Acts 8:4-25 - Dogs and Hands

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. We are now in Acts chapter eight, and it does not seem like that long ago.

We started off in chapter one and saw Jesus and some of His last words to the disciples, to the apostles, and now we are well into the Book of Acts.

Last week, we saw the first Christian martyr outside of Christ Himself, and that was one of the first deacons, Stephen, and that he was put on trial before the Sanhedrin, that he gave an impassioned sermon about how Jesus was really the fulfillment

of everything that God had promised. All of the different individuals in Israel's history all pointed to Jesus and how the Sanhedrin, the religious rulers of the day, they were missing it. They weren't realizing that Jesus was the point of all of it.

And they, in their rage, in their objections to Stephen pointing out their sin and the fact that they killed the Messiah, they killed Stephen. And Stephen, even in his death, was faithful and he said and echoed the same words that Jesus did.

Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge. Do not charge them with this sin. What an incredible forgiveness, even while being put to death by those of his own nation.

And then last week, or not last week, yesterday, we ended with Saul the persecutor and meeting Saul for the very first time. Saul agreed with putting Stephen to death.

On that day, a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria. Devout men buried Stephen and mourned deeply over him.

Saul, however, was ravaging the church. He would enter house after house, drag off men and women and put them in prison. So what was the case with this early church?

Did people begin to be silent about Jesus as the Messiah? Did they switch up how they were telling people? Did they stop doing public miracles?

What happened? We can see in chapter eight and verse number four. So those who were scattered went on their way, preaching the message of good news, of the gospel.

Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them. The crowds paid attention with one mind to what Philip said as they heard and saw the signs he was performing.

For unclean spirits, demons, crying out with a loud voice came out of many who were possessed, and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed, so there was great joy in that city.

What an incredible thing is now occurring, that even in exile, even running from persecution, the gospel is still more powerful. One incredible thing.

The one next thing that I want to note here is that Philip is another one of the deacons that was mentioned in Acts chapter 6. So you have Stephen was the first mentioned, and then you have Philip. And Philip was not one of the apostles.

He wasn't one of the ones that had seen Jesus do maybe a ton of different miracles. He's another one of those that has a Greek name as opposed to a Hebrew name.

So it is entirely possible that he himself had come to know Jesus as a result of Pentecost or post Jesus's death, resurrection, and ascension, but through the power of the Holy Spirit, because though oftentimes the book of Acts is titled the Acts of

the Apostles or the Acts of the Early Church, it's truly the Acts of the Holy Spirit. And here the Spirit is working through this faithful deacon who has been de-churched that scattered abroad and yet he is still continuing to preach the gospel.

And I think in our circumstances in life, we can very easily stop talking about God when things don't go well for us.

If our church today was completely disbanded and we were driven out, told you can't talk about Jesus, you can't preach Jesus, you can't witness, you can't evangelize anymore, I wonder how many of us would have this same heart that Philip did that

says, all right, I'm going somewhere new and I'm doing the exact same thing that got us in trouble the first time. I'm preaching Jesus. And miracles were happening and there was joy.

However, there's another one of these kind of insider faults or texts that we'll read about next. A man named Simon had previously practiced sorcery in that city and astounded the Samaritan people while claiming to be somebody great.

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. They were attentive to him because he had astounded them with his sorceries for a long time.

But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news, the gospel about the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized. Then even Simon himself believed.

And after he was baptized, he went around constantly with Philip and was astounded as he observed the signs and great miracles that were being performed.

Can you see here what the writer of Acts, what Luke is highlighting for us in that section of 9 through 13? They were astounded twice that he astounded them. They were greatly astounded.

And then when Simon gets saved, when he believes, when he is baptized, he's following around Philip and he is astounded at what God is doing through Philip.

When the apostles, verse 14, who were at Jerusalem, heard that Samaria had welcomed God's message, if you will recall from all throughout the Gospels, the Jews in Galilee and Judea and many other areas hated the people that were in Samaria.

It was a deep racial, religious hatred of these people that they said, okay, these are half breeds. They were way back when Jews that had intermarried with other peoples, which they were instructed by God not to do.

But as a result, the full-blooded Jews completely hated these Samaritans. They called them dogs. Samaria was in between Galilee and Judea.

And if a Jew needed to go from Galilee to Judea or from Judea to Galilee, they would go around Samaria. You would not go through the middle because of the hatred there. But we see Philip, who was one of the Hellenistic Jews.

He has a Greek name, not a Hebrew name. He was helping the Hellenistic widows that were being neglected in the daily administration of food and helping out with the poor. He went to those people.

He went to the outcasts. He went to the other people that were looked down on, and he loved them.

When we are looked down on, when we are mistreated, do we use that as fuel for loving others and helping others, giving to others, bringing the gospel to others, or do we use it as a reason to say, I've been hurt by people.

I've been judged by people, so God doesn't love me, or I don't need to turn. I don't need to focus my efforts on loving people. What's our reaction?

Let us have the desire and hope that if we are mistreated, we are not going to pass that on to anyone else. Instead, we are going to show love to others, no matter how people treat us. And here Philip is doing just that.

So when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had welcomed God's message, they sent Peter and John to them.

After they went down there, they prayed for them, so the Samaritans might receive the Holy Spirit, for He had not yet come down on any of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. Now I want to mention a couple of things in relation to this section here. If you'll notice, this is a kind of new thing.

This is not something that is commonplace even in the book of Acts. A lot of times when people accept the Lord, immediately the Holy Spirit comes on down and indwells people. It's wonderful.

It's amazing. It doesn't normally involve laying on of hands. Why here?

One particular thought that has been put forward is that if the Holy Spirit had come on the Samaritans and there was no connection with any of the church at Jerusalem, that there might have been a continued rift, that there was no connection, there

was no same commonality or joy or anything between the church at Jerusalem and the church in Samaria. And if that was the case, then that alienation, that divide that had been there for so long, for centuries, would just continue to be there.

But here, because there is the Holy Spirit here deciding to come down as Peter and John are laying hands on the Samaritans, now there is a connection that we are bonded together.

The gospel that these men are preaching is the gospel that we are believing. And what an encouragement this must have been for Peter and John. This was not their first time in Samaria.

They had seen the Lord come. They had seen people turn to Jesus as the Messiah in some different cities in Samaria. They had also seen some times where Samaritans completely cast them out.

And they said, we want nothing to do with you. And what an encouragement it would have been for them that God wasn't just dealing with the Jews and the Hellenists. He was dealing with the Samaritans.

And we'll see who else he deals with tomorrow. So this is not a normative practice. It's not even a normative practice in Acts.

This is a special occasion with special ramifications of unifying God's people together. I want to bring out Romans chapter 8 where it says that if we do not have the Holy Spirit of God, then we are none of His.

You can look at 1 Corinthians chapter 12 where it talks about that God has given the same Holy Spirit to everyone. That the Holy Spirit baptizes us, places us, immerses us into the body of Christ. We are all now members, parts of one another.

Peter and John laid their hands on them. They received the Holy Spirit. Wonderful time of unity.

Wonderful celebration of what God was doing in a place that had really taken a turn into false religion because of the alienation between the Samaritans and the Jews. And so they didn't worship the same God that the Jews were worshiping.

It was kind of a different religion, if you will, with different practices, a different temple, different places where they viewed locations as holy than the church or than the Jews in Jerusalem with the temple.

And so now it's a bringing back into the fold of, hey, these are God's children, and now they are on the right course.

However, verse 18, when Simon saw that the Holy Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying, give me this power too, so that anyone I lay hands on may receive the Holy Spirit.

Here there is greed, there is jealousy, there is bitterness that is happening in Simon's heart. We can see that through Peter's reply.

Verse 20, But Peter told him, May your silver be destroyed with you, because you thought the gift of God could be obtained with money. You have no part or share in this matter, because your heart is not right before God.

Therefore, repent of this wickedness of yours and pray to the Lord that the intent of your heart may be forgiven you, for I see you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity, by sin.

Please pray to the Lord for me, Simon replied, so that nothing you have said may happen to me. Then after they had testified and spoken the message of the Lord, they traveled back to Jerusalem, evangelizing many villages of the Samaritans.

Here we can see that bitterness takes place, that a person that was worshiped, a person that was revered, a person that did astound people, wanted to have people's attention and adulation and wonder again. So we tried to buy the Holy Spirit.

Can I tell you, no amount of money will ever give you a right standing with God. No amount of money will ever make you more right with God than you are.

The only thing that can give you a right standing with God, the only thing that can improve you in the eyes of God is the perfect righteousness of Christ, a once and for all deal. Can I tell you, don't fall into this same trap.

Don't compare yourself with other people. Don't say, but I used to receive this, but I used to be told this, but I used to do this. No, no, no, no, it's not about us.

It's all about Him. Let the praise go to the Holy Spirit. Let the praise go to Jesus Christ, the head of the church.

Let them be adored. Let them be glorified. Let us grow smaller and smaller.

I think of the words of John the Baptist as we end today. I believe it's John 3.36 where it says, He must increase, Jesus must increase, but I must decrease.

And I pray that that would be our heart, that we would have the heart of Philip that says, If I'm kicked out, if I'm looked down on, if I'm going to people that no one else wants to deal with, I'm totally fine. I'm lifting up Jesus.

I'm going to share him. Let's not have the heart of Simon that says, I want out of God's people. I want power.

I want accolades. Hope to see you today at church. If you are listening to this on the day it comes out and look forward to seeing what else happens with Philip next tomorrow.