Dennis Tuuri

The advent of the Lord Jesus Christ coming in salvation to a man, an Ethiopian eunuch. So the sermon text for today is found in Acts chapter 8, verses 26-40. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise and go toward the south into the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose and went, and behold, a man of Ethiopia, eunuch of great authority, under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship.

He was returning and sitting in his chariot, he read Isaiah the prophet. Then the spirit said unto Philip, “Go near and join thyself to his chariot.” And Philip ran hither to him, and heard him read the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Understandest thou what thou readest?” And he said, “How can I except some man should guide me?” And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.

The place of the scripture which he read was this: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter. And like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth. In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away. And who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth.”

And the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet thus? Of himself or of some other man?” Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus.

And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water. And the eunuch said, “See here is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized?” And Philip said, “If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” And he commanded the chariot to stand still. And they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.

And when they were come up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azotus and passed through there and preached in all the cities until he came to Caesarea.

Well, this text could be used to speak about a great many things, as virtually any text in the scriptures could be. I have decided to focus upon the next to last verse where we see the eunuch going on his way rejoicing.

We are now at that time of the year when the providence of God, this country celebrates Thanksgiving which we’ve all probably just celebrated with our families and friends, and then we move toward that which marks the beginning of the advent season, then coming to the celebration of Christ’s incarnation that we celebrate in this country at Christmas time. This is the time of thanksgiving for people. It’s a time of joy.

It is a time in the midst of a darkened season. We think of the great light that enlightens the world. I used to teach my children when they were younger that when God turned down the lights at night, it wasn’t a reason to be afraid. He turns down the lights so we can see the things out there, and so we focus as we go to bed, upon our beds, as we go to sleep, upon God himself who is revealed in the creation and in his word.

And we focus upon the person of God as we turn our lights out, so to speak, and have thoughts that meditate upon him. Well, in the same way, this is a darkened time of year. We notice that a lot more up here in Oregon as opposed to maybe further south in the country. The nights have become long and it’s dark outside. But it’s a time in which the great light of the gospel is focused upon by much of the world as it comes and brings light to our world.

And so, as we approach these darkened days, we instead turn from the general revelation, hopefully to a contemplation of the special revelation of God in his word. It’s interesting, of course, that there are fewer diversions in the world around us during a darkened period of time, and so we spend more time indoors. Hopefully we spend a bit more time reading our scriptures, and we also spend more time with each other. God also reveals himself to us by way of the saints of God as we’ll see in this text.

And so this is the time of year in which joy should be our focus. I thought it’d be good to take the story of the Ethiopian eunuch and talk about the various things that he went forth at the end of this tale rejoicing in. And there are things that we should rejoice in as well. And so that’s going to be the outline.

By the way, your outline has last week’s date on it. That’s because this is originally prepared for last week. You can just change the date on that if you’d like and that would make it accurate.

So first of all, we’re going to talk about the joy of the Ethiopian eunuch. The Ethiopian eunuch rejoices first of all in the providence of God.

This story of course is filled with God’s providence mediated to the Ethiopian eunuch in God’s providence. This eunuch had made a journey to Jerusalem. He was a proselyte of the gate. He was gentile and yet he was also a proselyte to the faith. And he had in God’s providence on his way returning back to his country, which is quite a distance away. Ethiopia was on the other side of Egypt in terms of the geography of the territory, probably 200 miles was the distance that he had to travel to go to worship. And in God’s providence, he’s returning from that visit. We don’t know what happened there.

We can surmise. He apparently didn’t get good instruction in the book of Isaiah. In any event, he’s returning from that place and upon the road, out in the desert road. The scriptures clearly point that out in verse one of Philip. He finds a man who can explain to him God’s word. This is a case of special providence, we could say, where God supernaturally instructs Philip to go to a particular area to meet a man. What would the Ethiopian eunuch might originally have thought of as a chance meeting, and yet it is clear for us in this text that God traces out his providence in terms of the salvation that is brought to the Ethiopian eunuch through the ministry of Philip.

So the first thing that the eunuch rejoices in, I think, as he goes forth from this place, he rejoices in the providence of a God who had reached out and touched him, so to speak, through one of his messengers, explaining the word of God to him.

Now providence is an important doctrine of the Christian faith, and I want to read several definitions here from the Westminster standards, and please bear with me as I read these quotes. But it is extremely important for us to understand the doctrine of providence, and I just want to do a very brief overview according to the Westminster standards of what this doctrine is.

Question 18 of the Larger Catechism says, “What are God’s works of providence?” The answer is: “God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, ordering them and all their actions to his own glory.”

The Westminster standards and the Confession of Faith itself has a section—chapter 5—that is specifically devoted to providence. And it’s not long, and so I’ll read it for you here.

First, the Westminster Confession of Faith makes this point under the doctrine of providence: God the great creator of all things does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures and actions and things from the greatest, even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.

Secondly, although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly, yet by the same providence, he orders them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently. And the point there is that while God in his providence directs all things, God’s decree is mediated through his providence.

We speak of God’s decree as being what he decreed to occur in creation and in history from before all time. Everything that happens is a result of God’s decree. And God works that decree out. The confession of faith tells us through two things. The scriptures tell us this: through his creation, and then through his providence. After his creation, he upholds all things and works his decree, his plan for the ages, out according to his providence.

But the second article here under the Westminster Confession of Faith relative to providence tells us that while God is the first cause in terms of providence, there are secondary means or secondary causes that he uses as well.

Third, God in his ordinary providence makes use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them at his pleasure. Now, one of the normal means that God uses to work out his providence according to the confession of faith and the scriptures is that we have devices by which we are transported from place to place. We can walk. We can in our day and age ride a car. They could ride camels or horses back then. They could run. Somebody could carry them.

Well, in the providence of God, decided in the account of the Ethiopian eunuch in that particular historical situation, to work above and beyond the normal means by which he rules or governs all things according to his providence. Philip is directed to go to a particular place, and at the end of the story, Philip is spirited away—that’s the phrase that comes down to us in the English language. The Holy Spirit takes Philip and apparently miraculously transports him some distance away. That is the implication of those last few verses where it says that Philip is caught away, caught up and moved away, and the eunuch sees him no more. He is transported apparently in some extraordinary way.

And certainly the direction that Philip received—we don’t normally have God telling us to go to a particular place. And yet Philip was the recipient of such special providence of God that he was told specifically where to go by the spirit of God and by the angel of the Lord. And the spirit told him to go up to the Ethiopian eunuch and minister to him. And so that is an example of what the Confession of Faith tells us: that God indeed is free to work and does work without, above, and against his normal secondary means.

The fourth thing that the Confession of Faith tells us about providence is this: The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in his providence that it extends itself even to the first fall and all other sins of angels and men, and that not by a bare permission, but such as has joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding and otherwise ordering and governing of them in a manifold dispensation to his own holy ends. Yet so the sinfulness thereof proceeds only from the creature and not from God, who being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.

And so the confession tells us that providence extends even to the sinful acts of men. He doesn’t simply stand back and let sin happen. Somehow, this confession tells us, God is involved in his providence and his decree in the sin of men. Yet, it very carefully points out that God is not thereby to be seen as the author or approver of sin. And yet, God works through the sinful actions of men.

The great demonstration of that, of course, is that in his decree and providence, the Lord Jesus was crucified by sinful men. And the scriptures plainly tell us that was according to the pre-ordained plan of God, determined by God from all creation. And so he works through, in his providence, the sinful acts of men. But he is not the author of their sin. They are totally culpable and responsible for their sin.

The fifth point that the confession makes is this: The most wise, righteous, and gracious God does sometimes leave, for a season, his own children to manifold temptations and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled, and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends.

So in God’s providence, he sometimes brings us into, lets us fall into temptation of various means, for particular reasons. We’ve talked about that before several weeks ago, and we talked about the purposes of God in bringing suffering into our lives.

Sixth: As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God, as a righteous judge, for former sins does blind and harden, from them he not only withholds his grace, whereby they might have been enlightened in their understandings and wrought upon in their hearts, but sometimes also withdraws the gifts which they had, and exposes them to such objects as their corruption makes occasion of sin, and withal gives them over to their own lusts, the temptation of the world, and the power of Satan. Whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves even under those means which God uses for the softening of others.

And then finally, the seventh article in the Westminster standards, the Confession of Faith, about providence—and this applies very directly to what our text is today: As the providence of God does in general reach to all creatures, so after a most special manner it takes care of his church and disposes all things to the good thereof.

And of course they quote Romans 8:28 there. God in his providence directs all things. Now we sometimes have things happen in our lives that, while not necessarily as dramatic as what happens to the Ethiopian eunuch, we sometimes have things fall out in a particularly fortuitous way for us. Particularly good things happen. And we sometimes talk about how a thing was providential. And that is correct on one hand and it’s incorrect on another hand.

It is good for us to note when God in his particular demonstration of providence makes that clear to us, that he has providentially ordained something for our well-being. It is good to remind ourselves of that through the use of the term “providential.” It’s providential that this happened. It may have been providential, for instance, last week when I was ill, because then we got to hear a message of thanksgiving from three men that weren’t in the normal scheme of things to speak last week, and that may have ministered to you in a particular way.

So it’s good to speak of providential events. But it is important to remember that God’s providence doesn’t just reach to those particularly extraordinary events. God’s providence reaches to everything that occurs in the created order. And in his providence, all things then move together for good to those who are called by God for his purpose.

And so that’s quite clear to us in the case of the Ethiopian eunuch. It is obvious that God’s providence is at work in a special way here. But that special way is simply to reinforce to us the knowledge that his providence reaches in all things to his people, to bless them and to guide and direct them. And so the Ethiopian eunuch, undoubtedly, when he goes back to his home converted, regenerated, baptized, he goes back rejoicing in the providence of God.

Now the implications of this are quite important. The implications of this doctrine and of the joy for providence that we all should have means that every particular event of our lives, all the details of our lives, are important and meaningful in terms of God’s plan and in terms of God’s working out the expansion of his kingdom, the suppression of evil, and the exaltation of the good, all to the glory of Jesus Christ, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit. All details in life are important.

Now, based upon this, I’m going to use several quotes here by Matthew Henry to show the relationship of an understanding of God’s providence to the small details of our lives.

Later on we’ll have a few more comments on the baptism of the eunuch. But notice here that in the providence of God, as they’re riding along in this chariot and the eunuch is reading out loud so Philip hears him, he comes onto the chariot, he explains to him the text, explains to him, he preaches unto him Jesus.

In the providence of God, at that point they drive by some water, and the eunuch says, “Oh, there’s water. What could prevent me to be baptized?” You see, it was something could say a chance event that they happened to be going by water. And yet the Ethiopian eunuch, sensitive to the spirit, understanding, hopefully beginning to understand the providence of God, notes that the water is there for a particular reason.

Matthew Henry says this: “Thus, speaking of the event of the water being close at hand, thus God, by hints of providence that seem casual, sometimes puts his people in mind of their duty, of which otherwise, perhaps they would not have thought.” And so it’s important to recognize God’s providence, for us to look in the small details of our lives for the hand of God, bringing things to pass, that we might be enlivened to our duties that we might otherwise not have been enlivened to.

And so it is with the eunuch here. The water is seen as a providential act of God, spurring the Ethiopian eunuch on to obedience. And so, by way of application in our lives as we walk through our lives this week and we see small details fall out that remind us of duties, it should cause us to rejoice in the providence of God.

Secondly, Matthew Henry says that in terms of the fact that as the Ethiopian eunuch is going along his way, that he is ministered to by the word of God and Philip comes up and preaches to him, he says this: Matthew Henry says we should study to do good to those we light upon in company with upon the road. Thus the lip of the righteous feeds many. We should not be so shy of strangers as some affect to be, of those of whom we know nothing else. We know this: that they have souls.

If you’re along riding along or coming along in your way, the scriptures tell us that the people that may be next to you in the shopping center, riding on the bus, wherever you are, that in the providence of God, they are there. Now, you don’t know the end of the matter. You don’t know that if you may minister salvific words of the scriptures to them, you don’t know if they will reject them, if they’ll listen to them. You don’t know that you might be an encouragement to a Christian. You may be a cause of curse, a further curse to a person who rejects the gospel of Christ. You don’t know the end of the matter. But you do know, as Matthew Henry says, as you come along people on the way, that those people have souls.

And you also know that if you understand the doctrine of providence, that they are there for a particular reason in the plan of God. And so it should be an encouragement to us to make use of all opportunities that we have, as seeing people and interacting with them, to speak the words of the scriptures and to bring an awareness of God into that situation.

I am encouraged nearly every week by Chris W., for instance, who in his veterinary practice sees a great many people as they bring their pets in, and he sees these events for a particular purpose, and he is frequently asking myself, I suppose, others of you as well, to pray for particular people that he comes into contact with—whether they’re Christians, pray for their growth and encouragement; if they’re not Christians, pray that they might repent of their sins, receive the gospel, etc.

Chris sees, I think, with the eyes of providence, bringing people into his path to be ministered to. And the story of the Ethiopian eunuch is an encouragement to us to do just that.

Businessmen as well should see something in this story. After all, the Ethiopian eunuch is on a business trip—well, he’s not at a business trip. He’s actually on a worship trip, but he’s going back now to attend to his affairs of business.

And so Matthew Henry says again—I’m quoting from Matthew Henry, a section on providence—he says: It is wisdom for men of business to redeem time for holy duties. Time is precious, and it is the best husbandry in the world to gather up the fragments of time that none be lost, to fill up every minute with something that will turn to good account.

Now, so here we have the Ethiopian eunuch traveling back, and instead of just riding along, enjoying the scenery—which is not wrong to do necessarily, if you’re—it’s not wrong to enjoy the scenery that God gives us—but the eunuch is trying to use his time. Well, he probably has recently acquired this scroll. That would be the implication that some would find in this text, that he gets this scroll. It’s a new scroll to him, and he’s reading it perhaps for the first time, and he doesn’t understand it. But the point is he’s trying to fill up the time that he has and make it of good effect.

Now, it can be of good effect for relaxation of course, and delight in the created order that God gives us, but it’s not a proper use of time to just sit and be bored or to sit and be discontent about having to be stuck in a plane perhaps, or in a car, or whatever it is. It is important to see the time that God gives us and to try to redeem every moment of that time, because God’s providence extends of course to every minute of time, as well as to all the created order.

And so if we understand that, we’ll try to make good use of the time in which we would otherwise have nothing to do. Matthew Henry also comments upon the providence of the eunuch as he’s coming back from worship. He has gone to Jerusalem to worship. That’s why he’s gone there. And now he’s returning from worship.

Now, some people would say, “Well, I’ve done my religious duty. I’ve gone to church. I’ve heard the sermon. That’s enough religion for today. And now, for this extended trip back, I’ll just relax, or maybe study my business papers, or whatever it is.” But instead, he improves upon the time he had worshiping God in Jerusalem at the temple.

Matthew Henry says that when we are returning from public worship, we should use means in private for keeping up the good affections that were kindled there and the preserving of the good impressions made there. And so the scriptures would have us to make use of the time that God has given to us at worship. We might find some particular point of application in our lives, a particular part of the sermon or of the word preached, the word read, the responsive reading, a particular element of a song that may kindle in you some affection to do some right thing. It may remind you of some duty, as that water in the providence of God reminded the Ethiopian eunuch of the need to be baptized and thereby to make profession of faith.

And so it is important not to simply walk away and forget those things, but to apply yourselves as you leave the worship of God’s house, the hearing of God’s word, the singing of praises to him, to apply yourself to that and to improve upon the religious activities of the day that God has brought you into the context of.

And so providence is an important doctrine, and it’s very important to see that we can make many applications of correctness to our lives based upon an understanding of providence.

The primary application I want you to walk away from today, however, is the same one the Ethiopian walked away with, and that is a rejoicing in the providence of God. The details—every detail and moment of your life—is a result of the decree of God from before all time, and then the ministration and government of that decree in the providence of God, bringing all things to pass for your well-being and edification.

And that’s something to greatly rejoice in. We don’t have a God that we have to wind up on Sunday, that only teaches us religious truth, that only applies to a particular portion of our lives. No, all of our lives are bounded by the God of scripture who brings all things to pass for our well-being and for the sake of the advancement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

Now, that is a joyous thing. And during this period of a joyous celebration, as we come up to a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, we should certainly rejoice in the providence of God.

But I don’t want you to think that somehow this means that every moment you’re supposed to be, you know, real happy and joyous. The scriptures are clear that there are many times in our lives when we do not understand the end of the matter, and we’re going through pain, periods of trial and tribulation. The Psalms are filled with lamentations, and that it’s not improper to lament a particular thing that has happened to you.

It’s in the providence of God, and the end result of all things is joyous thanksgiving to God for all things. But frequently we do not have enough knowledge or whatever it might require to understand those things, and so we may be very depressed and discouraged, and that is not a bad thing. God tears us down in order to build us up. He causes us to lose hope that he might fill us with hope.

And so the Ethiopian eunuch is an example of this. I don’t think that he was necessarily rejoicing in the providence of God before Philip comes to him and ministers to him. Now, we don’t know—this is speculation—but we can imagine that he certainly did not get good instruction in Jerusalem over what the prophet was speaking about. Whether that is because he hadn’t read it yet or because the rabbis were blinded in their unbelief, as we know that most of them were at that time, we don’t know.

We do know that he probably heard an earful about who this Messiah was, if the subject came up at all, from the religious authorities at the temple. We can imagine that he was depressed, discouraged, and perhaps even perplexed over what was going on in Jerusalem. After all, it was not a good thing that was happening in the behalf of the religious leaders. This same temple would be destroyed a number of years down the line here because of their unbelief and hardness of heart.

And so we can imagine that he may well not have been rejoicing originally on his way back from Jerusalem. The story doesn’t begin with his rejoicing. It ends with his rejoicing.

And so it is in our lives. Details fall out that are difficult for us. The Brookses this week, not knowing what their son’s condition may be next week, it is proper to pour out our hearts to God and to express our pain, our sorrow, our confusion, and desperation, knowing that he will in his providence bring us to the end of the matter.

The Lord Jesus Christ, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross. And Hebrews tells us that should be our perspective as well. Providence is not an empty-headed doctrine. It’s a doctrine that, properly understood, gets us through those hard times, recognizing that God is providentially moving in every detail of our lives, including the ones that bring us great sadness, to the end, to the conclusion, that we might rejoice in the matter and see, at the end of it all, how it fits the purposes of God, how it is well-being to the edification of the church, how it glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so providence here is a central aspect of what the eunuch rejoices in and what we should rejoice in as well.

Secondly, though, I have here, and this really kind of falls under the same heading: The Ethiopian eunuch, I’m sure, rejoices in the work of the Holy Spirit. This is a very important adjunct to the doctrine of providence. God, by way of providence, doesn’t set up a computer program, you know, that says if he goes through this then click—this happens in the universe.

No, we see here in the providence of God that providence working its way out through the angel of the Lord, and then specifically through the spirit, the Holy Spirit, who instructs Philip in his responsibilities and tasks. And so we read in verse 29, the spirit said unto Philip, “Go near, join thyself to this chariot.” Philip ran hither to him.

The important thing here is that the Ethiopian eunuch did not understand some mechanical view of providence, at the end of this time. He understood, I’m sure, that it was the spirit of the living God, a personal one of the three persons of the trinity, a personal interaction from God to him, that ministered God’s providence to him.

And so it’s very important that we in our own lives come to rejoice in the work of the Holy Spirit, who in his providence is working things out. It’s very important that we see behind this the personal aspect of God interacting with Philip, interacting with the Ethiopian eunuch, because that then tells us that when things happen in our lives, it’s not some impersonal God, but it is the Holy Spirit sent forth—the seven spirits, the fullness of the spirit, the book of Revelation tells us—sent forth into all the earth. And so the spirit is with us in every place we go and is the means, uses means, but is himself personally involved in the administration of providence to his people.

And so we rejoice not in an impersonal providence, but in a very personal providence—the personal work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Now that work of the Holy Spirit comes through two specific means in the story in front of us here, and this is normally true in the world around us as well. The spirit works in such a way as to use the word of God, the scriptures ministered to somebody through a person of God, a man.

And so the third thing the Ethiopian eunuch rejoices in is the word itself.

Now he had a love for that word. Here was a man who, unlike many of us, continued to read though he did not understand what he read. He was reading a text. He couldn’t understand the text, but he didn’t give up on the text. Okay? So many times people will tell me, “Well, I try to read the Bible but I just don’t understand it, so I don’t read it.”

Well, no. The eunuch loved the word of God. He understood the importance of God’s word. Probably understood it was God-breathed. It is as if God is speaking himself to us, blowing on us, when we read the word of God. The spirit ministers to us through that word.

And so the eunuch rejoiced, certainly at the end of the matter, in that word. The spirit works through the word. And here the spirit, sure, supernaturally tells Philip to go and attach himself to the eunuch’s chariot. But it is for the purpose—the thing that converts the eunuch is not all of a sudden the appearance of Philip. The thing that converts the eunuch is the word of God, the spirit’s use of that word in his life.

And so in this time of rejoicing and thanksgiving, central to our thanksgiving and the providence of God, the ministration, the personal providence of God, is a rejoicing in the word of God. He read the scriptures, as Matthew Henry said, though they were hard for him to understand.

And Henry goes on to say that though much that we may read are hard and difficult sayings for us, yet we must continue to read them for that which is easy in it. For Henry says, it is the likeliest way to come by degrees to understanding that which is difficult in knowledge, and therefore to grow gradually. The difficult things of the scriptures may not be known to us for a while, and yet we continue to read, that God’s spirit may minister those things that are appropriate to our stage of growth.

Our growth is gradual and it comes by a gradual process as the spirit works that word into our lives. And so the difficulty of the word should not cause us to stop, but rather it should heighten our joy for those things that we do understand from the ministration of God’s word in our lives. So the eunuch thanks God for and rejoices in the very word of scripture itself.

Now that word, however—and this is a very important point. I really want you to think through this. I’ve made this point a lot the last few months, but it is so critical, and it is here sketched out for us quite plainly.

While God is working in his providence, personally through the Holy Spirit, to bring the word to the Ethiopian eunuch, it is not enough. The eunuch doesn’t understand what he reads, and the spirit illumines the understanding of the text to his mind. How? By use of a messenger, by use of Philip, a man, flesh and blood person, to come to the eunuch and hear his questions and explain to him what the text means.

And so the fourth thing the eunuch rejoices in that we should rejoice in is that God uses the agency of men to minister the word of grace and the power of the spirit according to his providence, for joy to us. He uses men. So important.

It’s not enough to take the word of God off into a corner someplace to read it by yourself and think somehow that you’re a good Christian person. No. I’ve had people tell me, “We’ve been involved in this work of this church for ten years. And I’ve had various people tell me, ‘I can just worship God off in the forest by myself with my Bible.’”

And it’s such a—you know, it’s certainly there’s something we want. We do not want to somehow reduce in elevation or importance the word of God. But we want to say that the scriptures tell us quite clearly, and certainly here in this story, that the word is a means of grace in the context of the messengers that God sends into our lives to minister them to us.

Another words, the word is to be heard, understood, and applied in the context of Christian community. We need people to tell us what the spirit would tell us about a particular text of scripture. That’s clearly what goes on here. And it’s so important in our lives that we come to a place not of shunning the counsel of men and women as they minister the word to us, but rather of receiving the counsel of men and women as they minister God’s word to us and as we minister it to other people.

It’s a tremendous thing, and commentators have pointed this out frequently in these texts, that God does not use anything but men with the word of God to bring people to the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you’re here today as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, it’s because yes, you heard the word, but it’s also because you heard some person take that word, make it understandable to you, applicable to you, and through his voice minister God’s grace to you.

The scriptures tell us that through our tongues we can minister grace to one another. And here we have the tongue of Philip being used by God to minister grace—saving grace—to the Ethiopian eunuch as he preaches Jesus from the text.

This is what I was talking about a couple of weeks ago. We talked about marriage and manipulation. And we talked about how men—you know, we don’t want the other person that God and his providence would minister grace to us, our wives. Frequently the wives don’t want the husband ministering grace to them.

God brings us together with another person. Most people—it’s good that man not be alone. Most people are brought into relationship because of this reason, that God uses the agency of men to help us mature and develop—men in the general sense of mankind.

And so it’s very important that we—again, I reemphasize what I did a couple of weeks ago—men, that you listen to your wives and you understand that they’re different from you. And as a result of that difference, that you then grow in grace, the ministry of that person in your life.

I thought about this—that our wives are clearly our most intimate companions. We spend more time with our wives than we do with anybody else that we know of. At least most people do. Now, you might say, “Well, I’m at work a lot more than I’m at home.” Well, actually, you’re not. You’re with your wife more hours probably, but you’re sleeping. You’re not listening to what she says. Well, that was in the nighttime. You’re sleeping. Of course, you wouldn’t hear what she said.

But what we don’t want to be, men, is we don’t want to be asleep at the wheel as God uses the administration of our wife relative to the scriptures to minister to us in a particular way. Yes, we have physical sleep at night that’s required of us. But frequently it is another kind of sleep, a slothfulness and an unawareness of what God is doing in our life, that prevents us from hearing from our wife.

God uses the agency of men, and the eunuch rejoices in that fact. And I know men, many men, who have been shipwrecked in the faith for their failure to hear the words of other men as they minister the scriptures to them. It’s so important that you understand your need to be involved in Christian community and hear the words of fellow saints in the Lord to encourage, admonish, exhort, and instruct you in the faith.

And of course, that implies that we must be like the eunuch. We must acknowledge our inability. Remember, we talked early on in the book of Acts, the man at the gate of the temple who was healed. He had to want to be healed. He had to admit to himself that he had a problem with his feet, and that problem was not some sort of special gifting. It was a problem that he wanted to have healed.

And so it is with the Ethiopian eunuch. He would not have received this gift if he had been prideful instead of humble. When Philip asked him, “Do you know what you’re reading there?” How many of you would have said, “No, I really don’t get it. Please explain this to me. I don’t get it.” Not too many of us probably.

All too often, the sinews would have us say, “Uh, yeah, yeah, I think I get it. I think I understand it well enough. And if I don’t, I’ll go study some more. Then I’ll get back together with you.” But no, the eunuch recognizes his need for instruction.

So often in our lives, we come to shipwreck because we don’t understand our need for instruction. Hardest thing in the world for most men to receive counsel. And that’s why our marriages can come to shipwreck. And that’s why relationships in the body of Christ can come to problems as well.

And so it’s very important to recognize here the need to rejoice in the agency of men that God uses.

Now, you know, I was thinking about this morning: you know, I talked before about socks—my socks. And John S. likes the story, I hope. I hope it’s not too offensive to any of the rest of you. But, you know, there came a time at which I recognized that I should pick up the socks I was leaving around on the floor. Why? Because God’s word instructed me that God wants peace in the world. And peace is God’s order in the world around us.

And we talked before about how if your child wants to be a peacemaker, have them begin by keeping their rooms clean and orderly. Peace means God’s order and blessing in the context of our lives. And certainly it refers to personal relationships, but training for that is the physical relationships and environment in which we live.

I believe that it is the Holy Spirit of God who prompts me to pick up my socks in obedience to the command to be peacemakers and to live considerately of those in the context of our household. I believe that something as mundane as leaving dirty socks on the floor can be an offense to the Holy Spirit as he attempts to motivate and push us through the application of God’s word to be peacemakers and to live considerately, in consideration of our wives.

That if we don’t do that, we’re really causing ourselves to become callous to the Holy Spirit.

There’s another side to that as well. There are many scriptures about the need to extend grace and compassion to people, and you may have an urge to do that at some particular point in time, and you may think, “Well, no, I’d rather just, you know, I don’t want to be embarrassed by calling them or talking to them, whatever—I don’t want to.” But that’s wrong too.

The spirit—what I’m bringing together all these four points, we have the providence of God, the spirit of God, the word of God, and the men of God, all coming together to move us ahead in our Christian faith and mature us.

And what God does is he brings those impulses of the Holy Spirit to us, applying the word, and frequently through the agency of other people.

This morning I thought about all this because I was putting on my tie, and I’ve got a big neck. I’ve always had a well—some people say I have no neck, but it’s just bigger than most. I’ve always had a big neck. So I have to use button extenders, a button extender on my shirts. Otherwise, you have to get huge shirts.

Well, my—I every morning that I have to put on a tie, I think about my wife’s kindness to me because I pick up a little button extender, and she quite some time ago—I like these metal ones, not the springy ones. They pull all out. Like these nice hard metal ones. And she bought a bunch of those for me a couple of years ago. She found them someplace, said, “Oh, I’m going to get these for him.”

And she knows that I lose things. And so if I don’t have ten or fifteen of them, I’m going to lose them. I won’t have any pretty soon. Well, the point is that she’s motivated by the Holy Spirit, who says in the scriptures that wives are to love their husbands, to minister to them in practical things, as a result of being moved by the Holy Spirit, to be loving to me. She buys this thing, and I think of that every time I put my tie on.

I think about the providence of God providing me with a good wife who will help me then to get dressed in the morning and look presentable, and be able to put on a tie, which in our culture means something. And I—the point of this is that in that action, the spirit of God moved providentially through my wife to minister grace to me through an application of the word and showing kindness to me.

And that’s one little thing that I thought of, one little area of my life—putting on my tie Sunday mornings—that I think of this now. Properly understood, the rejoicing that the eunuch has here that we should share in would see little things in our lives like that—our days—as being the loving kindness of God ministered to us in small details of providence.

You see what I’m trying to show you here? My thought in Sunday morning should not end at, “How—what a lovely wife I have.” My thought should extend on to give thanks to God and to rejoice in a God who loves me so much as to provide button extenders for me Sunday morning.

Now, I hope that isn’t so mundane that you think it’s irreverent or something. It isn’t. What I’m trying to point out is that every detail of our lives is a ministration of God, usually working through the spirit, the word, and other people, to minister grace to us and to cause us to go forth from wherever we’re at, rejoicing in the love of God ministered to us through the spirit, the word, and people.

And so the eunuch rejoices in those things. Now that joy extends out. We can see in that joy, obviously, I’ve not touched on the central issue to the eunuch yet, and that is the fifth element that I think we understand the eunuch rejoices in. And that is essentially, and this is at the core of everything else, his salvation.

I mean, after all, this man was not regenerate yet. And so Philip comes along as the messenger of God and brings him to personal salvation. And that, of course, is the core of our joy before the Lord Jesus Christ—personal salvation.

Now, in the case of the Ethiopian eunuch, it was a bigger joy than many people might have. He was two things, wasn’t he? He was an Ethiopian and he was a eunuch, and because of those two things, he was cut off from the ability to worship God in the context of the congregated host. When he went to Jerusalem, he went as one who was a proselyte, as I mentioned earlier, of the gate.

Everything in this story points out to us that this man was gentile. He was not born Jewish. He was not a Jewish convert. He was a gentile who had converted to the faith of Judaism and now had become a member of the Christian church.

We have here really—remember, we talked about the progress of the gospel being demonstrated for us in these first eight chapters, leading up to the conversion of the great apostle of the Gentiles, Saul, in chapter 9. We have that gospel going from Judea, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and now the uttermost parts of the earth. And that’s what this man represents. He represents a gentile. And immediately Philip is struck with the fact of, “How do we—what do we do with gentile converts? What do we do with them?”

Ultimately then, the Ethiopian eunuch rejoices in his salvation, and that salvation was an important one because it involved the person who was cut off from the covenant community, had no—did not have full rights to temple worship, both because he was a gentile Ethiopian and also because he was a eunuch.

And I’ve listed some texts, therefore, you can read later, that demonstrate the exclusion of people who were eunuchs from the temple worship of God, as well as the exclusion of people who were strangers. So he had two stripes. In fact, you might say, and I want to say this very carefully—probably many of you would just assume I didn’t say it—but in the providence of God, this man was black. That’s what an Ethiopian was.

And there are reasons to believe from various texts that one of the things that mark people who are black of skin is—the scriptures, for instance, in the Song of Solomon, the black woman represented there says that she was burned by the sun. Blackness is, in some sense, a picture of the burning of the sun. And when you get tan, that’s not a particularly good thing. When you get dark of skin, the scriptures see—Jesus is represented in terms of the rock and the tree of God, protection shade from the searing sun of God’s wrath.

And there’s a sense in which—now please don’t misunderstand me here. I’m not saying that black people are cursed and white people aren’t. I’m saying, though, that in the picture that God gives us here, we have a picture of a man who definitely was under the wrath of God being demonstrated by him being a eunuch, by being a stranger, and also having a face that was—the words of scripture—darkened by the sun, son of God’s wrath.

Now this is just a picture, but in any event, this salvation for him that—