1: What a culture who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist, or who consults the dead.
Speaker 1: Anyone who does these things is detestable to Yahweh.
Speaker 1: Because of these same detestable practices, yahweh, your God, will drive out the nations before you.
Speaker 1: You must be blameless before Yahweh, your God.
Speaker 1: Now we don't need to panic or go on witch hunts.
Speaker 1: Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10,.
Speaker 1: What am I saying then?
Speaker 1: That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?
Speaker 1: No, but I do say that what they sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God.
Speaker 1: I do not want you to be participants with demons.
Speaker 1: And see, one of the problems with all these spiritual practices isn't that they don't work, but that often they do.
Speaker 1: But where they derive their power from is the problem.
Speaker 1: They don't come from the true and living God.
Speaker 1: Power, regardless of what people may attribute it to, comes from demons.
Speaker 1: Now, as Christians who have the Holy Spirit, who have been filled with the Spirit, we can't be possessed by demons.
Speaker 1: But if we invite demonic influence into our life, it can afflict us and, for the unbeliever, the influence of demons, evil spirits, that whole spiritual realm can be devastating and have generational consequences.
Speaker 1: So it's not something to muck around with.
Speaker 1: Of course, the other problem for us as Christians, who gets the glory we see with Simon?
Speaker 1: He was about his own glory.
Speaker 1: He claimed to be someone great and because of the sorceries he was performing, everyone thought he was someone great.
Speaker 1: But as kingdom people, we are about the glory of God, about the glory of the king, and anyone or anything that takes away from the glory of God is not something we take part in.
Speaker 1: Reading on, reading on.
Speaker 1: But when they believed Philip, so the Samaritans this is backing up a little bit as he proclaimed the good news about the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Both men and women were baptized.
Speaker 1: Even Simon himself believed.
Speaker 1: And after he was baptized he followed Philip everywhere and was amazed as he observed the signs and great miracles as they were being performed.
Speaker 1: So it appears that Simon gave up his practice of sorcery when he was baptized.
Speaker 1: You know, I think in verse 13, the last sentence, there there's just a hint that all is not well Because while the rest of the city is receiving the gospel and we really see when we go back into the previous passage that there's rejoicing, the gospel is coming.
Speaker 1: Yes, there are signs and wonders and people are being healed, and that's part of rejoicing in the kingdom.
Speaker 1: But we really hear Luke say that they're listening to the message.
Speaker 1: But here what we see is Simon seems to have an unhealthy interest in the miracles themselves.
Speaker 1: He followed Philip everywhere astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.
Speaker 1: And you know, when the kingdom of God breaks in, it will come with power and it'll come also with acts of love and service.
Speaker 1: Through the centuries the church has always been associated with caring for the poor and for the sick, whether that is through signs and wonders and miracles happening or whether it is through things like setting up hospitals.
Speaker 1: You know, hospitals are essentially a Christian invention and people are happy to receive the benefits of the kingdom, aren't they?
Speaker 1: You never hear anyone well, maybe you do now, but you've never heard anyone in the past complaining about Christian charity.
Speaker 1: But you hear people complain when the gospel comes along with it.
Speaker 1: People want the kingdom without the king, but you can't separate them.
Speaker 1: How many people Want to receive the gospel message of repentance from sin and faith in King Jesus leading to new life?
Speaker 1: Not as many as who want the benefits that go along with it.
Speaker 1: Reading on, when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them and after they went down there.
Speaker 1: So I said up, sometimes you read these things.
Speaker 1: This is a complete aside.
Speaker 1: People get a bit confused because we tend to go by the points of the compass.
Speaker 1: So Samaria is north of Jerusalem, so why are they going down?
Speaker 1: Because it's downhill from Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: They heard that Samaria had received the word of God.
Speaker 1: They sent Peter and John to them.
Speaker 1: After they went down there, they prayed for them so that the Samaritans might receive the Holy Spirit because he had not yet come down on any of them.
Speaker 1: They'd only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Speaker 1: And then Peter and John laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: So when the apostles find out about Philip's ministry remember Philip, everyone's just scattered, all the Christians because of the persecution.
Speaker 1: Philip's ministering as he goes along.
Speaker 1: So then they come and lay hands on the Samaritans to receive the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: Isn't that interesting?
Speaker 1: Why didn't it happen when they were saved, when they received the Lord?
Speaker 1: Why couldn't Philip do it?
Speaker 1: Well, one of the things we see in Acts is that as the gospel moves to new people, groups and into new stages, one of the things that is crucial is that the unity of the church is preserved, because there's one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and in all and through all.
Speaker 1: And the revival in Samaria represents the next phase of the gospel, going from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth, as Jesus said it would.
Speaker 1: And so, as it's moving out, moving into.
Speaker 1: So the Samaritans were sort of a halfway bridge between Gentiles and Jews.
Speaker 1: The Jews really hated them because they were kind of seen as a half-breed.
Speaker 1: Isn't that terrible?
Speaker 1: But that was the enmity between these two people, so they're not quite Gentiles.
Speaker 1: We haven't reached to the Gentiles yet.
Speaker 1: The Samaritans believed in the Pentateuch, what we call the Pentateuch, the Torah, and they had some sort of Jewish practices that were mixed up.
Speaker 1: But it's essential therefore, because there's this separation between the two groups, that there is a demonstration of unity.
Speaker 1: And so what happens?
Speaker 1: When the apostles, the people appointed by Jesus as leaders over the whole church, go down and pray for the Samaritans to receive the Spirit, and the Spirit comes, they and the Holy Spirit are declaring that Philip's ministry is legitimate, is one with theirs, his baptism, because they don't re-baptize him in water, they just baptize him in the Spirit, just baptize him in the Spirit.
Speaker 1: But they're declaring that Philip's baptism is one with theirs and they're declaring that the Samaritan believers are one with them in Christ.
Speaker 1: It's just one church, one big, happy family.
Speaker 1: You know, the early church made much of the need to be part of the true church.
Speaker 1: As a Christian, third century Bishop Cyprian, said, no one can have God for his father who does not have the church for his mother.
Speaker 1: And that's a sentiment that many other early church fathers write about, and still today, in many churches, if you're not part of the right church especially Catholic and Orthodox, but some independent Baptist churches and others as well they will say that baptism is only legitimate and they say it can only save you if it's administered by a priest or bishop.
Speaker 1: Now, we're part of the Protestant movement, which emphasizes the priesthood of all believers, and as Baptists, we believe authority resides in the gathered church and its delegated leaders, not just in priests and bishops, and we don't believe that baptism saves you as such.
Speaker 1: We believe that baptism is a sign of saving faith, and so we don't insist that a priest or bishop needs to perform baptism or pray for someone to receive the Spirit for it to be valid.
Speaker 1: So anyone can perform a baptism and it's a valid baptism.
Speaker 1: But I would say this that there's no room for cowboys in the kingdom of God.
Speaker 1: It's the church that baptises, and baptism should always be administered by someone under the authority of the church.
Speaker 1: Put it this way if someone won't submit to church authority or church discipline, what business do they have going about church ministry, christian ministry and claiming to speak for Christ, if they won't submit to Christ's church?
Speaker 1: The point is unity in the body of Christ.
Speaker 1: Reading on we're sort of covering a lot, but it's a really interesting passage.
Speaker 1: When Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying Give me this power also, so that anyone I lay hands on may receive the spirit.
Speaker 1: But Peter told him may your silver be destroyed with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money.
Speaker 1: You have no part or share in this matter because your heart is not right before God.
Speaker 1: Therefore, repent of this wickedness of yours and pray to the Lord that, if possible, your heart's intent may be forgiven, for I see you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by wickedness.
Speaker 1: Pray for me, simon replied, so that nothing you have said may happen to me.
Speaker 1: So after they had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they traveled back to Jerusalem preaching the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans.
Speaker 1: So apparently, something powerful happened when the apostles laid hands on the Samaritans.
Speaker 1: Probably, I think, they would have spoken in tongues and prophesied like happened at Pentecost.
Speaker 1: Whatever it was, it was powerful enough that Simon wanted to have the same authority that the apostles were displaying in praying for the Samaritans to receive the Spirit.
Speaker 1: Now, the problem here is that for Simon, as a sorcerer, he understood power to be transactional.
Speaker 1: What do I mean?
Speaker 1: What you make the right payment, perform the right incantations, manipulate the right spiritual forces and you get the power.
Speaker 1: That's how witchcraft works, magic works and, honestly, I've heard some Christians who treat Christianity in the same way.
Speaker 1: It's possible he also wanted to be able to sell the Holy Spirit to others.
Speaker 1: Hey, we're going to set up a business.
Speaker 1: This is great.
Speaker 1: People are going to come flocking, going to be able to sell the Holy Spirit to others.
Speaker 1: Hey, we're going to set up a business.
Speaker 1: This is great.
Speaker 1: People are going to come flocking, going to be rich.
Speaker 1: A business of filling people with the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: But, friends, the Spirit cannot be manipulated.
Speaker 1: The Spirit is not for sale.
Speaker 1: He is the presence of the sovereign God given as a gift through faith.
Speaker 1: God given as a gift through faith.
Speaker 1: Jesus said to his disciples freely you have received, freely give.
Speaker 1: And so Peter rebukes Simon harshly and in fact he curses him your money perish with you.
Speaker 1: Essentially, he is saying Simon, you're not even saved.
Speaker 1: When Peter says you have no part or share in this matter, the Greek word for matter is logos, or where we get word which often refers to gospel proclamation.
Speaker 1: It can be a message.
Speaker 1: He has no part in the gospel.
Speaker 1: So is this newly baptized believer even saved?
Speaker 1: He has a heart that isn't right before God but is full of bitterness and sin.
Speaker 1: How can that be so for a believer?
Speaker 1: Or can he even be saved?
Speaker 1: Peter seems to think he has a chance if he repents.
Speaker 1: He says pray to God and repent of this wickedness.
Speaker 1: But what does Simon do?
Speaker 1: Does he do that Now?
Speaker 1: He asks Peter to pray for him and it sounds humble, but it's not what Peter told him to do.
Speaker 1: He said you pray, you repent.
Speaker 1: Could it be that Simon fears the judgment of God and he loves the power, but he doesn't love God?
Speaker 1: You know, the early church fathers thought that Simon was a heretic and went on to Rome to continue his old ways.
Speaker 1: So what do you think?
Speaker 1: Saved, not saved.
Speaker 1: He believed He'd been baptized.
Speaker 1: Well, if Simon wasn't saved and I actually don't think he was it raises the question how can we know?
Speaker 1: How can we know if someone is truly saved?
Speaker 1: Like my friend I talked about at the beginning of the message, simon made a confession he was baptized.
Speaker 1: Who are we to judge.
Speaker 1: How can we judge?
Speaker 1: We live in a culture that says we have no right to judge.
Speaker 1: It's what I feel about myself on all sorts of levels that speaks to the truth.
Speaker 1: But you know, friends, the Bible on one hand actually says don't judge.
Speaker 1: But when Jesus said that, he also said practice discernment.
Speaker 1: Jesus says in one line in the same sermon don't judge lest you be judged.
Speaker 1: But he also says don't throw your pearls before pigs.
Speaker 1: Don't give what is holy to dogs.
Speaker 1: What's going on there?
Speaker 1: It's easy to throw one verse out and ignore the other.
Speaker 1: Jesus is telling us to practice discernment, not to condemn.
Speaker 1: There's different ways we think about judgment.
Speaker 1: Judgment can be making a judgment.
Speaker 1: It's like who won the race.
Speaker 1: Well, we look at the evidence.
Speaker 1: They got across the finish line first.
Speaker 1: They won.
Speaker 1: Or we can condemn.
Speaker 1: That's what a judge does in a court of law.
Speaker 1: We are to not to condemn.
Speaker 1: That's ultimately God's job.
Speaker 1: Not to condemn, that's ultimately God's job.
Speaker 1: But we are to practice discernment.
Speaker 1: In fact, jesus commanded us to practice church discipline.
Speaker 1: If someone was in persistent sin.
Speaker 1: He said if someone sins against you, speak to them first.
Speaker 1: If they don't listen, take one or two others.
Speaker 1: If they still don't listen, go to the whole church.
Speaker 1: Paul said to the church in Corinth of someone who was sinning gravely said expel the immoral brother, kick him out.
Speaker 1: We can't truly know someone's heart, that's between them and God.
Speaker 1: But we can practice, and we must practice church discipline based on the evidence we see before us.
Speaker 1: Now, sin is one thing.
Speaker 1: How, again, can we know if someone's saved?
Speaker 1: And I guess the bigger issue here is because we're not going to kick someone out of the church because we're not sure they're saved.
Speaker 1: We may kick them out because they're misbehaving badly, right, but the bigger issue then is how can I be sure that I'm saved?
Speaker 1: So let's back up a bit.
Speaker 1: What does it mean to be saved and how are we saved?
Speaker 1: Now, there's all sorts of ways that we can look at salvation.
Speaker 1: The Bible uses all sorts of pictures and metaphors.
Speaker 1: I'm going to just pick this one this morning.
Speaker 1: The Bible says, effectively, we're infected by a disease called sin.
Speaker 1: It infects our hearts and our actions so that we become enemies of God.
Speaker 1: And this is a fundamental problem with sin and with the human condition that we are cut off from God, the source of life.
Speaker 1: We're subject to quarantine, if you like, to judgment, and there is nothing we can do to cure ourselves.
Speaker 1: Peter said to Simon we are captives to sin, we're prisoners with no way of escape except for one Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: And so Jesus came and took our sins, the disease of sin, on himself on the cross and set us free from the prison of sin, came to cure us of the disease of sin and to reconcile us with God, the source of life.
Speaker 1: And so, when we trust in Jesus, the Father gives us the Holy Spirit by which we are transformed and have new life.
Speaker 1: And we gain all of this by faith.
Speaker 1: So what does faith mean?
Speaker 1: Well, it means trusting in Jesus and his message.
Speaker 1: Jesus' message was repent, turn away from your sin and believe the good news.
Speaker 1: On the day of Pentecost, peter said repent and be baptized, baptism in this sense being a sign of repentance.
Speaker 1: And in his letter to Romans, paul said if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead you will be saved.
Speaker 1: So Jesus is the way to be saved.
Speaker 1: We must believe in him, confess him as our Lord.
Speaker 1: Sin makes us the enemy of God, so we must turn from our sins or repent and turn to God and his way of life for us.
Speaker 1: We must be baptised as a sign of our faith and repentance.
Speaker 1: As a sign of our faith and repentance, and on that basis, god promises us the gift of the Holy Spirit, who puts our freedom, healing and new life into effect.
Speaker 1: So the question for us, for you, for me, is have you been saved?
Speaker 1: How can you know?
Speaker 1: Well, jesus said this is where fruit evidence comes into it.
Speaker 1: Jesus said we'd be known as his disciples by our love for one another, by the way we live.
Speaker 1: And he also said you'd know false prophets how?
Speaker 1: By their fruit, by their lives and actions and words.
Speaker 1: I think, in the case of Simon, the fruit of his life belied the confession of Christ.
Speaker 1: So what do we see?
Speaker 1: We see a man grasping the power.
Speaker 1: Sounds kind of holy, doesn't it?
Speaker 1: Oh, I want to be able to baptize people with the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: Here's a bag of money.
Speaker 1: He doesn't understand grace.
Speaker 1: And you know, wherever we see the Holy Spirit poured out, we see love, we see joy, we see freedom.
Speaker 1: But what do we see in Simon?
Speaker 1: Peter says you're full of bitterness and captive to sin.
Speaker 1: That's the opposite to what the Holy Spirit does.
Speaker 1: Many Christians are caught up in religion as a transactional relationship with God.
Speaker 1: They want the benefits of the kingdom of God without being committed to the king.
Speaker 1: And let's face it, for many people they just don't want to go to hell.
Speaker 1: They don't care about the rest of it.
Speaker 1: Their love for God is tepid at best.
Speaker 1: They have no joy.
Speaker 1: They have no power.
Speaker 1: Their thoughts are fixed in this life rather than their hope being fixed on the next.
Speaker 1: But there is hope.
Speaker 1: When we humbly and sincerely repent of this wickedness and pray to God for forgiveness, then we can be saved.
Speaker 1: You know, friends, then there are those who are genuinely saved, but they live a powerless life.
Speaker 1: They have no assurance of salvation.
Speaker 1: They want it, they want God's salvation, they hope for it.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you want it and you hope for it, probably a sign that you might actually have it or you're very close.
Speaker 1: The problem is they lack an assurance.
Speaker 1: This can be for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1: Is they lack an assurance?
Speaker 1: This can be for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes as Christians we carry unconfessed sin and it gets in the way of our relationship with God, the fullness of the Spirit For some Christians.
Speaker 1: They're trying to live with one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom of God, just not fully committed.
Speaker 1: Foot in the kingdom of God, just not fully committed.
Speaker 1: We have to be hot or cold, not tepid.
Speaker 1: For other Christians, maybe it's just that they haven't received the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: They're trying to do this in their own strength, and that was certainly my experience.
Speaker 1: I was in the Word but not in the Spirit.
Speaker 1: The kingdom of God is about both Friends.
Speaker 1: If that's you, if you lack an assurance of salvation and confidence in your faith, if you feel like you lack a power that you see in Scripture, that you want, the Father wants you to experience the fullness of the Spirit and the full assurance of salvation, and I want to give you a chance this morning.
Speaker 1: I want to invite you, during this next song and after the service, to come forward if you'd like to receive prayer for that.
Speaker 1: I'd love to talk to you, pray with you and see just if God won't do something wonderful in your life.
Speaker 1: Let's pray, father.
Speaker 1: We thank you for your grace to us.
Speaker 1: You are the God who loves to give us life.
Speaker 1: You are the God who wants to fill us with all the fullness of Christ through your spirit.
Speaker 1: Father, I pray this morning that you will fill us up as your people.
Speaker 1: Father, that we will be a church that fully embraces the king and thus receives the fullness of the kingdom.
Speaker 1: And, father, that we can take the message of the king and the fullness of the kingdom out into the world around us.
Speaker 1: Come, holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: We pray in Jesus' name, amen.