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Spirit at work!

Acts 8: 4 – 24

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 05 Mar, 2006

SINCE THE 1970s, main–stream Protestants have learned to talk about the Holy Spirit and to be more aware of the Holy Spirit, but there is still a lack when it comes to our experience of him.

How much are we like the believers at Samaria? We are baptised, we do believe, but where is our engagement with the Spirit?

Let’s think about the Holy Spirit, and look at his work and his effects. Let’s let him challenge us, and teach us openness to his working.

We are currently having some of the greatest blessings of the last 20–odd years. That excites me. I came here believing that things could change. I just didn’t realise how long it would take, or what the price would be.

So we are moving; but there are miles to go.

Yet sometimes it’s like when Philip finished his ministry in Samaria, and witnessed to the Ethiopian Eunuch, and then we read,

Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptised him. ³⁹ When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. ⁴⁰ Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and travelled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

When the Lord’s Spirit is involved, you can cross miles in the twinkling of an eye!

Don’t despair; don’t give up. God has a plan, and he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

So we will look at this story and see what was done, and how people responded, and what principles are involved.

First is Philip — his message, his manifestations and his methods. Then the apostles — their investigation of the Samaritans, and what they did to integrate and initiate them; finally we will consider Simon the magician and the causes and cure of spiritual dryness.

PHILIP

Message:

We read

Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there.

We also read,

...they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ...

There is nothing you can fault in the message that Philip proclaimed.

It is a message of hope and of freedom. That is clearly what the Samaritans were looking for. They were like us. We desire liberation, but we don’t experience it.

When Philip “...proclaimed the Christ,” he was not merely telling the story of Jesus. He was declaring that God’s appointed, anointed Messiah had finally come.

You remember that woman at the well, trying to divert Jesus from discussing her domestic arrangements. She said the Messiah would come and reveal everything. She was saying to Jesus, “Enough talking about my life. When the Messiah arrives, that will be time to discuss how many husbands I have had.” And Jesus says to her, “Funny you should mention that. I‘m the Messiah, and I am here to talk to you about your husbands.” The Samaritans clearly knew that the Messiah would come.

And they understood that this Messiah would be the King appointed by God, and that he would sort out the world. They didn’t understand that he would do that by dying on a cross, but they did understand his basic aim.

So Philip came telling them that the liberation they longed for had arrived.

He preached the good news of the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ.

It is never mere personal blessing. This Messiah, this Christ whose name is Jesus, he had come with great authority and power. That is what it means when it says that he preached the good news of the name of Jesus Christ.

I’ve told you before about Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzances. There is a battle between the pirates and the police, and the police are defeated. The chief of police is on his back with the Pirate King’s sword pressed to his throat.

From his position of weakness he cries out, “In the name of Queen Victoria, surrender!” Immediately the pirates drop their swords and submit to the police. They may be pirates, but they are not disloyal to the Queen.

The name of the Queen carries great authority. And Jesus’ name carries the entire authority of the God and creator of the universe.

So Philip called on the Samaritans to surrender to the Lord who had come to restore the fortunes of his people.

Manifestations

Philip didn’t merely preach, though. He demonstrated, he manifested, the Spirit’s power.

We read,

⁶ When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. ⁷ With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed.

The Bible makes it clear that it was the miraculous deeds which drew the people to the things he preached.

Some theologians argue that Charismatic gifts disappeared when the Bible was written, because Christians now had the written word to confirm what they preached.

But the Biblical order is different. It was the demonstration of the Kingdom which led to the preaching of the Kingdom. The Bible records the content of the gospel; the manifestations of the Spirit demonstrate the power of the gospel.

I watched a fascinating TV program about the growth of Charismatic churches in South America. Several Catholic theologians were lamenting the failure of liberation theology to achieve change, and were disappointed in how people are turning to the Charismatics.

Yet the Charismatics are largely doing in practice what the liberation theologians taught in theory — and they are doing it with power!

One segment showed a youth group going around the streets and the markets, to share the gospel with people they meet.

They talk to a drug addict about his need of Christ. Suddenly, the man begins manifesting an evil spirit. He raves and blindly pushes at the Christians. They pray for him. He falls to the ground, still raving. They lay hands on him and command the demon to leave, and keep praying until he is quiet and peaceful.

By now a crowd of about 40 people are standing around. They hear the Christians explain the gospel to the addict and they burst into applause to see the change happening before their eyes! Is it any wonder that people are flocking to churches where that is the norm?

Miraculous signs demonstrate Jesus’ power.

When Philip had shown what Jesus was capable of, he explained the good news of how this fitted in with the promise of a king who would rule in righteousness and justice.

Methods

Philip’s ministry was very simple. He performed miracles, he proclaimed the good news, and he baptised all who were willing to follow Jesus in repentant faith.

At the mission John used to attend in Lilyfield, I gather some of the people were characters. But what they did, they did well. People with healing ministries, people who applied the gospel to hearts once it had been preached to minds. All kinds of individual gifts.

Philip was like this. He didn’t establish great churches, or becoming the Bishop of Samaria. He wasn’t a great teacher or a famous apostle. He worked miraculous signs, preached the gospel, and baptised. That was his method, and it worked.

John told me also about sharing Bible passages with a friend, who said, “You should be a preacher with all that Bible knowledge.”

John said, “I tried that, but it’s not for me.”

And I said, “But you still have a ministry of the word, because you know how to apply the word, particularly to sick people.” That’s a gift!

We all have ministries we can carry out. We may not be Paul. We may not even be Philip. But we can be channels for God’s miraculous power, we can declare the basics of the gospel, and we can baptise those who decide to follow Jesus.

There is no sin in having a method.

Someone criticised John Wesley for his habit of witnessing and preaching wherever he had an opportunity. He should only do it as the Spirit led him to.

Wesley made an experiment. For several days he only spoke where he felt he had a leading to speak. The result was that he spoke to no one. On other days, when he was led by opportunity, he spoke to dozens.

He had a method and it worked for him.

We need a message. We need to manifest the power of Christ to transform through his Spirit, and we need a method to put those thngs into action.

THE APOSTLES

Investigation

The passage we read says,

^{ACTS 8:14} When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them.

There were three concerns before the apostles. The first was to investigate the second was to integrate; the third was to initiate.

The Jews at that time could not see how God could really include Samaritans in his plan. Even though the Samaritans used much of the Bible and waited for the Messiah, they weren’t “proper” Jews in popular thinking. So even the apostles had to be reassured that God could do something with Samaritans.

Integration

Then, if God was doing what he seemed to be doing among the Samaritans, they needed to integrate them together with Jewish Christians. It was the same God and the same Lord Jesus Christ, so they needed to express their unity in Christ with the Samaritans.

Initiation

The third thing was to initiate them. The first thing that the apostles noticed was that these believers had been baptised, but the Holy Spirit hadn’t yet come on any of them.

The Pentecostalists make the mistake of separating the baptism in the Holy Spirit too far from conversion. The Baptists make the mistake of neglecting the baptism in the Holy Spirit altogether.

See this: there was something observably wrong with those Samaritans. There was no evidence of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

If Peter and John came here this morning, what would they say about us? Where is the evidence of the Holy Spirit? We are Baptists. We would say, “We were baptised in the Holy Spirit when we believed and were converted.”

And they would say, “Oh! We didn’t realise. Sorry for making a mistake!”

Of course they wouldn’t!

But we would expect them to!

The start of an effective Christian life involves faith in Jesus, water baptism in his name, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And there should be evidence of all three. Faith is evidenced by declaration of Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Baptism is evidenced by immersion before witnesses. What evidence is there for Holy Spirit baptism?

Acts 8 doesn’t give us a direct answer, but it does tell us that the apostles prayed for them and then laid hands on them so that they would receive the Holy Spirit.

You might be thinking back to the Day of Pentecost and speaking in tongues. Or you might remember a few years later when Paul visited Ephesus and the believers there spoke in tongues and prophesied.

It’s good to remember those things, but Acts 8 leaves it to us to find out for ourselves.

SIMON

Causes and cure of dryness.

But there is still that third player, Simon.

He thought it would be wonderful to add baptism in the Holy Spirit to his bag of magical tricks. He was losing his power to Philip, John and Peter, and he wanted that power back.

So he tried to pay for the power. The Jews would go back home; Simon could stay and run the show.

Peter tells him,

“To hell with your money! You thought you could buy God’s gift with money! ²¹ You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. ²² Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. ²³ For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”

His heart was not right; he was full of bitterness; he was captive to sin.

The key reason was bitterness. It led to a wrongly–directed heart and captivity to sin.

And he had led the Samaritan people astray, because they believed that he was the great Power of God.

His bitterness dominated the lives of many hundreds in that city, and prevented their open–hearted response to God’s Spirit.

Bitterness comes from unexpressed anger, and it hardens the heart and gags our consciences. It develops an attitude of, “I’m going to get what I want, and no one will ever stand in my way again.”

I am sure that bitterness underlies a lot of the epidemic of self–centredness in our land, and opens many hearts to demonic control.

Curing dryness

Peter tells Simon to repent and pray; and that is basic.

While bitterness is not the only thing that hinders our access to God, it is a very common factor.

It can be one of the roots of jealousy. That feeling of being let down and mistreated can translate into resentment of what others have or what they are.

It can feed gluttony: people wanting to make up for what they feel they have lost can compensate with food or alcohol.

It can lead to sexual sins, particularly when there is bitterness between husband and wife.

Above all, it leads to resistance to God, even on the part of believers.

People afflicted by bitterness often draw others to them, people who similarly feel let down and mistreated. It can become a powerful force in society.

Is there some sin hindering your response to God? Does it spring from bitterness and resentment?

Now is the time to repent and earnestly seek the full power of the Holy Spirit in your life and mine. Let’s do it!

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2006. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)