SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone, I'm Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: I want to welcome you to the Road Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Each week we go into God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: We teach chapter by chapter and verse by verse.
SPEAKER_01: And we are here to build the Kingdom of God revolution through empowering people to change the world.
SPEAKER_01: So we pray this will minister to you at your heart level and change your life.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, we're in Acts chapter 8, you guys.
SPEAKER_01: If you turn to Acts chapter 8, we're going through the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_01: And it's been crazy.
SPEAKER_01: Acts 6, 7, 8, and 9 are biographical chapters in the sense that Luke, in writing Acts, and it's so cool that today is the day they were praying for Josh because we're going to look at this sending out that happens in the church.
SPEAKER_01: Praise God.
SPEAKER_01: In this case, it's not because of persecution, but we're going to see how persecution affects the church.
SPEAKER_01: But in Acts chapter 6, remember, that's where there's all kinds of issues with the widows not being fed, the Greek-speaking widows.
SPEAKER_01: So they they pick Greek-speaking elders or Greek-speaking deacons.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where we're introduced to Stephen, Philip, and five others, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And then from there, we we have Stephen's speech.
SPEAKER_01: Last two weeks we've been on Stephen's speech in the martyrdom, the first martyr, first Christian martyr in the history of the church was Stephen.
SPEAKER_01: But the anointing on Stephen is so phenomenal and so great that the Sanhedrin, the 70 elders, the 70 leaders for Israel could not confront him because of his biblical knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: Just phenomenal.
SPEAKER_01: Over 20 references, word for word from the scriptures, he understood.
SPEAKER_01: And we talked about apologetics and how it's important when you share your faith that you know the Bible and that you're learning to know the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember as a new believer in Christ at the University of Georgia, I didn't know the Bible, I just knew the four spiritual laws.
SPEAKER_01: And so I just began to share the four spiritual laws.
SPEAKER_01: And the way you learn to share your faith is by sharing your faith.
SPEAKER_01: And so I would have these questions, I didn't know what to say, and I would bumble my way through and fake it till I made it.
SPEAKER_01: And so gradually I got better.
SPEAKER_01: And so Stephen comes in, he's just like a kitchen worker, and yet signs and wonders flow through him in a mighty and powerful way.
SPEAKER_01: And then we now come to Acts chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: But the interesting thing about Acts 7 is we're introduced for one verse, this one guy.
SPEAKER_01: Look at Acts 7.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 58.
SPEAKER_01: You're introduced to a man named Saul.
SPEAKER_01: And Saul's going to come up next week in Acts chapter 9.
SPEAKER_01: So we could say Acts 6, 7, 8, and 9 are biographical sketches given by Luke to introduce us to young, fired-up men who are going for it and are fired up for Jesus and ready to go.
SPEAKER_01: And you see this entanglement of them, and then this thread of the kingdom going forth, and God builds his church.
SPEAKER_01: God builds his church, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to see that today.
SPEAKER_01: So look at Acts chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: Saul, who is this Pharisee of Pharisees, this Hebrew of Hebrews, this radical Jew, goes absolutely crazy in his hatred for this church after he hears Stephen's speech.
SPEAKER_01: Some have said that when you're being chased by a pack of dolls and you pick up a rock and you throw it into the pack, it's the dog that yelps the loudest, is the one that got hit.
SPEAKER_01: And so the argument could be made that Stephen's speech, though given to the 70 at the Sanhedrin, really hit the heart, really hit the heart of Saul.
SPEAKER_01: And he's battling with his conscience.
SPEAKER_01: And the only way he knows to react right now is to unleash the fury that he has against this group called the way.
SPEAKER_01: Now Saul was consenting to his death, and at that time a great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.
SPEAKER_01: Remember those two terms?
SPEAKER_01: Judea and Samaria?
SPEAKER_01: Acts chapter 1, verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.
SPEAKER_01: You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the remotest parts of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: So now the church is going to get scattered.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him.
SPEAKER_01: As for Saul, he made havoc, underline or circle havoc.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to write next to it, wild boar.
SPEAKER_01: So it's interesting.
SPEAKER_01: There's three times in the New Testament that the testimony of Saul is mentioned, where he mentions it, and he talks about being pricked by the goads.
SPEAKER_01: Why are you fighting against the goad?
SPEAKER_01: Is what Jesus is going to say next week in Acts chapter 9, because his conscience is just bothering him.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody here remember the first time you heard the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: The first time someone shared about the love of Christ, and you didn't, I think this is true of most people.
SPEAKER_01: You don't look at it so much from the gospel perspective.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us look at it from the per se, what will it cost me if I believe in Christ?
SPEAKER_01: And so you actually look at it from the perspective of in your own life, what will change?
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's probably what's happening to Saul.
SPEAKER_01: He's heard the end, he had a sweeping 2,000-year history of Israel given by Stephen.
SPEAKER_01: It's got to be just banging at his heart.
SPEAKER_01: And yet I think he also knows that if he gives himself fully to Christ, what it's going to cost him as a leader in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Now there's a shift.
SPEAKER_01: So this is the context.
SPEAKER_01: The context is persecution across the earth, and then we're going to get into Philip.
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know how many of you remember, but in 1948 there was a man named Mao Zetang who came into China under the communist regime, which had been a part of the revolution.
SPEAKER_01: It was happening during World War II.
SPEAKER_01: So during World War II, you had the Japanese that went into China, and you had two major issues going on in China in the 1940s.
SPEAKER_01: One was a guy named Shang Kai-shak, who was trying to keep order in China, and we aligned ourselves with him.
SPEAKER_01: But then there was a communist movement with Mao Zedong.
SPEAKER_01: So when Mao Zedong came into power, as far as what we know at that time, there were 800,000 Chinese believers.
SPEAKER_01: But then a great persecution came through Mao, and he just came against everyone who was a believer in Christ, really against any religion, because that's the way communism is, it's an atheistic ideology, and it went underground, and we didn't know.
SPEAKER_01: So for almost 100 years, there had been strong missionary influence, starting with Jay Hudson Taylor and others, in China, but no one knew what happened.
SPEAKER_01: And then I had the privilege in 1982 to be one of the first missionaries to go into China.
SPEAKER_01: Liz and I did.
SPEAKER_01: We weren't married yet, but we went in together.
SPEAKER_01: 300 college students went in.
SPEAKER_01: But we didn't know.
SPEAKER_01: But by the 1990s, we did know that now, after almost, well, over 40 years of not knowing, there were now between a hundred and a hundred million believers in China under persecution.
SPEAKER_01: So the semination of the gospel, the seeding of the gospel always results in persecution.
SPEAKER_01: And persecution always results in the expansion of the church.
SPEAKER_01: And so we've often said that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what's happening here.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to see the church exploding out.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word.
SPEAKER_01: Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria.
SPEAKER_01: This is crazy.
SPEAKER_01: That the one of the first stops out of Jerusalem was Samaria.
SPEAKER_01: And preached Christ to them.
SPEAKER_01: Remember Samaria?
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember a woman at the well that was in Samaria, the Samaritan woman?
SPEAKER_01: And the multitudes with one accord heeded the thing spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.
SPEAKER_01: Unclean spirits coming out, crying with a loud voice.
SPEAKER_01: Many who were possessed, many who are paralyzed and lame were healed.
SPEAKER_01: There was great joy in that city.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, church, whenever God is moving, with people getting saved, set free, delivered, there's joy.
SPEAKER_01: The church should be the most joyful place in the city.
SPEAKER_01: I like greeting people at the door because you guys are so full of joy.
SPEAKER_01: And I get to do this.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you saw the movie The Natural?
SPEAKER_01: Anybody see The Natural about Jim Morrison, the pitcher?
SPEAKER_01: True story.
SPEAKER_01: I love this one scene where he's like so despondent and he's feels like he's going nowhere in the minor leagues and he's ready to go home and he's he's tired, he's older.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I think he was 37 when he became a rookie.
SPEAKER_01: Um and his arm is tired, he's tired, he's talking to his wife, and she says, Look, honey, I'm a Texas woman.
SPEAKER_01: I can take care of things.
SPEAKER_01: Just go play baseball.
SPEAKER_01: And then he gets off the phone, he walks out, and he walks up to one of his buddies and says, You know what we get to do today?
SPEAKER_01: He says, What?
SPEAKER_01: We get to play baseball.
SPEAKER_01: You know what we get to do today?
SPEAKER_01: We get to do church.
SPEAKER_01: There's joy in being together in the church, and there was joy here.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he comes to Samaria.
SPEAKER_01: That's not necessarily a joyful place, but he brings the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, when you bring the kingdom, you bring joy.
SPEAKER_01: He brings joy there.
SPEAKER_01: And in four years, three the estimates vary, but three to four years before this, Jesus, remember Jesus, they say Jesus had to go through Samaria.
SPEAKER_01: He had to go through.
SPEAKER_01: Why did he have to go through Samaria?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: He had to meet the Samaritan woman.
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember the story?
SPEAKER_01: Remember the story of the Samaritan woman?
SPEAKER_01: So he starts talking to her, and this is in John chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: And as he dialogues with her, they start talking about living water.
SPEAKER_01: And then he offers her living water.
SPEAKER_01: Guess what she does?
SPEAKER_01: She figures it out.
SPEAKER_01: She's the first Christian missionary in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Her name is Fotini.
SPEAKER_01: Historically, we know that her name was Fotini, and she's a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
SPEAKER_01: And in the Eastern Orthodox Church, here's the story of Fotini.
SPEAKER_01: So Futini becomes a believer, leads her whole family to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Her son becomes a soldier in the Roman army.
SPEAKER_01: She then moves to North Africa, preaching the gospel in North Africa, and her son is kind of clandestine at first, but then the Romans figure out that he's a believer.
SPEAKER_01: So he's imprisoned in Rome, and she decides to go back to Rome to be with him.
SPEAKER_01: So she goes to Rome with the whole family, and then they are imprisoned.
SPEAKER_01: And there they were imprisoned in Rome, and almost the entire prison gets saved under Fotini.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And signs and wonders follow her wherever she goes.
SPEAKER_01: And then they were all killed by the Romans.
SPEAKER_01: They're under Nero, they were all martyred.
SPEAKER_01: But that's the woman.
SPEAKER_01: That's the woman at the well.
SPEAKER_01: And do you remember the rest of the story?
SPEAKER_01: James and John, do you remember James and John?
SPEAKER_01: You know what they do?
SPEAKER_01: They go through and they want to, and then the next time Jesus tries to go through, they don't let him come through.
SPEAKER_01: And so they say, cast down lightning fire from heaven on Samaria.
SPEAKER_01: Great guys.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, really spirit-filled, okay?
SPEAKER_01: But they're about to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Actually, in this passage, that's what they're gonna do.
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna invite the fire of God on Samaria.
SPEAKER_01: It's starting to happen here.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: But there was a certain man called Simon.
SPEAKER_01: Why is it in the church that every time God begins to move, there's always a certain man called.
SPEAKER_01: There's always somebody that's upset.
SPEAKER_01: There's always somebody who's gonna gossip.
SPEAKER_01: There's always somebody in the background that wants to ruin what God is doing.
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't experienced that, you need to get out more often.
SPEAKER_01: Because this is the way it is.
SPEAKER_01: So here in this case, it's a guy named Simon.
SPEAKER_01: Really interesting.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to the rest of it.
SPEAKER_01: Who previously practiced sorcery, and a sorcerer at that time did really three major things.
SPEAKER_01: They read cards and prophesied through cards.
SPEAKER_01: They read the entrals of animals and prophesied through the entrals of animals, and then they did signs and wonders.
SPEAKER_01: So I was one time in, we were in Okinawa, and Liz and I were there, and we started three campus ministries on the universities in Okinawa.
SPEAKER_01: And I was called into a situation because I'm hanging out mainly with Baptists who loved God and were filled with the Holy Spirit, and these were not like typical Southern Baptists in the United States.
SPEAKER_01: They were really open to the things of the Spirit and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of stuff was happening.
SPEAKER_01: So I would get called into situations to deal with the demonic.
SPEAKER_01: And in this particular occasion, it was an officer in the Navy.
SPEAKER_01: And through and through the power of channeling demonic spirits, this guy had become an award-winning photographer in Okinawa.
SPEAKER_01: So signs and wonders are not always necessarily a sign of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: They can be also a sign of demonic power, powers of darkness and powers of light.
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes when you see stuff on TV or you see stuff, you know, just please put on the hat of discernment.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what this guy's doing.
SPEAKER_01: It's interesting about Simon because in tradition, he was considered the great God of the East.
SPEAKER_01: And there was a statue of Simon in Rome.
SPEAKER_01: So you're going to read something here that seems like he got saved, but it's a fake conversion as we read the rest of it.
SPEAKER_01: There was a certain man named Simon who previously practiced sorcery in the city and astonished the people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great.
SPEAKER_01: And he did become someone great in Rome, even.
SPEAKER_01: His fame went out all over that area of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And they all gave heed from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God.
SPEAKER_01: And they heeded him because he had astonished them with his sorceries for a long time.
SPEAKER_01: So he had this tremendous impact in that particular region.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: But when they believed, Philip, as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, I find that fascinating in verse 12 that Luke sees a difference between the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm fascinated.
SPEAKER_01: I've always been fascinated since probably my second year in Japan.
SPEAKER_01: I've been fascinated with the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: The idea of a kingdom of God revolution.
SPEAKER_01: We talk about a kingdom of God reformation, the kingdom of God movement, a kingdom of God revolution.
SPEAKER_01: It's what we need in Colorado, what we need in America.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, we had the 250th anniversary.
SPEAKER_01: When I was teaching, I was teaching about these movements of God, great movements of God that have always characterized our country.
SPEAKER_01: I'm reading about George Washington right now and his first and second administration in America.
SPEAKER_01: Fascinating what he was up against at that time and really remarkable who Washington was as a leader.
SPEAKER_01: And the discernment he had was phenomenal.
SPEAKER_01: But I won't go into that.
SPEAKER_01: The point, though, is there was the first Great Awakening, mid-1700s.
SPEAKER_01: You had the second Great Awakening, early to mid-1800s.
SPEAKER_01: You had the Azusa Street, Great Awakening, that brought forth the Pentecostal movement at the turn of the century into the 20th century.
SPEAKER_01: You had the Jesus Revolution, the Jesus movement that occurred in the late 60s and early 70s.
SPEAKER_01: And we really haven't had.
SPEAKER_01: We really haven't had a movement, a kingdom of God movement in America since then.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's been little scatterings here and there, but nothing like we've seen in the past.
SPEAKER_01: We're due.
SPEAKER_01: We're due, men and women.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what Philip's doing.
SPEAKER_01: Here, he's a kitchen worker.
SPEAKER_01: He's a deacon.
SPEAKER_01: He's the second deacon mentioned in Acts 6.5.
SPEAKER_01: So he's raised up to give out food to the Greek-speaking widows, and God's using him in signs and wonders.
SPEAKER_01: And he's not known historically as Philip the Deacon, he's known as Philip the Evangelist.
SPEAKER_01: So God begins to use him.
SPEAKER_01: God can use anyone.
SPEAKER_01: Church, God can use anyone.
SPEAKER_01: It's really actually being faithful in a little that God gives us more.
SPEAKER_01: And when Liz and I were starting Mountain Springs in our home and we were starting the road, actually here for 40 days and 40 nights of prayer in the chapel.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know who was going to be on staff.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know who the staff would be.
SPEAKER_01: Didn't even think about that.
SPEAKER_01: But you know what you did?
SPEAKER_01: You looked at who comes early and who stays late.
SPEAKER_01: Who comes early and who stays late.
SPEAKER_01: I imagine Stephen and Philip and the other deacons came early and stayed late.
SPEAKER_01: Came early and stayed late.
SPEAKER_01: And it was in being faithful with a little that God now exalts them and puts them in a position by which Philip is mightily used by God.
SPEAKER_01: But when they believed Philip, as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized.
SPEAKER_01: Then Simon, okay, this is the part that's fascinating.
SPEAKER_01: Simon, remember he's the sorcerer, himself also believed.
SPEAKER_01: And when he was baptized, he continued with Philip and was amazed, seeing the miracles and signs that were done.
SPEAKER_01: So is he truly saved?
SPEAKER_01: It says he believed.
SPEAKER_01: It says he was baptized.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna read in a few moments something different about him.
SPEAKER_01: But how many athletes, pop stars, Hollywood celebrities say they believe?
SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, you're looking at their life a year later, and it's no different than anybody else.
SPEAKER_01: So discernment.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if Simon, I mean, it's it's between God and Simon, but I'm telling you, as we read later, we're gonna see something different about Simon.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them.
SPEAKER_01: Who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: For as yet, he had fallen upon none of them.
SPEAKER_01: They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And when they laid hands on them, they received the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So this is a time when the laying on of hands for the receiving of the Holy Spirit through the apostles was happening.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine Peter and John are going, What, Samaria?
SPEAKER_01: Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: And at least in the case of not Peter but John, John goes, Well, wait.
SPEAKER_01: I remember when James and I wanted to cast down fire from heaven and burn them all up.
SPEAKER_01: Well, guess what?
SPEAKER_01: They were prophesying.
SPEAKER_01: Church, they were prophesying.
SPEAKER_01: So they were saying, Should we burn them all up?
SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus, you don't even know what's within you, but now that's what's happening.
SPEAKER_01: The fire of God is coming to Samaria through the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Not judgment, but grace.
SPEAKER_01: Grace from God being poured out on the church, being poured out on this new embryonic group of believers that they would receive the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So it's the follow-up of what's happened.
SPEAKER_01: And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles, this is the part where it gets a little bit fishy.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, listen up.
SPEAKER_01: And when Simon saw, through the laying on of the apostles' hands, the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money.
SPEAKER_01: You see what's happening?
SPEAKER_01: Simon, and we don't know the, we don't know the time frame here.
SPEAKER_01: It couldn't have been, it couldn't have been a few hours.
SPEAKER_01: It was at least a few days.
SPEAKER_01: It might even have been a week or two before Peter and James get there.
SPEAKER_01: I think what's happened is that Simon has believed and it's hurting his business.
SPEAKER_01: So he doesn't have people come, he doesn't have this power anymore because the demons have been cast out.
SPEAKER_01: He's one of those that had the demons cast out.
SPEAKER_01: Pretty interesting with this Navy, this Navy captain who gave his heart to the Lord with me, and then I cast out a bunch of demons out of him.
SPEAKER_01: He could not do photography ever again.
SPEAKER_01: He had to learn it the regular way, but he didn't have the voices anymore.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't have the channeling of spirits anymore.
SPEAKER_01: He couldn't do signs and wonders.
SPEAKER_01: Simon can't do signs and wonders anymore.
SPEAKER_01: He's baffled, but he wants it because he needs to make some money.
SPEAKER_01: So he's willing to pay for it.
SPEAKER_01: So that shows you the condition of his heart.
SPEAKER_01: And many a Hollywood country music rock star loses their profession and the money they made when they say they're gonna become a Jesus follower.
SPEAKER_01: I believe that's what happened to Bob Dylan.
SPEAKER_01: So when Bob Dylan got saved in the 80s, it was great for a while.
SPEAKER_01: Pat Boone and all the Christian celebrities of that time got behind him, but he began to lose his popularity, began to lose his audience, and gradually went back to drugs and women and all the stuff that he was doing.
SPEAKER_01: So Simon needs to make a living, I guess.
SPEAKER_01: So give me the Holy Spirit like you have it.
SPEAKER_01: I'll offer you money.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 19.
SPEAKER_01: Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So he wants to pay for it.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to pay for the ability to receive and give out the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Now look at verse 20.
SPEAKER_01: Now, how many have heard of the Philips translation?
SPEAKER_01: Philips translation is an interesting translation of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Very, very, what would I call it?
SPEAKER_01: Very real, very authentic, kind of in the English language, a little bit more like you would talk to someone.
SPEAKER_01: It says here, Peter said to him, your money perish with you.
SPEAKER_01: The Philips translation says, to hell with your money.
SPEAKER_01: To hell with your money, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money.
SPEAKER_01: You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God.
SPEAKER_01: Hello.
SPEAKER_01: Repent, therefore, of this your wickedness and pray God, if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you, for I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.
SPEAKER_01: This guy's not saved.
SPEAKER_01: He needs to repent.
SPEAKER_01: What would happen if some of these rock stars and country music stars and some of those who say they're believers who are just basically living the same lifestyle they were, if someone got in their face and said something like this?
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: That's a kingdom of God revolution.
SPEAKER_01: That's a move of God.
SPEAKER_01: St.
SPEAKER_01: Jerome, who started a monastery in Jerusalem in the first century, once said, always focus on pricking the heart and not stroking the sin, the skin.
SPEAKER_01: Billy Sunday, anybody heard of Billy Sunday, the great baseball star who became an evangelist, once said, They tell me that I rubbed the fur the wrong way.
SPEAKER_01: I don't.
SPEAKER_01: Let the cat turn around.
SPEAKER_01: That's what repent means.
SPEAKER_01: It means turn around.
SPEAKER_01: So this is what this is what Peter's doing.
SPEAKER_01: You see, Peter has the gift of discernment.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, that's like the worst gift.
SPEAKER_01: You know why it's so crummy?
SPEAKER_01: Is because everybody's so happy about something, or everybody's so fired up about this person or that person, whether it be political or religious or whatever, but you have the gift of discernment and you're you're thinking, oh my goodness, that this is not of God.
SPEAKER_01: So then, and I've had this happen to me so many times, you say something, and I always say, zip it up, Steve, zip it up, don't say that.
SPEAKER_01: Liz says to me, don't say that.
SPEAKER_01: And then I say it and say, We're just leaving the road because that's what you believe.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I'm thinking, oh man, it's not gonna go well for these people.
SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna go well.
SPEAKER_01: So, so this is the same guy.
SPEAKER_01: Remember with Ananias and Sapphira?
SPEAKER_01: Peter has a gift of discernment.
SPEAKER_01: He knows stuff.
SPEAKER_01: It's some call it a word of knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he has a word of knowledge about Ananias.
SPEAKER_01: He has a word of knowledge about Sapphira.
SPEAKER_01: He's not supposed to know that they're lying to the Holy Spirit and they're lying to the church.
SPEAKER_01: He knows, though, he has that discernment, and now he has discernment about Simon.
SPEAKER_01: If he hadn't had the discernment, Simon's just part of the church.
SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
SPEAKER_01: He might be pastoring the church in Samaria because he was so popular.
SPEAKER_01: But because of the discernment of Peter, he's out.
SPEAKER_01: And history tells us he continued back into his sorcery.
SPEAKER_01: So the gift of discernment is like the liver of the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: How'd you like to be a liver?
SPEAKER_01: Who, does anybody here like liver?
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, it's good for you, I guess, but man, I hate liver.
SPEAKER_01: I hate it.
SPEAKER_01: But you know what the liver does?
SPEAKER_01: Is it's the filter of pure and impure foods, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it purifies you.
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes you have to be the liver in the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you have to be the liver politically.
SPEAKER_01: And people don't like it.
SPEAKER_01: We like heart, we like head, we don't like liver.
SPEAKER_01: And so Peter's being the liver here, and he's delivering a word about Simon, verse 24.
SPEAKER_01: Then Simon answered and said, Pray to the Lord for me that none of these things which you have spoken may come upon me.
SPEAKER_01: So when they had testified and preached the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many villages among the Samaritans.
SPEAKER_01: So the Samaritans were this half-breed.
SPEAKER_01: I've talked about this before, but they were they were a half-breed.
SPEAKER_01: They were part of the ten tribes of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, Israel and Judah were split and sort of like the Hat Phil of McCoys.
SPEAKER_01: And so the northern tribes, the ten tribes were taken over by Syria later.
SPEAKER_01: And the way the Syrians did things when they took over a country is they would come in, take over a nation, and this is really smart what they did politically.
SPEAKER_01: They would take the Jews that were there, in this case the ten tribes, they would evacuate them into another part of the world that they had taken over.
SPEAKER_01: Then they would take the people in that part of the world and repopulate that area with the others.
SPEAKER_01: And so Gentiles from other nations populated Samaria, so they were known to the Jews as half-breeds, and to such an extent that Nehemiah, when he rebuilt the temple, when he's rebuilding the wall around the temple, it didn't want the Samaritans to be a part of it because they were half-breed.
SPEAKER_01: And so the Samaritans got so ticked off at Nehemiah, they built their own temple there on the mountain of Gerizim.
SPEAKER_01: So that's the animosity there.
SPEAKER_01: So here we see one of the first places that the gospel of the kingdom comes is the very people that the Jews hated the most.
SPEAKER_01: Upside down kingdom, man.
SPEAKER_01: It's not the way we think.
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't think the way we think.
SPEAKER_01: He allows Mao, Mao takes over China, the church goes underground, a hundred years of missionary, expatriate, missionary experience.
SPEAKER_01: They've gotten up to about, you know, 80, 800,000, between 700 and 800,000 believers.
SPEAKER_01: And then in the next 40 years, with no missionaries underground, they grow to 130 million.
SPEAKER_01: That's the gospel of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: God uses anybody.
SPEAKER_01: If you're available, he'll use you.
SPEAKER_01: Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip.
SPEAKER_01: This guy's got quite a remarkable chapter here, right?
SPEAKER_01: So everywhere he goes, God's moving.
SPEAKER_01: So now the angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, Arise, go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.
SPEAKER_01: This is a desert.
SPEAKER_01: So he arose and went.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, he's got to be thinking, what?
SPEAKER_01: Everything that's happening.
SPEAKER_01: Samaritan's like, it's popping, man.
SPEAKER_01: God's moving in mighty ways here.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: Go to the desert?
SPEAKER_01: What's in Gaza?
SPEAKER_01: Well, he's about to find out.
SPEAKER_01: So he rose and he went, and behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the Queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all the treasury and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning.
SPEAKER_01: And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet.
SPEAKER_01: So he's a proselyte.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, he's a Gentile, Ethiopian, who has become a believer in Judaism.
SPEAKER_01: He's a man of great authority.
SPEAKER_01: He's also a man of great wealth because he had the Torah.
SPEAKER_01: He had the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody had the Torah back then.
SPEAKER_01: And especially a proselyte.
SPEAKER_01: A proselyte was not allowed to have the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And yet he had it.
SPEAKER_01: And he's reading from it.
SPEAKER_01: And guess what?
SPEAKER_01: He's hollow.
SPEAKER_01: He's empty.
SPEAKER_01: He's looking for more.
SPEAKER_01: Church, it's not enough to just know the law or just to know religion.
SPEAKER_01: He's looking for something more, and he's reading God's word, and the Spirit said to Philip, verse 29, go near and overtake this chariot.
SPEAKER_01: So Philip ran to him, heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, Do you understand what you're reading?
SPEAKER_01: By the way, that's a really good first question when you walk in a coffee shop.
SPEAKER_01: And you see, you see some people reading the Bible, just go up to him and say, Do you understand what you're reading?
SPEAKER_01: I like to say, good book.
SPEAKER_01: That's a really good book you're reading.
SPEAKER_01: But do you understand what you're reading?
SPEAKER_01: I know a man, he's kind of famous as a podcaster, and he um that's how he got kind of how he started getting saved.
SPEAKER_01: He walked into a coffee shop in Santa Monica, California, and there was a group of kids all reading the Bible, all these young kids, and he and he and he pulled up a chair, and you know what he said?
SPEAKER_01: Because he was gay?
SPEAKER_01: He said, What does the Bible say about homosexuality?
SPEAKER_01: And instead of being condemning or negative, the kid shared, God loves everybody.
SPEAKER_01: And they preached the gospel to him.
SPEAKER_01: And then as they were leaving, because he's with his partner, he kind of saddles off away from his partner.
SPEAKER_01: He goes up to one of the people leaving and says, Where do you go to church?
SPEAKER_01: And he went to church the next Sunday and got radically saved.
SPEAKER_01: Radically saved.
SPEAKER_01: Bunch of kids in a coffee shop reading the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: So here comes Simon.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, Why am I here?
SPEAKER_01: Everything's happening over there.
SPEAKER_01: God tells me to go over here.
SPEAKER_01: I come over here.
SPEAKER_01: Here's this guy, and he's reading from Isaiah.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, How can I, unless someone guides me?
SPEAKER_01: And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 32.
SPEAKER_01: The place in the scripture which he read was this He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and the lamb before its shears is silent.
SPEAKER_01: And he so he opened not his mouth.
SPEAKER_01: In his humiliation, his justice was taken away, and who will declare his generation?
SPEAKER_01: For his life is taken from the earth.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's reading the classic messianic Isaiah passage, and Simon is right there, the perfect timing by God.
SPEAKER_01: So the eunuch answered Philip and said, I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this of himself or of some other man?
SPEAKER_01: Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning at this scripture, so he used that scripture to begin, and he preached Jesus to him.
SPEAKER_01: So here's a challenge.
SPEAKER_01: If you heard someone reading from Genesis or Exodus or Leviticus or Ezekiel or Amos, could you take any verse and then preach Jesus to them?
SPEAKER_01: I remember in the old days, back when we were with Campus Crusade and we were sharing our faith every day on college campuses, you would always hear these questions about what about creation?
SPEAKER_01: Or what about evolution?
SPEAKER_01: Or what about marijuana?
SPEAKER_01: God made it, why can't we smoke it?
SPEAKER_01: You know, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01: And I would say, God made poison ivy, but you don't waller in it.
SPEAKER_01: But you you were always asked those questions, and the thing that we did was we always stayed on Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We stayed on, we didn't get, we didn't get into Democrat, Republican, political stuff.
SPEAKER_01: We always went back to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Well, let's just talk about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's a great question, and part of the reason I said this is because I didn't know the answer.
SPEAKER_01: Um that's a great question, but can we just finish up with Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: And so we talk about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That's what that's what Philip does here.
SPEAKER_01: He shares Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't go into Isaiah, he didn't give the history of the Pentateuch or anything like that, or the history of Isaiah and how he's prophesied against Israel.
SPEAKER_01: He just preaches Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And then Philip said something and underline this, star it, box it, highlight it.
SPEAKER_01: If you believe with all your heart, you may be baptized, is what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so he commanded the chariot to stand still, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and he baptized him.
SPEAKER_01: And now when they came up out of the water, and we'll get to this next week, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away.
SPEAKER_01: That's next week.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's that's a bigger explanation than we can give here.
SPEAKER_01: So that the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing.
SPEAKER_01: But Philip was suddenly found at Azetus, and passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.
SPEAKER_01: So believe with your whole heart.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us in this room, you may have believed based on a tradition or church you came out of.
SPEAKER_01: But have you believed with all your heart?
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus said, Love me with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength in your neighbors yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Think what would happen in Colorado Springs.
SPEAKER_01: Think what would happen in the state of Colorado if the church just did one command.
SPEAKER_01: If we actually lived, love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength in your neighbors yourself.
SPEAKER_01: That would be a Kingdom of God revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Road Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We pray today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Road Church and to find more content like this, go to theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: That's theroad.org.