Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. It is wonderful
that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, either
by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray
for us that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself?
The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, we really,
I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the Bible,
they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will
do what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a
non-Christian checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't
hesitate to send us questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with
the types of things that you're really struggling with. So God bless.
Standing, let's bow our heads in prayer for a moment.
Father, we know from your Word that evil spirits often gather even in times when Christians gather
in worship. And we know, Father, that at different times in our week and in our day, and maybe even in
a very powerful way, Father, these evil spirits speak slander and lies to us and entice us and tempt us
and belittle us and harm us. So Father, I stand before you with no power in or of myself, but I am your
child by adoption and grace. And Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask that any demons that are present to
us and those online, that Father, I ask in the name of Jesus that you would bind and silence those
demons and take them far from this place, never to return. And that, Father, none of us would be left
empty, but that your Holy Spirit might move within us and among us with might and power and deep
conviction, that your Son's hand of grace would be upon us, and that your Holy Word and your Holy
Gospel would enter very deeply into us, so that we might be free to love you and to worthily magnify
your Holy Name. And we ask these things in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.
Please be seated. For some of you may be present or online. I might have shocked you with that prayer
a little bit, but I prayed the prayer, both because it's a good prayer to pray, and also because our
scripture text is going to talk about topics like this. In fact, our scripture text today is going to
look at two great enmities, ancient enmities that are dealt with by the gospel. And so, if you
would help me and help yourselves, if you open your Bibles, we're going to look at Acts chapter 8,
beginning at the first verse, Acts chapter 8, the first verse, as we continue our way through the
book of Acts. Now, just before I start reading this, two things of context. We haven't looked at Acts for
a couple of weeks now. The first is, this is an eyewitness-based history of the first 30 years,
approximately, of the Jesus movement that started after the death and resurrection and ascension of
Jesus. And it's an eyewitness history, eyewitness-based history, written when many eyewitnesses
were still alive. And so, one of the things which is remarkable about this book is that it withstood
whatever challenges there would have been from eyewitnesses. It means we can have a high degree
of confidence in it. And the second thing is that immediately before this, we were told the story
of Stephen, the very first person who was killed for being a Christian. And that's what immediately
goes just before it. And just to sort of catch you up on it, just went on right before this is at the end
of, you know, how Stephen was stoned to death. And as Stephen is being stoned to death, the people doing
the stoning bring their cloaks and robes and leave them with a young man by the name of Saul,
who most people nowadays know by his Greek name. Saul would have been his Hebrew name or Jewish name,
and Paul would have been his Greek name or Roman name. And the language implies that one of the guys
organizing the stoning was this guy, Paul. And that's then how this chapter we're beginning,
takes right on from that. This is what it says in verse one. And Saul, whom we know as Paul,
and who we know eventually wrote a large part of the New Testament, that's the person that we're
talking about, Paul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution
against the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions 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, just two things about this. We're going to talk about Saul more
later. We're going to read about his conversion a couple of chapters after this. In fact,
the very next chapter is how this man goes from being such a hater and a murderer to becoming a
Christian. And we know from other places in the book of Acts that this ravaging include killing people.
Paul laments in his letters and later on the Acts that he was responsible for killing men and women
in the coming out of his great hatred of these Christians. And there's another thing which is
important for the rest of the book of Acts and very important for us. I don't know if anybody here
is Jewish. If you are, welcome. If you're watching, welcome. But we only became Christians because
somebody told us about Christ. And somebody told them and somebody told them and somebody told them
and somebody told them. And you go all the way back and you get back to the early apostles.
And some of those people who told people who told people had to be what we now call missionaries.
There's been this profound missionary expansion of the church. And one of the things in this story,
this little brief introduction, which is very significant, and it's probably something that we don't
reflect upon enough in our own lives. What Paul did and the other people involved in this was an evil.
And nowhere in the Bible is that evil diminished. They say, oh, you know, it wasn't that bad.
And in no ways do they say, well, because something good came out of it, it's not that. No, no, no, no.
What they did was horrific and wrong. And there's never any moral confusion around that.
But God used this evil act, which was designed to try to stop Christianity from growing.
And God used that to grow the Christian movement. God used the evil for good purposes.
In fact, what had happened is that when Jesus had ascended, if you go back and read the story,
he said, listen, you guys, you need to go. Of course, you have to tell people about me in Jerusalem.
But then after that, you need to go to Judea. And then after that, you need to go to Samaria.
And then after that, you have to go to every single people group in the world.
And here a year or so after this, they're all still in Jerusalem. They haven't been moving.
And so God uses this terrible evil to scatter the church. Look again at what it says here.
And they were all scattered throughout the regions. All probably just is a bit of a hyperbole,
but it means many, many, many, many Christians scattered to Judea and Samaria.
And what happened when they went scattered? They got scattered. Well, that explained in verse 4.
Now, those who were scattered went about preaching the word. And that's a bit of an unfortunate word.
Really what they say, it's the first place in the, not the first place, it's one of the places in the book of Acts where,
well, basically what it means literally is they went gospeling.
They just went gospeling. They shared the gospel as they went. Just ordinary people.
You know, this is very important as well. It wasn't as if the apostles sat down and came up with a grand strategy
and did fundraising and got prayer partners and organized mission teams and trained them.
No, no. They just all went. And in a sense, what happens is it's organic, what we would now call organic growth.
These people flee, but rather than fleeing and being terrified about telling anybody about Jesus and what he had done for them,
how he, the life he lived, the miracles he performed, the brilliance of his teaching,
the genius of his teaching, his death upon the cross, his resurrection, his ascension, the Holy Spirit,
rather than being silent about that, they told people about it.
That's what they did. Just ordinary people like you and me.
And now what Luke, the writer of this eyewitness-based history does, is he gives one particular example,
and he does this particular example.
I'm going to talk about one type of ancient enmity, which is also discussed here,
but because it deals with another very, very, very important ancient enmity,
and something that happens in this forever changes the nature of the church and the Christian movement.
Well, what is it? Let's look at verse 5.
Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ.
And the crowds, with one accord, paid attention to what was being said by Philip
when they heard him and saw the signs that he did.
For even spirits, crying out with a loud voice,
for, sorry, for unclean spirits or evil spirits or demons,
crying out with a loud voice came out of many who had them,
and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.
So there was much joy in that city.
Now just sort of pause here for a second.
The word sign is an easy word for us to be a bit confused about.
If you talk to many people, many secular people, they'll say,
you know, I took it as a bit of a sign that I should do this, you know.
I'd been thinking about what to do, and then I was walking down the street,
and I bumped into a person, and they started talking to me about, you know, this university.
I took it as a sign that that's the university I should be going to.
Or, you know, I was trying to figure out what to do about my investments,
and then I came upon this article, and I took that as a sign that that's how I,
you know, that's where I should put my money, and that's why it's been so successful.
So many people in our culture still talk about signs,
and it's a very ancient type of idea.
And really what our secular friends and neighbors are referring to are omens.
That's a very old word, that there's some omen,
some communication that gives them a direction that they should go.
Many Christians inadvertently talk like pagans looking for omens,
and the Bible never promises Christians omens to give them direction like that,
at least not in that particular sense.
But what Luke is talking about here are miracles,
and he's emphasizing something which is very important for us as Canadians to get our minds around,
because we Canadians have developed into a type of people
where we have boxes inside of our mind,
and the boxes are sort of different areas of thinking or believing,
and they don't communicate with each other.
And there's been other times in history where human beings have been like that,
but there's been times, especially under the influence of Christianity,
where it's not like that,
where you want to have just one mind, so to speak,
one way of thinking.
And so what it's saying is,
because if you think about it,
and I've talked about this before,
I'm not going to talk about it very much.
Like, if Jesus really did rise from the dead,
that's a miracle, and it's also a sign.
It points to something.
It has meaning.
And to my friends who are watching,
or those of you who are here,
it means that Islam's not true.
It means that Buddhism isn't true.
It means that Hinduism isn't true.
It means that what most of us are taught,
and what our culture primarily tries to talk about,
which is that basically there's just a type of secular world
where there's just matter and energy and people
that you can touch and feel,
that that's wrong.
It's incomplete.
Islam and Buddhism and Hinduism are incomplete in significant ways.
Native spirituality is not true.
Well, why?
Well, because if that actually happened,
it's not just sort of like you have a little box here
for religious stuff or, you know, that type of stuff.
You have another box here for how you do science,
and then you have another box over here
about how you do finances,
and another box over here, another box over here,
and how you think about politics,
and they're all separate boxes,
and they never talk to each other.
That's to live an unexamined life.
If these miracles have happened,
it points to something.
There's a particular meaning.
And we're going to talk about that a little bit more in a moment.
And that's why Luke and some of the different Bible writers,
sometimes they'll use the word for miracle,
but other times they'll use the word sign
to refer to the miracle.
Now, let's continue,
because we're all in the middle of this story,
and I've just said there's much joy in that place, right?
Philip has come.
He's telling, gospling.
He's telling people about Jesus.
And as he's telling people about Jesus,
he's also dealing with unclean spirits
that have been oppressing or even possessing human beings,
and he prays and casts them out.
And he's also been doing works of healing.
In verse 9,
but there was a man named Simon
who had previously practiced magic in the city
and amazed the people of Samaria,
saying that he himself was somebody great.
They all paid attention to him
from the least to the greatest,
saying,
this man is the power of God that is called great.
And they paid attention to him
because for a long time
he had amazed them with his magic.
But when they believed Philip
as he preached the good news
about the kingdom of God
in the name of Jesus Christ,
they were baptized,
both men and women.
Now, just sort of pause here.
And the word magic is an unfortunate word.
It's very literal.
But it's not like what you go,
if you go to Las Vegas,
I've never been to Las Vegas,
but if you go to Las Vegas,
I take it that there's lots of people
who do magic shows.
In fact, actually,
you'll notice that the stage
is set up a bit different than it was last.
It's completely empty.
Last week there was some curtains
about halfway through the stage.
That was because for the last week,
you know, for a week and a half,
there were magic shows
every evening here
at the Ottawa Little Theatre.
In fact, last week,
I met the magician,
saw his gadgets
that were all sort of stacked up
all around there.
And they do magic shows, right?
Try to, you know,
cut people in half
and all that type of stuff.
That's not what's meant here.
What's meant is sorcery.
Sorcery.
What's meant is dealing
with supernatural or spiritual beings
to affect things that we see and touch,
to affect human beings
and affect events.
It's curses and supposed blessings,
but it's not curses and blessings
as Christians understand them.
It's by Philip had an ability
to deal with supernatural
or spiritual beings.
Now, just, we're going to,
let's just park here for a second.
So the first thing I want to say
is that I know that
in a Canadian context,
I don't know where you all are
in terms of being a Christian or not,
and I don't know,
especially for those of you who are online,
there's two different fundamental ways
that Canadians look at this.
There's a very significant number
of Canadians who basically just say,
la, la, la, la, la,
yeah, yeah, yeah,
angels, demons,
blah, blah, blah, blah,
that's just all mystical gobbledygook.
It doesn't exist.
We believe in science.
We believe in reason
and stuff like that.
It's just complete nonsense.
So what I'm going to say next,
and you can send me an email if you want.
Well, maybe in the weeks ahead,
I'll talk to you about this.
I'm not talking to you right now.
I'm going to talk to that other
very significant part of Canadian population
that does believe that there are,
in fact, spiritual or supernatural beings,
which is a very, very significant number
of Canadians who believe in casting spells,
are okay with a seance,
believe there's ways to use talismans
to ward off curses
or attacks by evil spirits,
or to use crystals
to channel spiritual powers,
supernatural powers,
and there's a large number of Canadians
who are like that.
One of my great failures
in sharing,
trying to talk about Jesus with people,
and if by chance he's watching,
I give a shout out to you.
There's this fellow that I had
for three months or so,
four months,
I had very deep conversations with him
about the Christian faith,
and this fellow had grown up
in a completely atheistic culture.
He'd grown up on the other side
of the Iron Curtain,
and he had a PhD in nuclear energy,
and he was very, very good friends
with another person in the coffee shop
who was a very, very Christopher Hitchens
type of atheist,
very public,
and I'd had lots of conversations with him,
and the two of them were good friends.
So I actually,
for the first three months,
I talked to this fellow,
we'll call him Bob,
as if he was an atheist.
I mean, why not?
He grew up in a communist country,
he had a PhD in nuclear physics,
and it looked like he was great friends
with this Christopher Hitchens,
Richard Dawkins type atheist,
and so I would be talking to him
about things,
and our conversations
were always sort of convoluted,
and then one day,
it dawned on me,
and I asked him directly,
he said,
no, no, I'm not an atheist.
I grew up with all that stuff,
and it's bankrupt.
It's completely wrong.
I've completely and utterly rejected it.
And I went, oh.
In fact, he really believed
in all sorts of spiritual beings.
I've been trying to talk to him
thinking it was this,
but he was actually
completely and utterly different.
And in a sense,
I don't want to make that mistake here.
I know that there are Canadians
who believe in all of these types of things.
So just a couple of things.
And by the way,
one of the reasons,
and I could see this with my friend,
and I think it's one of the reasons
that people start to investigate
supernatural powers and spiritual beings,
that many people sense
the meaninglessness
of a purely secular world.
And many people, I think,
feel a type of loneliness.
They don't want to inhabit a world
where there's just human beings
that you can see and touch.
They like the idea
that there might be aliens
that we might someday meet.
They like the idea
that there could be angels
or good spirits
that could help them.
They like the idea
that there's a type
of a thickness to reality
rather than just this thin gruel
of thinking that all that exists
is what we can touch and feel.
And they like that.
They long for it.
And one of the things
that you see here
is that the gospel
very humbly presents the idea
that your longing
for something more
is a good longing.
but it's ultimately
a longing for God,
for the triune God,
for your creator.
And once you come
to the creator
and are reconciled to him,
you realize that, in fact,
the world is more
than matter and energy.
There is a God
who hears your prayers
and you can pray to him.
And you can pray to him
about both the really big things
in your life
and the very, very small things
in your life.
And there is a God
who actually hears you.
And there are angels
that intervene,
but there's also,
in fact,
hostile spiritual beings,
which we Christians
call demons.
When Christ is your,
when the message
that Christ is your savior
is proclaimed,
it's not the case
that more people
start to interact
with the spirit world.
In fact,
you see in this story
it's the complete opposite.
as Jesus is proclaimed
as savior and Lord,
as he's proclaimed
from having,
being able to perform miracles
and that even though
he performed miracles
and he could have avoided
dying on the cross,
it means for certain
that when he died on the cross,
he died on the cross
purely because he loved you.
People can put two and two together.
If Jesus was able
to calm the storm
and do that,
then surely he could make it
that the soldiers
couldn't put him on a cross.
So he had to have died
voluntarily on the cross
purely and utterly
because he loves you.
And when he rises from the dead,
then you know
there has to be,
in fact,
a God that exists
and you listen to why
Jesus said he was doing
what he was doing
and what he was all about
and you realize
that Jesus has come
from the creator
of all things
and the sustainer
of all things
on a rescue mission
to rescue you
because God loves you.
He's for you.
He wants you to know him.
He wants you to know him
and all the freedom
that he brings.
And so when the gospel
is proclaimed,
it's not that more people
want to have dealings
with whatever
the spiritual world is.
They come to understand
that there is a devil,
that there are demons.
And as the gospel
is proclaimed,
people are delivered
from demonic oppression
and possession.
and influence.
That's what the gospel does.
Christ has defeated Satan.
His doom is certain.
He still has power,
but his doom
is absolutely certain.
This is the first
of the ancient hostilities
which is talked about
in this story.
That ever from the time
of the Garden of Eden,
there are unseen powers
and forces
and beings
who hate human beings.
And it is foolish
for human beings
to think that they can deal
with such beings
and tame them.
these evil spirits
will appear
as light,
as white,
like white magic
versus dark magic,
black magic,
good magic.
They'll appear that way,
but what's happening
is that we aren't,
no human being
is actually taming
these beings.
No human being
can do that.
These evil spiritual beings
are taming you,
oppressing you,
making you
hate yourself
and harm yourself
and hate others
and break up your family
and see the world
as a dark place.
and the light of Christ
and the love of Christ
and the goodness of Christ
and the mercy of Christ
and the truth of Christ
comes into your life
to deliver you
from all of that
because Christ is for you.
And so there's this
ancient hostility
which we need
to be aware of.
By the way,
just as a bit of an aside
on it,
you know,
C.S. Lewis
talked about how
there's two extremes.
It's a very wise way
of talking about it.
There are Christians
who see demons everywhere
and they talk about
like the demon of smoking
and all that
and they talk about
demons too much.
They actually end up
almost having
a type of paganist,
pagan understanding
of the world.
The other extreme,
which is the one
that most of us
are probably tempted to,
is to never think
of there ever being
anything demonic
affecting our lives
or the lives of others.
And that's also
an improper extreme.
we live as if
we're rationalists
or naturalists
or technocrats.
And I just want
to encourage you
to pray for me
and us to pray
for each other
that the Lord
would give us
a discernment.
Sometimes what
we're dealing with
in our life
is in fact
a type of demonic attack.
Sometimes what we're
dealing with
in high places
or low places
or in work situations
or in cultural situations
is in fact
a type of demonic attack.
And we need
to be willing
to be seen
as being
ignorant fundamentalists,
knuckle-dragging
charismatics,
and pray into it.
the devil will create
all sorts of
odd ways
for us to think
about ourselves
so that we won't
want to actually
just do something
simple like this
as to pray
that in the name
of Jesus
whatever spiritual
beings,
demons,
are involved
that we ask
the Father
in the name
of Jesus
to bind them
and cast them out
and that the power
of Christ
will come instead.
be a fool
for Christ.
It doesn't necessarily
mean you have to do it
in public.
It means maybe
in your private prayers
that that's how
you not only
have to ask
the Father
for wisdom
about what to say
but you need
to pray into it.
Now there's
a very,
very
other
big thing
which is going on
which I haven't
talked about
because I want
to get to the point
that makes it
very obvious
and that's what
it comes up here
a little bit later.
Let's,
I think,
I can't remember
where I left off
in reading.
Let's read verse 11
and they paid attention
to him,
that Simon,
for a long time
because he amazed
them with his magic
but when they believed
Philip as he preached
the 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
the signs
and miracles
performed
he was amazed.
See here we see
that the power
of the true
and living God
is greater
than any demon
than the devil
himself.
Philip,
a purveyor,
one who frequented
the company
of demons
and amazed
people
is completely
gobstruck,
amazed
when he sees
the Holy Spirit
move and work.
Verse 14,
Now,
when the apostles
of 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 he had not,
that is the Holy Spirit
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
and they received
the Holy Spirit.
Now,
when Simon saw
that the Holy Spirit
had been given
through the lay
in honor of the
apostles' hand
he offered the money
and we'll just sort
of pause there.
So this is a very
puzzling text
and even with,
if those of us
who are,
I'm not going to talk
about how there's
two different groups
within the Christian world
that take this text
and build a lot
of doctrine on it.
I'm going to say
they're both wrong.
That's not what
the text is saying.
But even if you read
the book of Acts,
it's a very odd text.
If you go back
and read Acts chapter 2,
the very, very first
Christian sermon
on the day of Pentecost,
Peter says that if you,
you know,
what's just happened,
are we all speaking
all these languages
and all of these things,
it's all because
Joel has been fulfilled
and the Holy Spirit
has fallen upon us
and that's why
these things are happening.
And then Peter says
at the end,
if you give your life
to Christ,
you also will receive
the Holy Spirit.
So here we have
a whole pile of believers.
They've given their life
to Christ.
They've been baptized.
And somehow or another,
there is this perception
they haven't received
the Holy Spirit.
So what on earth
is going on?
Now,
I think
the way to understand
that is this,
and this is the second
great enmity
that's in the text.
You see,
if the gospel
is going to go
to the ends of the earth,
that means,
and to every single
people group
on the planet,
it means it's going
to go to people groups,
let's just be honest,
that we hate and detest.
I know you're good Canadians
and we don't hate
or detest anybody,
but yeah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
you're just not being honest.
Okay,
all I have to say
for those of you
who spend all your time
watching the CBC,
you've got to go
to people who wear
MAGA hats.
Okay?
You know,
for those of you
who like watching MAGA hats,
you've got to go
and you've got to go
to people who have
really multicolored hair
and lots of things
and are very, very pretty.
You have to share
the gospel with them,
okay?
And it doesn't matter.
You can just multiply things.
I've had,
you know,
we've had a multicultural
congregation downtown
for quite a few years
and I've talked to people.
I remember talking
to one woman
and I said,
there's only this other
person's Romanian
and she's asked his name
and when it turned out
he was Russian-Romanian,
you could just see
her whole body tense up
that she didn't want
to talk to him.
I remember talking
to this one couple
who were Czech
and I said,
oh,
there's this other person
from Czechoslovakia
and they asked their name
and they said,
oh,
they're Slovak
and they,
you could just see
they all tensed up.
The Czechs don't like
the Slovaks
and vice versa.
You know,
West Germans
don't like East Germans.
I mean,
there's just this,
in the case of
what's going on here
between Samaria
and Jewish people
in Jerusalem,
there's two different
ways to count it.
One way to count it
is a thousand years
of enmity.
One thousand years
of enmity.
And that thousand
comes because,
you know,
the United States
are friends to the south.
They had a big civil war.
Many,
many people died.
It ended up,
though,
that the country
was united.
The North won.
The country was united
under the North.
And the United States
is just one country today.
But what happened
is just after Solomon died,
there was a civil war
in what was Israel.
And that war
never came,
like,
that never came to an end.
They never,
the two groups
never merged
into one country.
And for 300 years,
there was frequent warfare
between the north
and the south.
And then,
in the 700 BCs,
the northern kingdom
was taken over
by Assyria.
And what the Assyrians did,
which is a very common thing
throughout history,
is they took a whole pile
of the Jewish people
and they scattered them around
throughout the Assyrian Empire.
And they brought people
from other places
that they'd conquered
and they put them there
in the northern kingdom.
So now you had a mixture
of pagans and Jews
living in what used to be
the northern part of Israel.
And they intermarried
and their religions
became intermingled.
And so there's 700 years
where the southern kingdom,
Jerusalem,
viewed these other people,
now called Samaritans,
as being half-Jewish,
pagans,
everything that they despised.
And there were 700 years
of hostility.
I don't know how many of you
have ever had to go
to marriage counseling.
One of the things
they talk about
in marriage counseling is,
so you know,
the man and the woman,
they come into
the marriage counseling
and maybe not visible
to the other person,
they come pulling
a whole pile of resentments
about the other person.
One person I heard
use the analogy,
it's as if they're pulling
a little red wagon
stacked up with resentments.
And you both come
to the session
pulling your little wagons
of resentments
piled high.
Well, imagine if you had
700 years of resentments.
So the real danger was
that these Samaritans
would become Christians
and they would become
Samaritan Christians,
that from that point
in time on,
there would be
Samaritan Christians
and Jewish Christians.
Separate churches,
that dividing wall
of hostility and estrangement
between Samaritans
and between the Jewish people
would not be removed.
In fact,
it could even grow on,
it might still be there today
amongst those
who are Christians.
So I think what happened
is that God did not want
that to happen.
I mean,
we might loosely talk
about Canadian Christians
and Nigerian Christians
or Indonesian Christians,
but we don't really mean it
in any type of serious way.
If we do,
it's a serious error.
There's no hyphenated Christians.
There's just Christians.
That's all there is.
There's just Christians.
And so what God did,
somehow or another,
Philip had a discernment.
Our charismatic friends
would call it maybe
a word of knowledge,
that these Samaritans
hadn't received the Holy Spirit.
We're not told how Philip
came to that conclusion,
but he tested.
He wanted to test it.
So Peter and John come down.
They do an examination.
They also come to this perception,
somehow or another,
that the Holy Spirit
hasn't fallen.
And Peter and John
are the two leading apostles.
And so they pray.
And as they pray,
the Holy Spirit
falls upon the Samaritans.
And the Bible doesn't say
how they know that.
They just say,
the Bible just says,
if you go back and look at the text,
that they see something.
Now here,
I'm just going to speculate.
Okay?
It's not the Bible.
It's just George speculating.
If you go back
and you read the first book
that Luke wrote
called the Gospel of Luke,
there's a scene in there
where John is one of two people,
but probably with the support
of all the apostles,
a Samaritan village
has treated Jesus badly.
So John says,
and his brother says to Jesus,
can we call down fire from heaven
and have this place destroyed?
And Jesus says, no.
I don't know.
This is my speculation.
You know,
in the day of Pentecost,
one of the signs
that the Holy Spirit had fallen
was that tongues of fire
came and fell
on everybody in the room.
And I wonder
if what they saw
was that John
finally got to call down fire
from heaven.
But it wasn't fire of destruction.
It was the fire
of the Holy Spirit.
And they had
incontrovertible proof
that the same Holy Spirit
that fell
because they were believers
in Jesus in Jerusalem,
the same Holy Spirit
that came upon
every Jewish Christian.
It's exactly
the same Holy Spirit
that falls
when the same gospel
is preached to Samaritans.
And you're going to see
something very similar
when the next
great estrangement
happens in chapter 10
when the gospel comes
to the first pagans
to believe.
And you're going to see
something very similar there.
It has to have an apostle
and there's something
that makes it
clear
that these ancient divisions
in the gospel
have come to an end.
You see,
there's one creator.
There is one creator.
One triune God
has created all things,
including human beings.
And when human beings fell,
we needed God to save us.
And God does save us.
He sends his son.
He sends one savior
to one humanity.
And that means
there's only one gospel.
There's not a Muslim gospel,
a Buddhist gospel,
an African gospel,
a Canadian gospel,
a European gospel,
and Chinese gospel.
There's just one savior
and just one gospel.
And when we hear that gospel
and receive Jesus
as our savior,
he puts us into one kingdom.
One kingdom.
There's not gay Christians
and straight Christians.
There's just Christians.
When I was organizing
a Dig and Delve event
and apologetics
about this issue
and somebody said to me,
well, what do you call
a gay Christian
if you don't call him
a gay Christian?
And I said I call him my brother.
That's what I call him.
My brother.
He's my brother in Christ.
There's only one gospel.
And it's for every single
people group on the planet.
So one of the things,
if the first thing,
just in closing,
is that I think we need
to be aware of the fact
that sometimes
the devil can't be converted
in the mystery of God's providence,
at some point in time,
the angels that fell,
there's no turning back for them.
Now there's an ancient enmity
and we are involved
in a spiritual war against them.
But there's no equivalent war
for human beings.
And we need to,
I think,
have the discipline
of praying for our rivals,
our persecutors,
the people we don't like.
If you are a very,
very committed follower
of Donald Trump,
you need to pray
for people you know
who are very,
very, very different
from you politically
and vice versa.
Like it's good for your soul
to pray for their conversion.
I just want to close
with one thought.
I think it's very Christian
that we should pray
that Hamas
will be defeated
soon.
I also think
it's very important
that we pray
that people
who are members of Hamas
come to a saving faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And those are not
contradictory things to pray.
They are both
Christian ways
of praying.
You have to deal
with evil,
but you also have to pray
that for those
who are consumed
with evil,
that they will come
to a saving faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I invite you to stand.
Bow our heads in prayer.
Father, we give you
thanks and praise
that for those of us
who are Christians
here or watching online
or downstream,
Father, we give you
thanks and praise
that somebody shared
the gospel with us
and that your Holy Spirit
moved in our heart
that we said yes
to this good news
and that Jesus
became our Savior
and he also became
our Lord.
We ask, Father,
that you grant us
opportunities
and courage
to share
and bear witness
to Jesus to others.
And, Lord,
you know our hearts.
You know we might pretend
that there aren't people
who are our rivals
or our enemies
or who have hurt us
or that we are
prejudiced against,
but, Father,
you know that's not true
within us.
And so, Father,
we ask that on one hand
you both gently convict us
of the truth
about ourselves,
but that you would help us
to pray not only
that our tormentors
or persecutors
would stop it, Father.
We know that you want us
to pray for that.
But help us, Father,
to pray for their conversion.
And, Father,
we pray right now.
We ask, Father,
for the swift defeat
of Amas.
And we ask, Father,
that many who are caught up
with that ideology,
that they would repent of it,
that they would put their faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ
as their Savior and Lord.
And we ask that
not just for those
who are followers of Amas,
but for all involved
in that conflict,
for the Jewish people
and Muslims
who aren't members
of Amas.
Father, we pray
that many of them
will come to a saving faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we ask all these things
in the name of Jesus,
your Son,
and our Savior.
Amen.