As the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, we now turn to fulfill our role as students. That's what a disciple is, student. We're all students of the Lord Jesus Christ and his word. So today we want to study what he has given to us for our instruction, for our edification in the book of Acts chapter eight. You know, we are in a series of messages on the Book of Acts. And as we have considered this book from the very beginning, we have done so in the sense of looking at it in its overall structure. And that overall structure, as we have seen, if you might have your outline from way back of the whole book that I gave to you there, you can pull that out. If you don't, just listen. The Book of Acts has three major sections. We have the foundations of the church and her mission that are given to us in chapter 1, verses 1 through chapter 2, and verse 41. Here we have the 40-day post-resurrection ministry of our Lord Jesus, where he instructs his disciples in the things necessary to prepare them for their mission. He gives to them the Great Commission. to be a witness unto him in Jerusalem, in Judea, Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. This is followed by his renewed promise of the coming of the Spirit, and then his ascension to the right hand of God the Father, and then the important step of filling out the number of the apostles, for there only are 11 at this point because of Judas's apostasy, and so Matthias is chosen, and that brings us To the end of this period of preparation leading to Pentecost, which is the next foundational element of the church intermission in the glorious day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came in power, Peter preached his memorable sermon, and there was a great response. Over 2,000 responded in faith. There the foundations are laid. In chapter two, verse 42, we come to the second section, and that section goes from verse 42 to chapter 12 in verse 24, we have the witness of the church to the Jewish world. And so the first, the second section of the book of Acts deals with the beginning of the fulfillment of the Great Commission, to be witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria. And this covers the section from 242 to 1224. Here the focus is on the ministry of Peter. We look at the church at Jerusalem, first of all. And that's what we have just concluded last week, the study of the church in Jerusalem, this initial period after Pentecost where the church is established in Jerusalem. This goes through the end of chapter seven and into the beginning of chapter eight. Which leads us to our position in our study today. As we're looking at the witness of the church to the Jewish world, we have considered the church in Jerusalem. Now we look at the church expanding from Jerusalem into Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. In this section, two individuals come to the fore beside the continued ministry of the apostles, and it's the ministry of Philip and significantly, the conversion of Saul. The church expands in Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. That's where we're at today. Next, we will see in this section, the church expanding into Syria. which is chapter 9 and 12, and then we move on to the third major section of the book, The Witness of the Church to the Gentile World, which is on the focus of Paul and his missionary journeys. But taking now the insert outline, this is where we're at today, the church expanding into Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. This goes from chapter 8 verse 1 to chapter 9 in verse 31. Looking at the outline, let's take an overview of this so we can put the pieces in their place. First, we have the scattering of the church in Jerusalem by persecution. In other words, we've studied the church in Jerusalem. God has been at work there. A mighty work is being done. But now the time has come for the church to expand. And surprisingly, the means whereby God brings that expansion is persecution. And so we have the scattering of the church in Jerusalem by persecution. That's given to us in verses one to four of chapter eight. We see about the outbreak of the persecution, the leader of the persecution, the nature of the persecution, and the outcome of the persecution. Having spoken of this scattering, we now are given a specific example, a primary example of one of those Christians who was scattered, and that's Philip. And so in chapter 8, verses 5 to 13, we're given this picture of the evangelistic ministry of Philip in Samaria. We're told the method of his ministry. Next, we're told of the effect of his ministry upon the Samaritans. And then we have this very interesting case of Simon Magus, or Simon the Sorcerer. After this, number three in this chapter, we have the ministry of Peter and John in Samaria. We look at the occasion for their ministry, the purpose of their ministry, and their encounter with this Simon Magus. And then this chapter concludes with the ministry of Philip in the region of Gaza. It's interesting to see that word Gaza in here in the ministry of the gospel in Gaza when we look and think of the terrible things happening in Gaza today. But it comes to our attention here and we see that it was the place where a great and notable event of conversion took place, the Ethiopian eunuch. So let's go back now to the top here and begin our consideration of this passage. The church expanding into Judea, Samaria and Galilee. Let's read verse one. And Saul was consenting unto his death, Stephen's death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which is at Jerusalem. And they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house and hailing men and women, committing them to prison. Therefore, they that were scattered abroad went everywhere, preaching the word. Then Philip, here's our example of one of those, then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them. And the people, with one accord, gave heed unto those things which Philip spake. Hearing and seeing the miracles which he did for unclean spirits, crying with loud voice came out of many that were possessed with them. And many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed, and there was great joy in that city. But there was a certain man called Simon, which before time in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that he himself was some great one, to whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, this man is the great power of God. And to him they had regard, because that of a long time he had bewitched them with sorceries. But when they believed, Philip, preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Then Simon himself believed also. And when he was baptized, he continued with Philip and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done." This is the evangelistic ministry of Philip. So let's now look at this point by point. Consider the great narrative that is before us here, the history of the early church. It's a very significant moment in church history. For the church up to this time has been confined within the walls of Jerusalem, very narrow. But Christianity was never intended to be a tribal religion for one people, One city, one race, but it was to be for all the nations of the world. And now we're bursting the bonds of the Old Testament limitations. The time of preparation is over. The time for the expansion of the gospel to the nations begins. As it moves now out of the confines of Jerusalem into the regions, still Jewish regions, but nonetheless, we're starting to move out from the center where it all began. We're moving into Judea and Samaria. Well, let's look at how this took place. It took place with the scattering of the church in Jerusalem by persecution. And we're told here in verse one, and Saul was consenting unto his death. That is the death of Stephen. Remember, chapter divisions are purely utilitarian. They are not in the original text. We have a continued flowing narrative here, moving from Stephen's martyrdom into the next aspects that concern us in this history, and we are also seeing a very close connection between the martyrdom of Stephen and what is told to us here in chapter 8. Saul, as we saw in chapter 7, was a leading figure in the disputing with Stephen in the synagogues, in bringing the charges against Stephen, and then he himself was the one who was responsible for the carrying out of the judicial, or could we say mob action, killing of Stephen. In fact, when Stephen was martyred, The witnesses, who were the ones who were to cast the first stone, took off their outer garments to free up their arms for the casting of their deadly missiles at Stephen. They laid their clothes down at Saul's feet as a testimony that they were going to carry out their duty as the witnesses against Stephen. And Saul, being the one responsible, received those clothes. And we're told here that he was consenting unto this death. That is, he was pleased with the death of Stephen. He was rejoicing that this man had been killed through the gruesome method of stoning. But we're told at this time, verse 1, the time of this martyrdom of Stephen, there also broke out a general and a great persecution against the whole church that was there in Jerusalem. Up to this time, the church had experienced favor from the people. And we noted that at a number of places in our study here. But apparently, the message that was now starting to filter through that the customs of the Jews and the temple and its services were going to become obsolete, when the populace heard these things and these attacks upon these pillars of Jewish piety, they changed their opinion against the Christians. And so now this populace is stirred up against them. And leading this attack is Saul. But the death of Stephen was the beginning of this general persecution. Now, as we look at this persecution, we see then, first of all, the outbreak of the persecution came in connection with Stephen's death. Next, the leader of the persecution is clearly identified as being Saul. He's mentioned there in verse 1, and then he's also spoken of in verse 3. And particularly verse 3, we should see that he was leading this. It was for Saul was the one who was leading the charge. He was making havoc of the church. he and his officers that he had under him were entering into every house, they were hailing or dragging men and women and committing them into prison. So the leader of this persecution is Saul, Saul of Tarsus. Saul had a lot to say about this persecution later on after he became a Christian himself. In Acts 22 verses three and four, He says, giving a testimony to others, I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, the city of Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day. And I persecuted this way unto the death. binding and delivering into prisons both men and women. Also in chapter 26, again where he's telling his story, he says, I have early thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which thing I also did in Jerusalem. And many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests. And when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them often every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme, and being exceedingly mad, Against them I persecuted them, even unto strange cities." And one other reference to help us see the mind of Paul at this time. These are all his own testimony of what was in his mind, and it was not anything but hate and scorn concerning Jesus of Nazareth and those who claim that he was the Messiah. In Galatians chapter one, verses 13 to 14, he puts it this way. For you have heard of my conversation, or manner of life is what that means, in my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and wasted it. I persecuted the church of God and I wasted it. So this is the Saul that we see now doing these very things in the historical narrative. There were later testimonies. Here's where he was active in his work. Pleased with the death of Stephen, he turns his fury and hate against the other Christians there in Jerusalem. And so he was the leader of this persecution. And the one who was the leader of the persecution will later on in this book, as we will see, become the leader of the church among the Gentiles. So this persecution, next we'll look at its nature here. One thing we should see is this persecution was intense. Next, we should see it was violent. Third, it was indiscriminate. And fourth, it led to incarceration, trial, and imprisonment. It was intense. Verse one says, at that time, there was a great persecution. You see, persecution sometimes we experience can be mild. Just a look, a slighting type of word, some discomfort. and so forth that we might experience as Christian. But this is not what was taking place here. This was intense persecution. It was great persecution. The word persecution literally means to pursue after with hostile intent. And so here the Christians are being pursued with hostile intent, and it's with intensity that they're being pursued. Secondly, we see it was violent. We get this from the word in verse three, he made havoc of the church. This word havoc is a very strong term that is used in reference to ravaging or seeking to ruin. It was actually used in a literal sense of wild animals tearing to bits its victim. This is the word that is chosen by the Holy Spirit to describe Paul. He is pictured as a wild beast seeking to ravage and ruin and devastate the church. Of course, he's only seeking to do it. Can he do it? The gates of hell, Jesus says, cannot prevail against my church. But Saul in his blindness and his fury and his unbelief makes havoc, treats the Christians shamefully, inflicts injury upon them. And he does this in a very indiscriminate way. He says he enters into the houses. But here he even expresses his rage against women. He hails men and women committing them to prison. It doesn't matter who they are, where they are, what gender they are. It's an indiscriminate type of persecution. And then, fourthly, we see here it led to incarceration. When it tells us here that he committed them to prison, we have to remember what they were committed to prison for. When we talk about today prison, we usually think of that itself being the punishment, but that was not the case in the ancient world. Prison was not a punishment, at least it was not among the Jews. Prison was only a holding place until one went to trial, and after the trial, they would be then punished. And so when it says they committed them to prison, it doesn't mean that was the end of the process, it was the beginning. As we saw in chapter six and seven, Stephen was arrested and put in prison. excuse me, not Stephen, Peter and the Apostles were arrested and put in prison and they were only being held so as to be brought to trial. And so this being put into prison means the persecution here meant that they were then put up for trial and then they were condemned and punished, and the normal means of punishment, because the Jews did not have the power of execution at that time, which by the way suggests that Stephen's death was either at a period of time when Rome was looking the other way, a change of administration, or simply it was a mob action, not a judicial death, and therefore Rome would have perhaps remonstrated with the Jewish authorities, but not cracked down on them. But what we have here, the normal punishment of this time was beatings or floggings. And so if you were convicted of a crime against the Jewish religion or the Jewish faith, you would be then beaten. And so here we have men and women being taken to prison, standing before trial, and then being beaten. by the authority. So it's a very intense physical and terrible time of trial and punishment and persecution for them. It looks dark, doesn't it? It's a sad event. The church is an infant church here, just barely getting its roots down. Is this the end? Is the devil gonna be successful and squash the church in its infancy? Well, what does it say? No. It says they were all scattered. And I think all here will be calling hyperbole, meaning a great amount, for we know that later on, not long from here, there are still Christians in Jerusalem. We also know that the apostles do not leave, but it refers to the fact that in general, the church was scattered. Many, many, most, the majority, great majority of them fled Jerusalem to escape the persecution. We said they shouldn't do that. Why shouldn't they? Jesus himself said to them in the Gospel of Matthew, if they persecute you in this city, flee to the next. And so they are doing what Jesus himself instructed them to do and gave them permission to do while he was here on earth. In the context, when he said that, he was talking about how when he left, they were going to be subjected to all kinds of persecution, brought before the synagogues, beaten, and so on. And he said, if they persecute you here, flee to another city. And so remembering the words of the Savior, they do what he said. And they flee. They leave the city. Great numbers of them go. And it says they're scattered abroad. What a choice of words. This is the verb that's used of sowing seed, to scatter abroad. And this is what is happening here. The seeds of truth carried by men and women are now going to be scattered abroad. And so Saul, who thought that he was gonna confine and crush this heretical sect in Judaism, that's how he would have looked at it, is actually contributing it to its advance and its spread. And so the Christians are pictured as seed being scattered. into the regions of Judea and Samaria. Still the Jewish world, but we're outside of Jerusalem. What we note here then is the outcome of the persecution. The church being scattered and the believers evangelizing wherever they went. That's verse four. Therefore, they that were scattered abroad like seeds in the wind went everywhere Preaching the word. Preaching the word. Now notice that we're not talking here about the apostles as being the ministers, not even the seven that we call deacons. Stephen was obviously a great minister, but we're gonna look at Philip here in a minute as another one of the seven in his ministry. But this means average, normal, if you want to call it the term, Christians. All the Christians. not just the ordained ministers, using our terminology. They, under the impulse here of persecution, went out and they didn't go into hiding when they went out. They didn't decide they better cover up their faith because they don't want to be persecuted somewhere else. They went out boldly speaking, proclaiming, sharing, evangelizing by giving the word of God to the people that they encountered. You can imagine going into the regions outside of Jerusalem and someone saying, who are you? What are you doing here? Well, let me tell you why I'm here. There's a man named Jesus. You've heard of him. He was condemned by our rulers. He died upon the cross. But I'm here to tell you he lives. He was raised the third day. He is the Messiah. He is the Savior. And through him, you can find eternal life by becoming his disciple, by believing in his name. And so they went everywhere. And this is the picture of what the church should be. It's been pointed out in a non-persecution context. And on the Lord's Day, the church gathers for edification, and encouragement, instruction, and so on. Then the church leaves here and scatters abroad. We go to our places, we go to our homes, we go to our workplaces, we go to our family, we go to our friends, and we scatter then after the service like this, like seed, going into the world, and we should, like this, Wonderful example, we should go being prepared to preach the word, to speak the word, to the preacher, but don't think of some formal sermon, but just it meant, it really means to speak the good news concerning Christ as found in his word. And so the church is beginning its work here in its fullness, not just the apostles, But all the believers are going out and evangelizing wherever they happen to be. That's the outcome of the persecution. And so it was meant for evil, God intended for good. Do you think anyone, when this persecution broke forth, was saying, oh, this is great? Boy, we love persecution. We're so glad this is happening. Thank you, Lord. Well, I don't think so. It's just like when Joseph was cast into the pit and sold to the slave traders and taken down into Egypt. And then he was betrayed down there and thrown into prison. And he was saying, oh, Lord, thank you that all this is happening. This is wonderful. No, I'm sure he didn't think that. He struggled. His faith was challenged to its core. What are you doing, God? But then after it was all, brought to light, and he was raised from the prison, became ruler of Egypt, and became the means of saving countless lives, but most importantly, the lives of the people of God from the famine. He could say to his brothers, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. And so it is all through the church history when persecution comes upon the church. The enemies of God, the enemies of Christ, mean it for evil, but God uses it for good. It's for purpose. The Tertullian said, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. And here the blood of the martyr Stephen becomes the seed of the church as we even look at it here. They were scattered like seed, the witnesses who carried on, no doubt inspired by the great example of Stephen. So this is the outcome of the persecution. Now, having given us this introduction, we look now to the ministry of Philip, then Philip. Because we're told that they went everywhere preaching the word. Then Philip, and Philip is put forward here as a conspicuous example, one of the leaders of the group that went out. The apostles remained, we're told, in Jerusalem. But we are told here that Philip and perhaps the other deacons, that's the name we're giving to them, that we saw in chapter 6, were part of those who were scattered, so Philip. We encountered him in chapter 6, verse 5, and the saying pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Procurus, and so forth. And the men who were chosen, earlier it said they were to be men who were of honest report, full of the Holy Spirit, and wisdom. And here we see one of those men Philip going forth. Philip is later identified in Acts 21 8 as Philip the Evangelist. Philip the Evangelist, Acts 21 8. An evangelist comes from the word evangel which means good news. The evangelist is someone who proclaims the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. And so Philip was scattered at this time. He left Jerusalem And he went down to the city of Samaria, and there he preached Christ unto them, and the people gave heed, verse 6, to what Philip spoke, because they heard and saw the miracles which he did. And then those miracles are described in verse seven. But I want you to first look at me at the method of Philip's ministry. There are three things I note here, we should note here from the text. Number one, he went. You say, well, that's pretty obvious, but you know, sometimes the reason why we don't minister is not willing to go anywhere. We're not willing to pick up the phone. We're not willing to text. We're not willing to write a letter. We're not willing to do anything. was, I'm not really having much impact in my ministry, but we just sit there. We don't do anything. Philip's method of ministry was activity. He did something. And in the context, he went. And he went specifically, I believe, to Samaria to minister. I'm going to go to the Samaritans and minister unto them. So he went down to the city of Samaria. Though the translation here says thee, actually in the original, it is indefinite. We're not exactly sure what city it was. Some have suggested it was the city of Sychar, which was the place where Jesus himself had ministered to the woman at the well and told her that he himself was the Messiah. And that a time was coming when there would be a revolution in the worship of God and no longer would it be limited to any one place or claimed by any one people. But God would seek all men, all women who would worship Him in spirit and truth in whatever place they were. And so he goes down to the city of Samaria. Now it's important to note this step in the expanse of the gospel. Who were the Samaritans? That's the question that we need to answer to understand what would have been known by the people of that day and the significance of this ministry in Samaria and the conversion of many of the Samaritans. The first thing we need to remember is the Samaritans were a mixed race. The Samaritans came about through the historic events that are recorded in 2 Kings 17, when the Assyrian nation conquered the northern kingdom of Israel. Remember, after Solomon, Israel was divided into two parts, the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. The Northern Kingdom was incurably disobedient and rebellious, and Jeroboam set up his own religion, and the people followed it, and they came under God's condemnation. Jezebel thrived in the northern kingdom, this Canaanitish woman who led the people into all kinds of abominations and sin. And so what we had then was God sending the Assyrian nation upon the 10 northern tribes. They were conquered, many of them slaughtered, and the remaining ones were taken into captivity. a few only being left in the land. And then what was the practice of the day? The Assyrian king then took other conquered peoples, these would have been Gentiles using that general term, and they moved them into Samaria. And so we have the remaining Israelites and we have these Gentiles from whatever nation coming in and they intermarried. among themselves. And the Samaritans then became a mixed race, part Jew, part Gentile. And so as we look at Samaria here, we're looking at the fact that these were still of Jewish extraction, but not of pure blood. And so we see this advance. It's still the Jewish world, but it's part of the Jewish world that the Judeans hated. We're told in the Gospel of John in the amazing story of Jesus ministering to the Samaritans, beginning with the woman at the well, this phrase, the Samaritans, the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. They hated the Samaritans. They saw them as those who had not only mixed blood, but a rival religion. Because what happened in Samaria is they, historically, in the development of their own religion and culture, which was part based on Moses, part based on heathenism, they established their own temple at Mount Gerizim, had their own priesthood, and so on. And this was still active at the time of our text. The Samaritans had their own religion that was part based on the Old Testament and part based on other mixtures from pagan religion. So they were mixed ethnically, they were mixed religiously, but they were still part of the Jewish world. And so Philip goes down to Samaria. And it's pretty important that he did because Jesus in his great commission in chapter one said, you shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and even in the region of Samaria is the idea and in Samaria. So here we have this being fulfilled as he goes to the Samaritans, so still part of the general Jewish world, but despised by the Judeans, the Pharisees and scribes and so forth, because of the mixed nature of their race and their religion. But this does not stop Philip. He is filled with the Holy Spirit. He knows that God has so loved the world that he has given his only begotten son, that whoever believes, Samaritan included, shall not perish, but have everlasting life. And so he goes, energized and filled with the words of Christ and the great commission in his mind, he goes into Samaria, and what does he do? The second part of his method is he preached Christ to them. That's a revelation, isn't it? You say, well, of course, I mean, what else would he preach? Well, think about what a lot of people preach today. Paul put it this way, we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. So many religious leaders, even in the church, preach themselves. It's more about themselves. It's more about their church. It's more about their ministry. It's more about them. Philip wasn't concerned about himself. His message was clear. He preached Christ. And remember Christ means what? Messiah. The Messiah. The Samaritans were looking for the Messiah as well as the Jews were at this time. Again, I reference back to Jesus and the woman at the well. She spoke of when the Messiah comes, he will tell us all things. And Jesus said, the one that speaks to you is he. They were looking for the Messiah. And so he's preaching who the Messiah is. He's Christ, that is, Jesus of Nazareth. He preached the messianic work and fulfillment in Jesus. He preached Christ unto them. If we're going to be faithful, like this example given to us here in Philip, we need to preach Christ to people. Again, not preached in some preachy way, but an honest witness that Christ is the only hope of the world, the only hope for the lost and for the hurting. We need to speak Christ to people. That's to be the center of our ministry. That was Philip's method. And it's recorded for us here that all who follow after him, wherever they be, will preach Christ. Thirdly, he wrought miracles of healing. and he cast out demons. We've talked much about this, the importance of miracles and signs. That's what we have here, signs being performed. Look at verse 13. Then Simon himself believed also, and he was baptized, and he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done. This is what the purpose of the miracles were. They were signs. They were like almost a neon sign blinking and saying, hear him, hear him, he is God's minister. And what was the sign itself? The miracle. The miracle was crying out for attention, that is, attention to the message. This is the purpose of miracles in the Bible. The main purpose of Jesus' miracles of healing and of the apostles, and now Philip, was not the good of the person healed. That is a part of it for sure. Praise God, He does do those things for the good of the people that were healed and delivered. But the main purpose was to be a sign that God was giving the message that this person was speaking. And these miracles were used in this time of transition when new revelation was coming. We do not need miracles today. We have an entire history behind us of the power of the Word of God. It has been authenticated over and over and over again. I do not need a miracle to be wrought before you today as I take the book of Acts and preach it to prove to you that I'm God's messenger, or teacher is a better word, today. No, because the Bible of itself is self-authenticating. The New Testament has been proven. It is the completed revelation of God. But there was no New Testament when Philip was speaking. We are transitioning now to the new age, and miracles accompany it. And so he performs these miracles. And it gets the people's attention. The miracles were of two sorts. He healed their bodies and he healed their souls. And that is symbolic in, first of all, delivering them from demonic spirits, the unclean spirits. That when the miracles were performed in this deliverance, when the demons came out, they cried with a loud voice. This is exactly how they acted. in the time of Jesus' ministry. They're crying out in dismay, in anger, in rage, because they are defeated. It's the cry of defeat. These unclean spirits could not stand before Jesus. Now they cannot stand before Jesus' messengers. And so they cry out in defeat and despair. And they came out of many that were possessed. Not all that were possessed. Possessive demons. Demon possession was widespread in this area of the world, perhaps the whole ancient world at that time. Someone pointed out that in the ministry that we see in the book of Acts, in Judea itself, Galilee, and so on here in the book of Acts is not mentioned, for example, in Jerusalem. The Ministry of Miracles there did not mention demon possession. Some have suggested, whether this is true or not, I put it out for interest's sake, is that Jesus had pretty much swept the land of Judea, Jerusalem clean of demons during his ministry. In fact, he used that analogy in one of his teachings. He said that I'm going through the land here and casting out demons. But the problem is what's going to happen later. He said it's like when someone takes a house and they sweep it out and they clean it out and get all the bad residents out and make it just so, just sip shape as we might say. But nothing is put in its place. Well, the demons are going to come back. Here's the point. Jesus did not conduct an extensive ministry in Samaria, and the demons were still pretty strong there, but now the kingdom of God is going into Samaria, and the demons are resisting it, but they can't successfully do so, and so they're cast out. The deliverance, this is a picture of deliverance of people being delivered from all kinds of evil spirits, not demons, but the evil spirit of hatred, the evil spirits of lust, the evil spirits, you name it. When the word of God comes and the word is preached, the evil must flee. So we have physical, excuse me, we have emotional, spiritual deliverance. The other thing is the healing of the body. He healed those who had the palsies, who were lame, and so on. And so the healing of the body and soul. Now what was his method of ministry, then, putting it in terms for us? I've already spoke about the first two. He went to Samaria. We need to be active. We need to go. We need to do something to reach out to people. Our message needs to be centered in Christ. And thirdly, we need to do good works. I mean, we could summarize what certainly what Philip was doing is he was doing good works. And so the method of ministry is to go to preach Christ and do good works. Is there a better threesome? Not that I know of. Here it's set forth for us. Go, speak Christ, work good works, helping to deliverance of people's souls from the bondages of sin and so forth and their bodies to help minister to the broken and to the ill and to the sick. That's the method of his ministry. Now let's look what the effect of his ministry was. The people with one accord give heed unto those things. Philip got their attention by his preaching of Christ and the signs and wonders that he performed in their midst. And so they gave heed to what he had to say. Secondly, they rejoiced in his ministry. And after we see the wonderful things he did, we're told in verse eight, there was great joy in that city. They rejoiced in his message. They rejoiced in his miracles. And then we see also, if we're gonna jump down to 12a, the first part of 12a, because this story of Simon does intervene between verse eight and verse 12, and there's a reason for that. But first notice, they believed. They believed when they believed the preaching of Philip about the things of the kingdom of God. And that was about the Messiah, who is the king. The kingdom of God is here. The kingdom of God is among you. That's what he preached. By the way, this is important. According to some theological systems, the kingdom of God was postponed at the end of Jesus' ministry. and that he turns from the kingdom program to the church program in this interim period, and the kingdom's not the issue right now. But notice here in the book of Acts, as we leave Jerusalem, and he goes out preaching what? The kingdom of God. There's no such thing as a postponed kingdom. The kingdom of God is the center. We are servants of the king and the promotion of the kingdom of God. And so when they believed that Jesus was the Christ, the kingdom of God had come in him, salvation was his, they believed it. They believed it. And then in response to their faith, they submitted to the apostolic ordinance of baptism, which apparently Philip himself carried out. They were baptized. Notice both men and women. And so the third thing we, Third and fourth things we see is they believe the preaching and then they were baptized on the basis of their faith. But there was one other thing. Because between the ministry of Philip up to verse eight and what we see here in verse 12 is the story of Simon the sorcerer. What does it say? But there was a certain man called Simon which before time in the same city used sorcery and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that he himself was some great one to whom they all gave heed from the least to the greatest saying, this man is the great power of God. And to him they had regard because that of a long time he had bewitched them with his sorceries. But when they believed, what's the but here? What's the contrast? The contrast is they were delivered from this false teacher and religious charlatan. So many people are in the bondage of false teachers, false religions, and even those who claim to be Christian teachers who are charlatans and heretics are out there teaching. And there's so many people who are under their bondage being bewitched by them and their sorceries. But what happened here is this people who at one time, all of them it says, they were basically under this man's spell, under this man's power, under this false teacher's direction. But they're set free from the false teacher when they believed the message of Philip. And so that's what I have number five here. They were delivered from the power of Simon the sorcerer. The effect of Philip's ministry on the Samaritans are given here in five segments. I believe this is the path of salvation for all. This was the path of salvation for the Samaritans because they came to Christ and were saved. Now it doesn't mean that every single Samaritan, it doesn't say that, but many of them, a great many. If a person is going to come to Christ, these type of things are there. They listen to the message of the gospel. they listen to the message. That's the first thing, the Holy Spirit gets their attention. I know I've referred to this before in my own testimony, but I had heard the gospel for a concentrated period of time from particularly my sister in witnessing to me, but I was not interested in it. I didn't pay any heed to what she said. But God was working. And she invited me to Twin Valley Bible Chapel one Sunday, and I decided to go just to get her off of my back, as we would say. And I went with the wrong motives and so forth. When Pastor Palmer got up and began to preach the word of God, I'm telling you, I gave heed to his message. I was locked in. I was enthralled. Not because the change had happened to me, but God was working. And anyone who has ever, is Christian, knows a time in their life they gave heed to the message. They may have heard it hundreds and thousands of times, even growing up in a Christian home, but there comes a time where that really grips them and they give heed to it for real and for truth. Has that ever happened to you? Oh, this message, I've got to listen to it. This is life. My life, my future is all bound up in what this message is. And so those who come to Christ give heed to the message. And also, as that message is being spoken and the ministry is being performed, a joy begins to fill up in their heart. Hope begins to well up. You mean there's hope for me? You mean I can have my sins forgiven? There's a joy that accompanies this. And that leads to faith. Believing the preaching of the gospel, the kingdom of God. That faith is the faith that saves because it was based on a true giving of heed to the message, a true joy welling up in the heart of hope in that salvation that is proclaimed. It's interesting to read different people's testimony on that. I love Spurgeon's testimony on that and how he couldn't get a hold of salvation. That one morning with that unlettered preacher was speaking and he was just locked into that message and all of a sudden the weight began to fall away and the joy began to come up in his heart that there was hope for him and he saw in Christ his salvation and he believed. But then what follows next? Baptism. Baptism is the outward testimony of the inward faith. It is part of the Great Commission. You're to preach the gospel and baptize those who believe. And so true saving faith begins with giving heed, rejoicing in the message, believing the preaching, and then following through with Christian baptism. And all of that means you will be delivered from the powers of darkness, the powers of the flesh, the powers of the world. That's the message of Christianity, and that's the path upon which it proceeds. Now we'll look at the case of Simon Magnus and conclude that for today. That'll conclude our study here for today. The case of Simon Magnus. Notice the word, I'm putting the name Magus on there, M-A-G-U-S. There is no particular name there. Let me explain what I'm talking about here. The word translated here sorcery in our passage comes from the Greek word magos. And the sorcerer, or the magos, referred to a magician. Our English word magician comes from the Greek word magos. And so this was someone who used sorcery. And so Simon could be called the sorcerer or Simon Magus. And that's a common way in which he's been referred to in church history. And so I'm using that title here today to differentiate him from any other Simon that may be in the Bible. The case of Simon Magus. Magus, let's read it. I already read it in connection with the people being delivered from him, but now let's look at it for its own sake. But there was a certain man called Simon, which before time in the same city used sorcery and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one to whom they all gave heed. from the least to the greatest, saying, this man is the great power of God. And to him they had regard, because out of a long time he had bewitched them with sorceries. But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Then Simon himself believed also. And when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done. I want to look at four things here concerning this case. Number one, I want us to note his diabolical method of fraud. What is it? Sorcery. Secondly, his devious effect on the Samaritans. He bewitched them. Thirdly, his lofty claims concerning himself. And then number four, his surprising response to the ministry of Philip. That surprising response has to be looked at in much more detail in verses 18 to 24, which we will not deal with here today. But we just wanna look at this introduction of this Simon Magus. First of all, we're told here that there was a certain man called Simon. Now, first of all, that name itself tells us something about him. Simon is a Jewish name. He's ministering, if you want to use the term, in Samaria. It's probably safe, but not sure, to deduce that he himself was a Samaritan. Perhaps not, but I believe he was a Jew. Here we have the beginning of the ministry outside of Jerusalem, and there on the ground is one of Satan's choice servants. It's interesting that later on, if you'll turn to Acts 13, when Paul and Barnabas begin their ministry to the Gentile world on their first missionary journey, they meet up with someone who I think is a brother, not literal brother, but compatriot in the same deceptive work. They meet up with someone. Here's how he's described. 13.5, and when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews, and they had also John to their minister. And when they had gone through the Isle of Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, Magos, same word used in our passage, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-Jesus, or the son of Joshua. Which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man, who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God. But El- amiss, the sorcerer, for so is his name by interpretation, withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. And Saul said, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes upon him, and said, O fool of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, the enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? I believe the description given here is going to be helpful for us in understanding this Simon Fellow, probably of the same description. He was a certain sorcerer, he was a false prophet, he was a Jew, and his name was of the Jewish background, son of Joshua bar Jesus. Notice also he had great impact on the very greatest on the island, just like Simon did here, where even the greatest gave heed to him. Here we have Sergius Paulus, who's even a prudent man, being bewitched by this sorcerer bar Jesus. And he was a man full of subtlety and mischief. He was a child of the devil. I believe that is the type of person we're dealing with here. In this passage, the fact that he was in Samaria and that he was bringing about such an effect, and remember the Samaritans had a religion that was partially tied into the Old Testament, that he too was a false prophet. He claimed to be a great one from God who would give to them healings, prophecies, and so on. But he was one who was not just a false prophet, he was one who was actually a servant of the evil one. He used sorcery in his work. And the word sorcery is the word from which we get our word magic. Again, magi, magic, magos, magician, all come from the same word. And by this time in the history, the word referred to a whole group of people who claimed to be representatives of God, pagan God or the God of Israel or whatever, who went around and they sought to make a living by their deceptions on the people. Some of them may not have thought they were giving deceptions, but nonetheless, their motivation was not holy. In fact, we'll see later on that Simon was someone who was willing to pay money for the power to grant the Holy Spirit. That's in the later part of our section here. Because money was at the basis of this man and these other men's work. They were paid for it. They were always looking to line their pockets by their religion. And so they used some sort of magic. What this involved we are not sure. We know that they often involved themselves in occult practices. They interpreted dreams. read the stars, which we call today the horoscopes, and so on. And they claimed that they could cast spells and curses on people or deliver people from spells and curses. They claimed to be at times philosophers and religious philosophers and so on. They were quite a mixed bag. But what we're told here is this man used these dark arts of sorcery to bewitch the people, to amaze the people and bring them under his power. He put himself out as being a great man. He had a message to speak and he had his own signs and wonders that he used, but the signs and wonders he used were nothing compared to Philip and that's why he himself was amazed when he saw what Philip was doing. The sad thing is here is the world today is filled with Simon type people. who claim to be prophets of God. You can find them all over the internet, on your television screen, and they claim to be great ones from God. Notice what we see here about this man. Not only did he have this diabolical method of deception, sorcery, his effect upon the Samaritans was he held them under his power by his bewitching ways. And he also made lofty claims concerning himself, as it says here in verse 9. He put out that he himself was a great one. That's what he preached. He preached to Simon. Who did Philip preach? Philip preached Christ. Philip was not concerned about himself. He was not concerned about money. He was not concerned about, he was there to minister. But this man was filled with pride and it was about him. It's about Simon. Whenever you see anyone who claims to be a Christian minister and you start to discern that the ministry is about them, look out. When they put themselves forward as being great ones, great preachers, great counselors, great conference men, great this and great that, great evangelist, run, turn off the screen, whenever that spirit is discerned, because they're Simonist type people. And so he made lofty claims concerning himself. And then there's this surprising response to the ministry of Philip. It's surprising at this point, for later on in this text, we will look at what was really at work here in this man, but it says he believed. Yes, he believed. In fact, the same word used of the belief of the Samaritans who were baptized. But what is faith? What is belief? Can there be such a thing as a false faith or imperfect faith? I think very much that is the case. It is my belief that what we have here in Simon was not that of a saving faith. Remember the parable of the sower that Jesus taught. The sower goes forth to sow the seed. Philip is our sower here. And there's different kinds of soil upon which the gospel seed will fall. And of those four soils, only one of them is true faith described. All the other three are not. You see, faith involves hearing a message, giving intellectual assent to that message. But here's the sticker, surrendering to that message, surrendering yourself to it, letting it become the dominant force in your life. That is when the gospel is preached, let Christ be your Lord. A saving faith involves not only, yeah, I believe Jesus lived. Yeah, I believe he died on the cross. I even believe he rose from the dead, but he's not gonna be my Lord. If that's the attitude of the heart, that faith is not real. This is the tragedy of so much evangelistic preaching today. Jesus is put forward as a panacea for all people's problems, and they're invited to come and get their problems solved, and they say, yeah, great, I'll take it. But there's no repentance, there's no lordship, there's no true saving faith. In James' epistle, he talks about true faith has works, while a false faith doesn't. He even says the demons believe and tremble. So the fact that Simon here is said to believe, perhaps he's a demon who believes, as it were. And later on, we will see he trembles when he finds out that his kind of faith is a dangerous kind of faith. And so we have this surprising response. So here we have the case of Simon Magus. Here we have the type of false teachers that are so at work in the world today. Here is the warning. As the church goes forward, it's going to encounter such people. And I believe Simon faith here is inspired not of the Holy Spirit, but the evil spirit. What we have at work here, and this will come out clearer next week, is Satan is seeking here at this strategic point in the history of the church to plant a choice tear right in the middle of the wheat field. Satan is the one behind this faith. Hey, Simon, you ought to latch on to this. You think you're making good money now and you have powers now? Buy into this and you'll go forward even greater. You'll even be considered a greater power than you are now. And so he falls prey to this, believes, and notice that he believes because he's amazed at the miracles and signs that are done. He doesn't believe because he gives attention and drawn to the message of Christ's forgiveness of sins, but he's a imposter. So this morning we have looked here at some very important things. The scattering of the church by persecution. We've seen how God uses persecution to get the church active. God uses many things to get you and I active. One of them is persecution. One of them is opposition to the message. But we saw that persecution, instead of defeating the church, God has used it, Christ has used it for its advance throughout history. Then we looked at the evangelistic ministry of Philip. These things are given for our instruction. These are patterns and examples, just like the Old Testament was according to Paul, so the history of the New Testament is. Philip's ministry is our method that we need to adopt. Do, be active if you're going to be a servant of Christ. Reach out, do something. And then when you get the opportunity, speak of Christ to others. of the Messiah, of his salvation, and look for opportunities to do good works, to help people both in body and soul. And so this is his ministry. We saw that really the effect of Philbist ministry is the pattern of true conversion. The person who is truly converted first gives heed to the message, joy begins to fill their hearts, and then this leads them to true saving faith, and they're baptized on the basis of their faith. And then they are delivered from the powers of darkness into the power of Christ. And then Simon Magus, beware of those types of individuals. We have twice in the Book of Acts this kind of person, who is a false prophet, who is a deceiver, who is using bewitching methods, who might be very clever, and apparently Simon was very clever. The problem with the false teachers are not that they're buffoons, it's because they're very clever. They're very persuasive. Satan doesn't get a buffoon to put forward his message, Except in a room of buffoons who are drunk or something like that. But normally he takes a very talented person. The opposition is formidable. They can be the most eloquent speaker you have ever heard. They can say the most spiritual and uplifting things you've ever heard. But they're using these things to bewitch you. To keep you from the truth, beware of the Simon Maguses that are out there. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for the glory of the book of Acts and for the message that we've received today from it. Bless it, we ask in Jesus' name.