Good morning. When the apostles had finished their task in
Samaria (the city), they started back to Jerusalem, and were preaching the
gospel to many villages of the Samaritans. One would think that after the great
revival that Philip had in Samaria that he would’ve made camp there for years;
but God had another idea. An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, get up
and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza. (this is a
desert road). So he complained about having to give up his successful ministry
– wrong! He got up and went; and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official
of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure; and
he had come to Jerusalem to worship, and he was returning and sitting in his
chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. What is really interesting
about this is that there was an Ethiopian eunuch who helped the prophet
Jeremiah when he was imprisoned in a deep hole in the ground. It was almost
like God was repaying the first one by bringing salvation to the Ethiopian
nation through this one. Then the Spirit said to Philip, go up and join this
chariot. He heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, do you understand
what you reading? How could I, unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip
to come up and sit with him. He was reading about how the Messiah would be like
a lamb before its shearer is silent. Please tell me, of whom does The Prophet
say this? Of himself or someone else? We will see next time how Philip answered
him. Father thank You that even when we are doing something good for You,
sometimes there is something even more important for us to do for You. Help us
to not cling to the good so hard that we are unable to see the great that You
have for us to do.
Merry Christmas!
Good morning, and Merry Christmas! We are going to digress and look at the first Christmas. This was something that had been foretold centuries before; and yet people still did not understand what was going to happen. They were thinking that the Messiah was going to come as an adult and was going to re-establish the nation of Israel above all other nations. They were not expecting Him to come as a baby, supposedly born to a carpenter and placed in a manger. Many things had to happen at precisely the right time. You had to have the right person to be His mother and the right person to be His supposed father. You had to have a reason for them to be in Bethlehem on the night He was born – the census. It had to be when shepherds would be in the field near Bethlehem watching their flocks. And just at the right time – an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before the shepherds, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. And the angel said to them...
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