This tape contains the eleventh of a series of teachings on the book of Acts by the Reverend John W. Howe of Truel Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia. The teaching is entitled Philip and Samaria and covers Acts chapter 8. We're looking at Acts chapter 8. And the division between 7 and 8 comes at a funny place. The first sentence of chapter 8 really belongs as part of the story of Stephen.

You remember we saw Stephen bearing this tremendously bold and courageous witness to Christ, which also contained such a strong indictment of the sort of religious authority, the religious elite. And finally they just could stand it no longer and seized upon him, dragged him through the streets of town, threw him over the cliff and stoned him to death. And we read the final sentence of that really is the first verse of chapter 8, that Saul was consenting to his death.

Saul, who turns out to be St. Paul in the next few chapters. We'll see about that. So let's pick up at that point.

Saul was consenting to his death, and on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him.

But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. We're going to come back to Saul's story in a little bit, But there's another very important part of the puzzle that needs to be fitted in at this place.

Another member of the Jerusalem Seven, if you will, and that is Philip. We'll read about him in just a moment. Great persecution broke out, it says, on the very day of Stephen's death.

Just catch that. Stephen's death is the beginning of something which just broke all boundaries. The implication is very strong that Saul was at least partly responsible for this persecution.

He became a leading figure in it. The implication is he may well have instigated it. Interestingly enough, the apostles stayed in Jerusalem.

But the vast majority of the others, and now we're aware that this is several tens of thousands of others by this point, are scattered. Finally, finally fulfilling the first moving out in the Great Commission. God had said over two years previously, you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and on beyond to the uttermost parts of the earth.

But as we've seen, they stayed right there in Jerusalem. Finally, now with persecution, they're forced out of the nest. They're forced to begin to fulfill that Great Commission.

It's interesting just to put this story together at this point. The preaching of the resurrection has obviously angered the Sadducees in particular. They were the temple authority.

It's obviously nettled them, it's gotten their dander up, it's gotten under their skin, any kind of phrase like that that you want to use. It has obviously been something that has not gone down comfortably with the Sadducees, but somehow they've been able to live with it for two years. As they've seen more and more and more of the Jerusalem constituency turning to this one, Jesus, they've been able to live with it for two years.

But now when Stephen has pushed the issue of the lordship of Jesus to its logical conclusion, violent persecution is the immediate result. I just want you to meditate on that for a moment. I would suggest to you that very seldom in church history has anybody had a hard road to hoe because he preached resurrection, period.

Because you believe in heaven, because you believe in some reward after this life, pie in the sky, by and by, has never really troubled anybody very much. They may laugh at you, they may ridicule you, but that's not a real problem to them. But it's when you start saying and demonstrating we serve another king, one Jesus, that you're beginning to shake the foundations.

Okay, what's at stake here is the law, the temple, the sacrifices, the priesthood, the privileged status of the Jews. These are all under threat if Jesus is truly Lord of all the earth. Okay, resurrection, okay.

You silly people believe in resurrection. You know, you're silly, but that's no problem to us. But you start preaching that there is a new Lord who has scuttled the sovereignty of all these other structures, and watch what happens.

Violent persecution is the immediate result. Notice also that at this point, Pharisees and Sadducees come together. They're a united front against the church.

What's at stake is Judaism itself, and they're out to save Judaism. Do you remember when Jesus had predicted there will come a day when those who put you to death will think they're doing God a favor. That's exactly what you see here.

Judaism itself is at stake, and we're going to destroy the church which preaches against it. It says Saul rampaged, and the word here is the kind of word that's used of a wild animal, a wild beast. He's rampaged.

He's out of his mind carrying out this persecution. He's going like the Gestapo, house to house, dragging people, and it says men and women, Dragging people literally out of their houses and committing them to prison. I just want to reflect on another thing in passing.

It's interesting. The very next chapter is going to tell us about Saul's conversion. And Saul's conversion is one of the most dramatic stories in all the Bible of God simply intervening.

You know, a man is set on one direction and God stops him dead. And God had that right up his sleeve. He was about to do that, right?

it's right around the corner now and you might sort of ask yourself if God was going to intervene in the life of Saul anyway he wasn't going to wait around for Saul to get ready for it he was about to intervene in Saul's life why didn't he do so just a little bit earlier you know why didn't he spare all those those poor Christians who were dragged off to prison and we know as a matter of fact in many cases put to death why didn't he intervene just a little bit earlier spare Stephen. Maybe he made a mistake. There are no mistakes in God's timing.

Just think through the ramifications of the timing that was involved here in allowing this to happen the way it did. First of all, Saul and all the others became eyewitnesses to the death of Jesus, reproduced in Stephen. Just think about that.

That's exactly what was going on. Here's a recapitulation of the death of Jesus. And as I suggested last time, that had to haunt Saul all the way down the rest of his life, all the way down through his ministry is the impression that Stephen had created. And what he's really bearing witness to is Jesus living out his life and more particularly living out his death all over again in the first Christian martyr.

Secondly, the Believers are encouraged to boldness by the example of Stephen. And we see that as they're scattered, they become bold. Thirdly, the scattering itself that God had intended all along is finally established.

It takes place as a result of this persecution. I think another implication of all this becomes very clearly reflected in the way Paul refers to himself and his conversion ever afterward. The implication is, if God could save me, you know, if he could save Saul, he could save anybody.

You know, that's the way he refers to it. He writes to Timothy, he says, I am the foremost of sinners, but I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience for an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. And yet another thing happened as a result of all this.

The Christians were forced to break with the temple. You know, we've observed that they were daily in the temple, daily participating in sacrifices which had now been superseded. There's one sacrifice for all time.

Nothing more to be done, nothing more to be added. And yet there they were, participating in the temple, until finally the Jews took the initiative to drive them out, And never again were the Christians welcome in the temple in the same way. So they scattered and they fled.

And a good thing, too, by the way. A lot of people would seem to imply that should persecution come your way, you stay and just receive it cheerfully. I don't find that here.

They fled. They fled. Okay.

There are times when it is inescapable and you must take your stand. But there is absolutely no suggestion in the New Testament that when there's an alternative to getting on, you know, and sharing that word somewhere else, that you should stay there and let them grind you up in the meat grinder. They fled.

But notice, they're neither complaining nor are they disenchanted. As they go, they go boldly and they're preaching. Preaching the word.

This is not, for the most part, formal preaching. Malcolm Smith calls this gossiping the gospel. just like they didn't try to keep it to themselves wherever they went they're sharing the good news and so what you have here is a picture of Saul Saul in particular and all the other power establishment authorities with him trying to stamp out the conflagration that is swept across Jerusalem and instead the harder they stamp the more the sparks are getting scattered out into the hinterland and becoming dozens of little fires all over the place.

And Saul in his fury stamps all the harder until he ignites himself. So don't question the timing of God. God knows what he's doing.

We may not see it immediately. God doesn't make mistakes. We come then to the story of Philip.

And Philip, we read, went down to a city of Samaria. Now, you probably think south is down, and that confuses you, but everything from Jerusalem is down, okay? So he went down to the north.

He went down to a city of Samaria, and he proclaimed to them the Christ. And it says, multitudes with one accord gave heed to what was said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs which he did. For unclean spirits came out of many who were possessed, crying with a loud voice, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed, and there was much joy in that city.

Again, one of the deacons. A couple of powerful deacons, huh? Stephen attended with great signs and wonders.

Philip attended with great signs, healings, exorcism, powerful, powerful ministry. Verse 9, but there was a man named Simon who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the nation of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great. Watch the repetition of the word amazed in this paragraph.

He amazed the nation of Samaria, saying that he was somebody great. And they all gave heed to him from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is that power of God which is called great. And they gave heed to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic.

But when they believed Philip, as he preached good news about the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Even Simon himself believed, and after being baptized, he continued with Philip. And seeing signs and great miracles performed, he was amazed.

Now, a couple of things about this territory of Samaria. and also about the man who went there. Samaria, as you probably are familiar, was an area that was taken over by the Assyrians in 721 BC.

They came through and they devastated the northern part of ancient Israel, the part which had retained the name Israel, and destroyed many, many of the inhabitants and took others captive and deported them from their own land. And it was a policy of the Assyrians to then send in settlers from elsewhere around the Assyrian Empire. People from Assyria itself, from the Babylonian area, from the Persian area, and so on.

They did this wherever they conquered. It was a deliberate plan in order to intermingle people of various backgrounds, various languages, various cultures, so that they would not have a natural constituency that could rise up in rebellion against the Assyrians themselves. That's precisely what they did with regard to the area known as Israel.

When they sent back people to resettle that area, there were still some Jews who lived in the territory, but they began to be intermingled with folks from all over the Mediterranean world. and so what the result was was you had an incredibly eclectic constituency people from all kinds of backgrounds all kinds of languages all kinds of religious beliefs and so on and they took on a form of religion which bore some resemblance to Judaism a sort of a distant cousin to Judaism it had some of the trappings of the Jewish priesthood and the sacrificial system and so on and as a matter of fact, eventually they erected their own temple on Mount Gerizim and it became an alternative temple to the one in Jerusalem. From their point of view, they were kin to the Jews.

From the Jewish point of view, they were the very worst form of mongrelization. And so we read in the New Testament repeatedly, Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. As far as the true Jews, the Jerusalem Jews, the Judean Jews were concerned, these Samaritans were worse than outright pagans because they had done the very thing that Israel was commanded not to do.

They had compromised the purity of their relationship with God. They were eclectic. They had many elements of paganism interwoven into a religion which bore some resemblance to Judaism itself.

As we discover in this very paragraph, they were very, very open to the supernatural. They weren't surprised at the signs and wonders that Philip performed. They were glad to see healings and miracles and so on.

They, in fact, were open to what was distinctly occult. There was a man there called Simon, and he was a man who typically did great signs and wonders. He didn't do it by the power of the Jewish God, but they attributed his power to God, some God, a great God.

And in fact, they gave him the name, the very name, the great power of God. He operated in a supernatural dimension. We would have to say he was a witch, a male witch.

And he himself is deeply impressed when Philip comes to town. because what happens is he's out-miracled. You may remember that when Moses went into the court of Pharaoh, Pharaoh's magicians are able to reduplicate the first couple of Moses' miracles, but then it gets too powerful for them.

They're out-miracled, and they can't keep up. Exactly the same kind of thing is going on here in Samaria. Simon has been amazing the people with his great display of signs and wonders.

Now Philip arrives and Simon himself is amazed. He is out, miracled. Now I want to comment further that it's interesting in the providence of God that the man sent to this city is not a Jerusalem Jew.

He is not a Judean Jew. He's one of the Hellenistic, the Greek-speaking Jews, one of the deacons, as we saw last time. he himself comes from a background out of the dispersion somewhere.

It's interesting that God chose to send in to this area of Samaria with which the Jerusalem Jews have no dealings, a man who is more acceptable to them and a man who doesn't have the hang-up toward them that the Jerusalem Jews have. He's the perfect candidate to bring the gospel. He doesn't have that barrier between Jew and Samaritan that someone else might have had.

On the other hand, it creates a problem, which we'll come to in just a moment. And now we come to one of the strangest paragraphs in the New Testament, and a tremendous amount of theology pivots on this paragraph. Okay?

Verse 14. Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For it, or we really ought to say he, had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Then they, that is Peter and John, laid their hands on them, that is these Samaritan converts, and they received the Holy Spirit. Read on about Simon in just a moment. For some reason, though they believed, though they were baptized, they didn't receive the Holy Spirit.

People come to that passage and they speculate at great length what went wrong. Why didn't they receive the Holy Spirit? And what does it mean that they didn't receive the Holy Spirit?

How did they know that they didn't receive the Holy Spirit? We're not given any of the details. Again, if your perception is that receiving the Holy Spirit always is manifested with the speaking in tongues, then you must read into this paragraph that they didn't speak in tongues.

And that's how they knew that they didn't receive the Holy Spirit. It doesn't say that. It says they didn't receive the Holy Spirit.

I would read in that they not only didn't speak in tongues, nothing happened. Okay, there was no evidence of receiving the Holy Spirit. What went wrong?

Christians go in two quite sharply different directions at this point in their theological understanding one group will say well if you ever doubted that becoming a Christian and receiving the Holy Spirit are two different things come to this paragraph and you will doubt no more here's a group of people who clearly became Christians but didn't receive the Holy Spirit until a later date. That's one way of looking at that paragraph. I look at it a little bit differently.

As I come to this paragraph, I see that this was a major crisis. That the expectation was, of course you will receive the Holy Spirit when you become a Christian. And the fact that you didn't means something disastrous has gone wrong, and we better find out what it is immediately.

Look at the very language that's used here in verse 16. For it had not yet fallen on any of them. That implies to me it was expected to fall, but it hadn't happened.

What went wrong? But they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, as if to say, how can you be a Christian if you've only been baptized? That raises some interesting questions about the church today.

doesn't it? I suggest to you that from a New Testament point of view, it is virtually a self-contradiction to speak of somebody who is a Christian who has only been baptized. That's a major crisis.

Something is desperately wrong. He's only been baptized and he hasn't yet received the Holy Spirit. What went wrong, you see?

And so they send for Peter and John. I want to point out to you also that this is the only instance that is clearly recorded in the whole New Testament in which becoming a Christian did not involve immediately receiving the Holy Spirit. So, what did go wrong?

Well, some would say they hadn't believed sufficiently strongly. Some would say they hadn't repented sufficiently deeply. They were possessed of evil spirits and hadn't been sufficiently exorcised.

Philip hadn't adequately instructed them. They needed to tarry. Or perhaps it was simply that they hadn't had a life in the spirit seminar.

But in any event, they sent for Peter and John. And when Peter and John came, they laid hands on him and immediately they received. It does not say Peter and John exorcised them again.

It does not say they gave them a whole bunch of new instruction. It does not say that they asked them to be baptized all over again. It does not say that they asked them to repent more deeply.

It does not say that there was anything lacking in Philip's ministry. It says that they came and laid hands on him and they received. And I want to suggest to you that the reason that the Holy Spirit was withheld was not at all that there was something wrong with the Samaritans, but there was a whole lot wrong with Peter and John.

And they needed to bring Peter and John down, not for the sake of the Samaritans, but for the sake of Peter and John. Now, you entertain that, and you meditate on that for a while, okay? Because you may not hear everybody saying it exactly that way.

But I invite you to think about it. I invite you to think about it. What would have happened had they received the Holy Spirit immediately when Philip visited them?

Here is a group of people who consider themselves related to the Jews, but from the Jewish point of view are outcasts. What does the New Testament repeatedly say? Jews have no dealings with Samaritans, right?

And who has gone to evangelize them? One of the Jerusalem Jews? No. one of the Hellenistic Jews, who himself is just a little bit questionable.

And so Philip gets there and has a successful ministry, and the Samaritans become Christians, and what will be the view of the Jerusalem Jewish Christians? We've got a whole new denomination on our hands. By the time you get to Acts 15, they're still wrestling with the question Gentile can possibly become a Christian without becoming a Jew first.

And I suggest to you that there was nothing lacking in the Samaritans, but that Peter and John needed to endorse this. It needed to have that link, that tie-in with the very same one who preached the first sermon on Pentecost to come, and at his hands, at his endorsement, this too is an extension of the completed work of Christ. I'll leave you to meditate on that a while.

It says, now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money. And by the way, it does not say that this is a consistent pattern either, that the apostles had to lay hands on them. That's the way God chose to do it in this particular instance.

You see that there's a variety of patterns. Sometimes the Spirit falls on people before they even finish preaching the gospel. when he saw that the spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles hands he offered them money saying give me also this power that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the holy spirit but Peter said to him your silver perish with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money you have neither part nor lot in this matter for your heart is not right before God.

Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. And Simon answered, Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon me.

Simon is a Christian, has become a believer, has been baptized and has attached himself to Philip. And even with these very, very strong words from Peter, it does not suggest that his conversion was invalid. What it suggests is that he has carried over his occult fascination into his new Christian faith, and he needs to repent of it.

Totally. And he does so. And it's important that we see that both before and after this interchange, he's considered to be a believer.

But he looks at this exchange between the apostles laying on of hands and the power of God coming down. He equates the signs and the wonders with the power of God. And rather than valuing the power because it equips people to proclaim Christ, he values the power for its own sake.

That's the heart of magic. That's the heart of the occult, is to be fascinated with and value power for its own sake. And he says, I want that.

Notice he does not want it for his own self alone. I want it that I may also give it to others. And Peter rebukes him in some of the strongest words you'll find anywhere in the Bible.

And the rebuke is twofold. One, to think that you can buy what God gives. You know, the moment I do something that earns something from God, it's no longer grace, is it?

It's a denial of the gospel to think that you can buy the gift of God. But more particularly because this fascination with power for its own sake utterly misses the point of the power. The point of the power is to exalt Christ.

Now, I want to say something very hard in this regard. I can't tell you how many times I've heard around the country the baptism of the Holy Spirit presented in precisely these terms. Come and get the baptism that you might have power.

And worse than that, then we're told, If you only repent hard enough, pray hard enough, fast hard enough, tarry long enough, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, whatever it is, if you will only do this, then the power will be yours. That comes awfully dangerously close to the attitude that Simon had. I will do what I must do to get the power, which is what I really want.

And I just share that with you. God is delighted more anxious really than we are to distribute the power of his spirit but the power has a purpose and it's his gift it's not something that we in any way qualify for or merit well all this takes place and Philip is hardly there even to witness the conclusion of it the angel of the Lord speeds him off to the road that goes down to Gaza and he encounters an Ethiopian and a validation of Philip's ministry. Without any help from anybody else, the Ethiopian is converted, baptized, and the presumption is clear that he's got the Spirit and the Gospel is off to Africa.

The man that is totally prepared by God, in fact, is reading the very scripture that he needs to be reading before Philip even comes upon the scene. He raises the question, who is this that he's speaking about? And Philip has the opportunity to explain the gospel to him, and he believes on the spot.

When it's God's work, we need to be really free in understanding that our part in the process is going to be just one part of a continuum. This man was prepared by God, and Philip had the privilege of being the right guy at the right moment to tie it all together. So many of us make the mistake of thinking that if we have the opportunity to get close to somebody, we've got to do the whole work and we've got to do it now.

Jim Elliott, the great missionary who was killed by the Ucca Indians a generation ago, said, you know, in our zeal for converts, we evangelicals often produce more spiritual abortions than new birth because we try to hurry God. If he gives me an opportunity to say one word, I've got to believe that that word will be a seed and he'll water it and he'll bring it to fruition in his time. Now, on the other hand, if I do happen to have the privilege of being the last one in a chain of events, I better not take credit for that.

You know, all those other people who planted the seeds years ago. Paul says, I planted, Apollos watered, God gave the increase. So here in a nutshell is the ministry of Philip.

Set off to Samaria, begin something, and God has to complete it at the hands of Peter and John. Immediately set off to touch the life of an unnamed Ethiopian eunuch, and through him the gospel goes down into Africa. And in God's marvelous timing, he doesn't make any mistakes, in God's marvelous timing, through all this series of events and even the persecution which he could have prevented, the Great Commission begins to be fulfilled.

Let's stand and pray together. Father God we would learn to trust you more for the timing of things even those things which we believe to be of you Lord cultivate in us the fruit of your spirit which is patience that we might dare to believe that he that hath begun a good work in us will bring it to completion, and he that begins a good work through us will bring it to completion, and that you don't make mistakes in your timing of things. Father, thank you for the ministry of Philip.

Thank you, Lord, that through this deacon came the first breaking down of a wall of division between Jew and Samaritan and then between Jew and Gentile and he just had to be available to you. Lord, we would be available to you this day. We confess that we don't know and will not be aware in this life of all of the ramifications of the lives you allow us to touch.

but we would trust you for all of those ramifications being worked out according to your purpose for your great namesake Amen Amen.