Get up and Go (Part 2)

0:01 I had like to invite up Rabbi Ari to give us a, Josh, you can sit down now. Nu we thank you so much for my brother and our, my dear friend Rabbi, our Rabbi Ari, thank you for all the study that he does, is he seeks your face, Lord, something that I love about, about Rabbi R is that he asks questions. He doesn't go looking for answers to be right. He looks for you. And that is the best thing that we could ask for someone who leads the K. He loves someone who looks for you, that seeks first the kingdom and all that he does. We ask that our hearts would be tilled to receive the word that you poured through him.

0:47 Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Casey. I will continue to do as I have for the last 10 months, and just take a, a couple minutes and remind us that there still remain in captivity more than a hundred hostages. Uh, and it has now been more than 10 months. Um, and so just, it's, it's something that we need to continually keep on our mind. And, uh, unless you've been living in a hole, uh, you probably have also realized that the Middle East has taken a turn over the last week,

1:35 um, toward a far more, uh, explosive region. And, um, this, it is very, it's quite interesting today, is Shabbat Kon, which is the Shabbat before Te Shabbat, and it's known as the, the darkest Shabbat, the saddest Shabbat of the Year, because it precedes to Shaba. Shaba is, um, a date, uh, that we, well, it's a date that the Jewish community fast. Why do they fast? Because it commemorates or it remembers the destruction of both the first and the second temple on that date. The crazy thing is, well, if it's not crazy enough

2:23 that both temples are destroyed on the same date, nearly 700 years apart, actually, it's also the date, uh, when the spies came back and gave a bad report, which I, if I remember right, is, is recalled in this week's tour portion. Um, it also, there's, there's a whole litany of things that have happened negatively to the Jewish community over the last, uh, thousands of years. Um, a couple of which are, they were expelled from England in 1290 on the, on, on Tisha Bav. They were expelled, uh, from Spain in 1492, which is also wind.

3:11 Columbus sailed. The ocean blew. Do you know when Columbus sailed, the ocean blew, he left on Tisha bav. All the harbors were full of ships trying to get out ships full of Jews. The the Sephardic community in Spain was, was by this 0.1 of the largest and most established community Jewish communities in the world. Uh, in fact, if my memory recalls, there was, uh, greater than half a million Jews in Spain at this time. There's, there's many more things. But all of that to say is it's a remarkably, um,

3:59 sorrowful time of year. And in fact, actually, the, the three weeks preceding it are known now as the dire straits. And it just seems that almost everything that happens bad to the Jewish people happens in this three week period. And now we have, uh, Iran who is threatening retaliation, uh, for the assassination of the head of, of, uh, Hamas, which happened in, in their territory. And anyways, you can, in fact, I, I'll I'll do it in just a moment. Um, but we can continue to pray for the guardian of Israel to watch over Israel

4:45 and to bring confusion into the camps, into the, the camps of the enemies. So Venus, Shama, our father in heaven, Lord, even right now as we are here together, Lord, we ask that you, you who never sleep nor slumber, that you would watch over your people. Lord, we recognize that, that there are vehicles of warfare that are drawing near to Israel at this time, Lord, in a, and, and lots of people are placing their trust on the, upon the vehicles, upon the different militaries that have aligned with Israel. But Lord, we place our trust in you, Lord, you are the only one who can protect our people.

5:32 And Lord, during this, we ask that you would bring confusion and division in the midst of the, of the enemies, the, the camps of the enemies, Lord, but not just division and confusion. Lord, we ask that you would reveal Yeshua as the Messiah, the promised one of Israel, that they might turn to you and draw near to you and have an, an a, an entirely different change of heart, a perspective, a change of perspective. Lord, Lord, we bless you and praise you in Yeshua's name. Amen. It has been two weeks. And so I'm just gonna give us a quick recap of what, uh, of

6:19 where I left off two weeks ago. We're here in Acts chapter eight. Philip has gone from Samaria to Jerusalem and now to the road heading south out of Jerusalem to Gaza. He's been instructed by an angel of the Lord and subsequently led by the spirit, the ruach, to interact with an Ethiopian eunuch who is in a chariot on his way, uh, down from Jerusalem back to Ethiopia. This Ethiopian eunuch, uh, is he, it says this in the Texas says something like he's the, uh, in charge of all the finances, if I can put it this way. He is Joseph from the, from, from the, the story at the end of Genesis in Egypt.

7:05 He is second in charge of everything. He's the most influential person besides the queen, and he's there in Jerusalem worshiping. So we have, we have natural questions, and I'll, and I'll hit this twice today, not because I think it's super important, it's just because I repeat myself in my notes as I'm recalling and also going through the text. Uh, it, it's interesting because the Ethiopian Jewish community is perhaps one of the, one of the oldest community Jewish communities outside of Israel, because the queen of Sheba came up to Jerusalem and met King Solomon. Subsequently, they had children. And there has been a, there was a connection

7:50 between Ethiopia and Israel ever since. And, uh, so at this point, we don't know if this Ethiopian eunuch is Jewish or not. Um, he could be there representing all of Ethiopia. He could be representing the Ethiopian Jewish community. He could be representing himself, uh, or even his family. What we do know is he makes pilgrimage or he goes up to Jerusalem for the purpose of worshiping. This is only commanded to Jewish men three times a year on Peko. As he's coming down from Jerusalem, he's reading the book of Isaiah, whether it a moving chariot

8:35 or off on the side of the road in, in shade during the midday sun. He's reading the book of Isaiah, which means he's studying the scriptures, something that probably only the Jewish people would've done. Oh, I had a visual and I forgot it. No, it's not. My office is, it is at my dad's house. I was gonna, my dad has a scroll of Isaiah and I was gonna bring it up so you could see the scroll, just so you would have a visual. And I, and anyways, I forgot, sorry. Anyways, he's there sitting there reading the scroll of Isaiah, and then he mentions to Philip that he's a prophet. Not that Philip's a prophet, but that Isaiah's a prophet. He's recognizing the,

9:21 the eunuch is recognizing the prophetic ministry of Isaiah and its role in the scriptures. Now, my inclination, I know that I'm disagreeing with centuries of commentators, but my inclination is that the, the, this eunuch is either born Jewish or a convert to Judaism already. And and why do I say that? Because in the text, Philip is not surprised at all that any of this is going on. In fact, even by the time, by the end of my message today,

10:06 you'll see there's really no surprise in Philip that he's about anything that the, the eunuch is asking. And when we get to Acts chapter 10, uh, probably in four months, three to four months, it'll be post ko. I do know that. Um, but when we get to Acts chapter 10, what you'll see, because in Acts chapter 10, Cornelius and his family are, are drawn to the Lord, and Peter goes and interacts with them. But when Peter begins to speak and the KO is poured out, what it says is that all of the circumcised followers that were with Peter we're astonished. They were full of amazement.

10:52 Which leads me to believe if Philip isn't astonished at this point, that the eunuch is, is is Jewish, or at least a, a, a convert anyways, it doesn't bear much weight, but just, uh, is an interesting discussion to me. We are actually, what we are going to do is, I'm gonna resume where I left off last time, which is in Isaiah 53, as you recall, Phillip has come, he's hearing the eunuch read, and he, he hears Isaiah 53 being read the Passage, and Philip says, do you understand what you're reading?

11:37 And, and the eunuch says, how can I understand unless someone teaches me? And so now what we're gonna do is I'm gonna reread Isaiah 53, this, this portion that, that would've been read, uh, and, and we'll, actually, I read it last time. You can read Isaiah 53 on your own. But what's what's, we'll, we will have this discussion, and, and I do also want to just make a recommendation. It's not often I make recommendation book recommendations from the stage, but this is a fantastic book. It's called Isaiah 53, explained. Um, if you would like to know a little bit more about Isaiah 53, it is available in our library, and it will be available in our Judaica shop by Wednesday night. So if you don't have it, you're welcome to, to, uh, to come

12:26 by and and check it out. But it is a great book helping us understand a little bit about Isaiah 53, because Isaiah 53 is a, is a fascinating text, which actually is left out of all of the Ha Torah portions, especially concerning the consolation of Israel. And it, it's fascinating because Isaiah 53 talks about a servant, oh, wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Before, before I get, before I get into Isaiah 53, let's just have a, a couple, uh, comments about Isaiah. Isaiah was a prophet of Judah. He was a prophet through the kingship of three different kings. He was married, he had two children.

13:11 His ministry, uh, he was called to Judah, to, he was called to Judah, to encourage Judah to repent during the time of the Assyrian Empire so that they would not be conquered. If you recall, the Assyrian Empire came down and, and, uh, conquered north the, the northern kingdom, the kingdom of Israel, and took them into exile. And Isaiah said, if you don't repent, he's speaking to Judah. If you don't repent, they're gonna keep coming, and then they're gonna take us. Why? Because, well, if I can put it this way, the internal threat to the existence of, of the kingdom of Judah

13:59 outweighed the external threat. And you know what the external threat was? Now, Isaiah's ministry went from the, from, uh, from the Assyrian, uh, from, from the Assyrian time period until the Babylon, Babylon, Babylonian time period. And so you see there's two different kingdoms here that are, that, that are being, uh, an exer an external threat to the continued existence of the people of Israel. I actually, to me, it's radically similar to October 6th, 2023. If you can think about how October 6th, 2023 was in Israel, all of the, all of the strife

14:45 and the dissension within the people know everybody doing what was their own, own own way and following their own way to all of a sudden the threat that came on October 7th, and now the, the people at least appear to be unified for the time being. This is, this is similar in, in terms of the way, um, the way, uh, of Isaiah's ministry. Let's see. So Isaiah's prophetic ministry, uh, in, in terms from Isaiah 60, or in terms of the second half, what are known as the second half of the book is a prophetic ministry where the Messianic kingdom became a dominant theme.

15:31 Not that it doesn't exist in the first half, but it becomes quite prominent in the, in the latter parts of Isaiah. And in Isaiah 60 through 66 talks about the consummation of all ages. You know, this is it, this is the end. Uh, in other chapters, there are prophecies that are more intermediate in nature, and his vision of the future describes the relationship between Israel and the nations of the world, including nations in the Middle East. And in fact, what Isaiah says is, ultimately there will be peace in the region, but that will only come when the Messiah reigns on earth. It's really fascinating when you begin to dig into Isaiah, it, starting in Isaiah 40 through the end, you have

16:20 what are called, um, the servant passages, and it occurs multiple times. It talks about the servant who is serving the Lord, the servant of the Lord. The, the character becomes especially prominent in 42 through 61 in what are called the servant songs. So people have said this is about Isaiah. It's probably not likely that Isaiah's referring to himself. Uh, another, another prominent, um, understanding is it is concerning the nation of Israel. Some of these prophecies are corporate in nature and could be referring to the people of Israel. However, some of the references to the servant are more individualistic in nature and serve to describe a singular Messiah.

17:06 So if this is about the Messiah, then we're looking as a prophetic passage towards some point in the future, which so happens to be this time when we're reading with Philip in the eunuch. But it's interesting because most of Judaism takes the standpoint that the servant passages are speaking about Israel. I'll tell you, I actually don't have a problem with that doesn't bother me, because, because I also think they're about the Messiah. And if my belief is that Yeshua, the Messiah is the perfect personification,

17:51 or the in-person, uh, in the flesh person fulfillment of all of the people of Israel, then it makes sense that the MAs, the passage is about both. So now we, I want to, I wanna come down and, and just say one more thing before we get to my whole point here with Isaiah 53, Isaiah, uh, 53 in the context of Acts chapter eight. It's interesting if you've been paying attention as we've been studying through Acts, Luke has already referred to Yeshua in the Book of Acts as the servant of God for other times. And it's not, it, it becomes very

18:36 explicit here in this passage. But up until this point, it's in, it's in Acts chapter three, uh, verse 13, it says, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant, Yeshua. In other words, Yeshua is the servant of God. I, in Acts chapter 3 26, God raised up his servant and sent him first to you. In other words, the servant of God was raised up to be sent to you first. Uh, acts chapter 4 27, they were gathered together in the city against your holy servant, Yeshua, for, uh, chapter four verse 30, signs and wonders, take place through the name of your holy servant, Yeshua.

19:23 And here we have in Acts chapter eight, this connection with the servant Of the Lord from Isaiah 53. So in Acts chapter eight, it says, the passage of scripture that he was reading was this. He was led as a sheep to slaughter and as a lamb before it, shearers is silent. So he opens not his mouth and his humiliation, justice was denied him who shall recount his generation for his life is taken away from the earth. Again, all referencing the servant. What's fascinating to me is actually Luke

20:08 stops the reading of the passage right there. I know I've said this before, but maybe some of you are new. Luke is extremely precise in what he does and what he includes and what he leaves out in the text for particular reasons. In this case, the pa the part of the passage that's read or we've, we've come into Isaiah 53. He's in the middle of reading Isaiah 53, and there's two verses that are quoted except the final line of the second verse is not quoted. So in Acts chapter eight, it says what I just read.

20:55 And then in Isaiah 53, it says this, I will, I'll, I'll just read the one verse is the way, it doesn't sound the same, but all of the elements are there, uh, for the verses. But the, the final verse that he's read or reads is because of oppression and judgment, he was taken away as for his generation, who considered he was cut off from the land of the living. And then that's where it stops. His life is taken away from the earth. That's where it stops and acts, except the verse continues on

21:40 and says, for the transgression of my people, the stroke was theirs. You see in this, in this passage, Isaiah talks about a singularity person taking the stroke that was due to the people. It's the one part of the verse that Luke refrains from quoting, I've often told you, when, when there's a quote from the Tanach in the New Testament, go find the verse following or the verse proceeding, and you'll find the point of the, of, of the reason for the quotation. So here we have the transgression, the transgression of my people. The stroke was theirs, but Yeshua, the servant is the one

22:26 who has taken the stroke on behalf of the people. So we'll continue in, in, we will pick up where we left off. Now, in Acts chapter eight, starting in verse 34, I'll read through the end and then we'll, we will go through and make some observations. The eunuch replied to Philip, please tell me who is the prophet talking about himself or someone else. These are the exact same things I've just shared with you, who is the prophet talking about? Then Philip opened his mouth and be, in beginning with this scripture, he proclaimed the good news about Yeshua. Now, as they were going down the road, they came to some water. The eunuch said, look, water, what's to prevent me from being immersed? And he ordered the chariot to stop.

23:12 They both got down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and Philip immersed him when they came up out of the water, the ruak of snatched Philip away, the eunuch saw no more of him for he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Ottis, and as he passed through, he kept proclaiming the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. So here we have in this text, beginning with this scripture. So he's reading Isaiah 53. If we just stop there, we can unpack this and, and explain quite a few things, but we'll just make a couple notes beginning with this scripture. So he's reading Isaiah, as we all know,

23:58 by him calling it scripture, it indicates that the prophets, the prophetic books, are already a part of the accepted canon of the scriptures at this point, part of the biblical canon, perhaps we would say this scripture being part of the prophets. It also seems to indicate that he's characterizing this passage as prophetic speaking to a coming day, not the day of Isaiah. And in fact, the, there, the, the rabbis say, all prophets prophesied only for the days of the Messiah, The eunuch. I've already spent a lot of time on the eunuch. Let's just do a little bit more time. The eunuch, we have often assumed where commentators have often assumed fits within the structure of Acts one, eight, as I mentioned, um,

24:46 to Jerusalem, to be witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth. And as I mentioned two weeks ago, Ethiopia, the term that's used is actually everything in Africa, south of Egypt. Therefore, it also represents the end of the earth. Commentators have often believed that this is a partial fulfillment of Acts one, eight. They're, they're, they've already been through Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and now we're going to the end of the earth. I agree with that, except I wonder if it's going to the end of the earth, as Paul says, to the Jew first and then to the Gentile or to the Greek, because I don't perceive the eunuch to not be Jewish.

25:32 I know I just used like three negatives in the same sentence. I think he's Jewish, maybe I should put it that way. So here he's representing the Jewish community that resides at the end of the earth, and the unit goes up to Jerusalem to worship. This is what Jewish men would do, and, and the Jewish communities would do, is go up to Jerusalem to worship, studying the book of Isaiah. As I mentioned before, he's well versed in the scriptures during this time period. And finally, as I mentioned, Philip is not surprised by any of this. The eunuch then knows to ask for immersion.

26:20 So it could be a couple things. First of all, someone from the Jewish community would know to ask for immersion to go from a state of un cleanliness to a state of cleanliness. It's not necessarily common in the rest of the world. But also, Philip could have ended his message with the same way that Peter did in Acts two, which is repent and be immersed. Now, what's interesting is they come to some water, they come, they're coming down the road, they come to some water, and the eunuch said, look, water, what's to prevent me from being immersed?

27:07 Here we have the, the turning and then now the action. We talked two weeks ago about, um, starting with words, and, but if the deed doesn't reflect the word, then the word has had no, no, um, true meaning, or it hasn't really sunk deep to produce a fruit that is recognizable in action. So let me, we're gonna continue into this next section here. Now, as they were going down the road, now let me just, I'm going to, I'm going to do something, and I, and I hope I don't confuse anyone in here. I've already read it one way, but now let me read it a different way. Now, as they were going down to the road,

27:53 starting in verse 36 of chapter eight, and in acts now as they're going down the road, they came to some water. The eunuch said, look, water, what's to prevent me from being immersed? And he said, if you believe with all your heart, you may. He replied, I believe that Yeshua, the Messiah is the son of God. He, or this is verse 37. Some of your texts may include it, some may not. He ordered the chariot to stop. They both got down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and Philip immersed him. When they came up out of the water, the ruach ani snatched Philip away, and the eunuch saw no more of him for he went on his way rejoicing. I've already mentioned that immersion is a common Jewish practice, especially concerning ritual purity. It's also a response that's elicited at the end

28:40 of Peter's mess, uh, sermons, both in Acts two where he says, repent and be immersed. And in Acts three, where he says, by turning from your evil ways, and then in Acts four, there's an implied repentance in turn to follow the Lord. And here we have now Acts eight, verse 37. My text does not include it, though it has a footnote that includes it at the bottom. I'm telling you that because my text says some manuscripts include this verse. So I'm telling you all of this because verse 37 is not universally accepted as a part of the original text. It does not exist in Greek texts older than, uh, about the fifth century.

29:29 There are texts, Greek texts that exists before the fifth century, but they're just missing that verse. There's variance among these different manuscripts. This verse seems to have begun as an oral tradition and worked its way back into the text by around the fifth century. Theologically, I'll tell you, it doesn't appear to be anything troublesome. So it shouldn't be anything that you fight over it's appearance or it's lack of appearance in your text, because we should believe that Yeshua is the Messiah, the son of God, and then we should be immersed. Those are, this is exactly what the verse says. However, it does appear that it may have been inserted into the text at a later date

30:15 to support a later practice, which is you confess with your mouth and then you be immersed. So it would make sense if it doesn't exist, that this is the perfect spot for it to be included in, in, in a, in, in the Book of Acts. All of that to say you shouldn't, your faith shouldn't shake because there's textual dispute about one verse. You should understand that actually there's textual, textual disputes about a lot of verses. It shouldn't shake you to the point, oh, the Bible must be wrong, or The New Testament totally is made up.

31:03 It was probably given orally. And they, they, they lost some things along the way. So what they have is what is totally different than what originally was. We did a, we did a seminar here, man, I think it was 10 years ago, I think it was when Ella was a baby, uh, about it was we, it was called the Gospel according to Snoopy. Um, but really it was, it was a professor from DTS who basically put into practice in the group. Was anybody here for that? Ooh, I got like three. All right. Basically, the, the professor gave them a text, had them write it down, put it aside, write it down, put it aside, write it down, put it aside, and by the end to see how close it was to

31:49 what was in the beginning. And astonishingly enough, they were remarkably similar. So what it did is it proves that just because text evolves, if you want to use that word over time, it doesn't get away from the original necessarily, okay? It is totally a, a, a trail that I was not totally intending to go down anyways, I'm just telling you the verse 37. If you go, I'll look at my, oh, no, there's no verse 37 in my Bible. Don't go ask for your money back. It is, it's just because it's under dispute as a part of the original text or not. But if you wanna ask for your money back, that's, that's up to you.

32:35 Um, you just say, look, it's incomplete. I don't know what happened. So here they, we have, they both descended from the chariot, and Philip was immersed. Now, in Jewish custom, whether for ritual purity or for a con, a, a brass light or a conversion baptism, Jewish immersion calls upon the person to immerse themselves. So here we have something that's textually different. This text seems to indicate that Philip goes into the water with the eunuch, And it would lead us to believe that it's not a ritual purity or ProSite immersion.

33:20 In fact, it, it seems to be something different. Now, again, I wanna make a note like I did two weeks ago. This text is dis, is descriptive, not prescriptive. Does anybody remember from two weeks ago the difference descriptives tells us about something that happens, and it can happen this way. Prescriptive tells us it always has to happen this way. So I don't want you to get in your mind that it always has to happen this way. It's just describing what happens in this circumstance with the eunuch. It shows one of the ways that immersion was practiced by the Yeshua following community during this time period. By the way, another descriptive note about immersion,

34:08 acts two describes it differently. Acts two says that they all went in on their own accord. Well, you kinda have to derive it that way because it says that there were 3000 immersed in the same day, and I don't think Peter can go down 3000 times and dunk 'em in the water 3000 times in, in a singular day. Like that's a lot of work. And it seems like Peter just is kind of like standing on an elevated position and says, okay, go be immersed and follow the Lord. So now we have two different descriptive types of immersion. I'm telling you, don't get stuck, that it has to be one way.

34:54 Understand God works differently in different situations and with different people. So my question here, when we take this passage and we compare it to the first part of Acts, uh, first part of Acts eight, my question is with, in the first part of Acts eight, Philip goes down to Samaria and he's there. They all believe they're immersed, but it seems to be a problem in the process. We don't know what the problem is other than the ruah is lacking. We don't know why we don't know anything. So the, so Peter and John come down, this is, again, this is now a, a couple,

35:39 at least a month, uh, a month ago maybe. But Peter and John come down to confirm the work that's going on, and when they confirm the work, the Lord then confirms their confirmation by pouring out his spirit. What we have here in, at the end of Acts chapter eight, I, I'm going to say it's not explicit that the, the, the Holy Spirit is poured out on the eunuch, but according to early Acts eight, it would seem then that the work would have to be confirmed by one of the apostles. But that doesn't happen either. So are we missing something when we read the text?

36:28 And are we missing the presence of the rah? Well, I can say certainly we can see that the Ruach is present because the text says the Ruach snatched Philip away. So at a minimum, the Ruach is present In this circumstance, I would argue that there is a subtle, um, hint that the Ruach is present even in the eunuchs life after the immersion, and it, and it comes from this. And now let's take a detour for a moment. You can turn with me to Galatians chapter five. Paul explains to us in Galatians chapter five

37:14 that there is fruit by which someone can judge if the Ruach is present in that person's life. Excuse me. In Galatians chapter five, I'm gonna read a a kind of the surrounding context as well. We're gonna start in verse 16, but I say, walk by the ruah and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the ruah, but the Ruach sets its desire against the flesh for these are in opposition to one another. So you cannot do what you want to do.

38:01 But if you are led by the Ruach, you are not under the law. Now, the deeds of the flesh are clear, sexual immorality, impurity, indecency, idolatry, witchcraft, hostility, strife, jealousy, rage, selfish ambition, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I'm warning you, just as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not enter or will not inherit God's kingdom. But the fruit of the ruok is all of you probably have this memorized, but the fruit of the rock is, or in other words, let me say it another way, the fruit by which you can tell the presence

38:47 of the ruok in someone's life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control against such things. There is no law. Now, those who belong to Messiah have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. This is a difficult passage, by the way. Why? Because we're all somewhere in the process. If we're honest with ourselves, I will say, I will make a comment.

39:33 We often focus on these, uh, what do we, what do we call them? The, um, desires of the flesh when we focus, when we go read this passage, we're like, oh yeah, sexual immorality, impurity and decency, idolatry, witch witchcraft. That stuff is, that's like, that's outta here. Like there's, there's zero room for that. What we often forget is that in the same breath, strife, jealousy, selfish ambition, dissension, factions are equally weighted with sexual morality and idolatry. These issues become evident in a community

40:20 when gossip exists. What Is gossip? Gossip? Well, there's lots of different definitions, but lemme give you something simple. Go gossip, often casts doubt concerning another person's character without addressing the root issue. And in fact, it breeds dissension, factions, envy, selfish ambition, rage, jealousy, strife. It breeds all of those. It will bring great division and dissension in a community and fact factionalism within the community. If we only focus on sexual issues

41:07 and not these other issues of character, then I will tell you we have not done what the final verse says, which is, we have not crucified the flesh and we are not walking by the spirit, the eunuch. That's just my side note. I know it's a difficult, heavy side note, but now let's come back to Acts chapter eight. Let's see, when they came up out of the water, the ruach of Adonai snatched Philip away. The eunuch saw no more of him for he went on his way. Anybody rejoicing with joy? What is joy? It's a fruit of the spirit.

41:55 Now, I don't want to get super duper technical, but it's the same Greek word that Paul uses in Galatians. If you were to come tell me, well, the Samaritans also experienced joy. They were rejoicing because that's what my English text says. That is true, that is what your English text says, but it's a different Greek word. So I don't know if that rejoicing is actually truly evidence of the Holy Spirit, but I know this one is because it's the same term that Paul uses. If we have joy in our life, then it indicates the presence of the Holy Spirit.

42:47 So to me, the Holy Spirit is here in this text. Let's, let's keep going. So I'm gonna repeat verse 39 because I've, I've included bits of 39 with both, with both what I just talked about and with the next, when they came up out of the water, the ruach of nice snatched Philip away, the eunuch saw him no more for, he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip himself found himself at, if you don't know this location, it's actually Es in modern day Israel. They found himself at Esto, and he passed through. He kept proclaiming the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. The, the, the spirit of the Lord snatches Philip away

43:37 and he finds himself somewhere else. I don't know, I'm just gonna tell you, I don't know what happened. All I know is what the text tells me, which is Philip is one place. And then Phil found himself in a different place. How he managed to go from one to the other, that the spirit of the Lord does. I don't know, maybe he was in, maybe, I don't know, maybe he was like, some of us, when we get tired and we leave work and we, all of a sudden we find ourselves at home. Anybody ever had that, ever had that issue? You're like, wait, how did I get home? I don't know how I got home. Last. I remember I was at work. All I know is what the text says is

44:22 that the text says the rock snatched him away and Phillip found himself and Esto. So I, I just want to, I want to do a couple things. If you guys can switch over to my map for a moment, I'm gonna do what I did a couple weeks ago and point out, let's see, just this, this is, this is left over from a couple weeks ago, but Philip was here in Samaria.

45:08 Philip then encounters the Ethiopian eunuch somewhere along this road here. And then Philip is snatched away here to Ottos, to to Aashto. And then Philip goes through all of these towns and ends up, up here in Caesarea, Right here in the middle, you have Jerusalem. We've seen the good news. Go to Samaria, we've seen the good news come to Judea. We'll just include these here and now.

45:56 Luke is setting us up for the end of the nations or to the end of the earth, excuse me. This whole time when Philip goes here along this root, you see all these names that he, these cities that he encounters. We're going to see that Acts chapter nine is almost a if, if, if we're writing a a, a novel Acts, chapter nine is let me, or if we're writing a movie, acts chapter nine is, is meanwhile over in this other location, this sort of thing happens, and we're gonna get caught up to where Philip is, and Philip is in Caesarea, by the way. You go look at Acts chapter nine. Paul goes through all of this, comes through Jerusalem, comes through Caesarea. I'm assuming Philip is there.

46:42 And then Acts chapter 10 does another. Meanwhile, Peter then also makes the journey to Caesarea. So you see this converging of the elements that you would see in like a a, a movie, a film. It's actually, it's beautiful the way it's written. Well, it's, to me, it's beautiful, like it's engaging and it draws you in. And I'm telling you that because here in Caesarea, we're gonna find something new or something perhaps unbelievable, and we'll find it after the high holy days. But we'll spend from now until the high holy Days discussing Acts chapter nine. So you can see this, this, if you will, arc going to,

47:28 to Judea and Samaria, and now to the end of the earth, outward push of the good news of the Messiah Yeshua, with every time, by the way, a return to Jerusalem. So I just wanted to make sure you could visually see on a map what's happening, because it's my opinion, and maybe I'm alone in this. I like maps. Anybody else like maps? I love maps. I dunno if you ever study how they make maps, certainly of the world and how they have to choose between different factors, and what, which factor is the element that

48:15 that produces a Greenland, the size larger than America or the size smaller than America, uh, depends upon which map make's philosophy. What you will notice though, most maps that you will get, can anybody tell me their center point? Their center point is Europe and, and almost always Greenwich, England, partially because of the time. That's where this universal time standard is set. My opinion is the center of the map world is Jerusalem. The center of God's activity on Earth is in Jerusalem and goes outward.

49:02 So I don't have a problem with those other maps. That's fine. You guys can all use a, a, a, a, uh, a broken map. That's okay. But I'm just, I'm just playing. As long as we remember. This is the center point of God's interaction with us. It all goes to here, this part of the world. If this part of the world is the center point of interaction, then it makes sense that it's going to be the center point of all spiritual warfare in the world. Woo. And if it's the central point of all spiritual warfare, it's gonna probably be the central point of all warfare. Yeah. So we see in the flesh today, warships converging on Israel, whether for peace

49:51 or for war, whether for Israel or for against. Well, I think that's all. You have to be determined, but we see all of this activity warfare converging. Why? Because this is where God has his footstool. That's what the psalms tell us. God's foot rests here. I don't know if you remember Jacob fell asleep on a rock and saw the connection point between the heavens and the earth being a ladder. Here, Abraham interacts with God here. Isaac interacts with God here.

50:37 I don't mean here in Dallas, here in the map, I'm pointing at the map. Dallas is, is a second, is a good second best because we have brisket. But anyways, listen. No, I'm hungry. Nevermind. God chooses to interact with the world through Israel, and thereby Israel will be the contention point through all ages, until the Messiah comes, Israel will be a point of contention. Now, this will never happen, but let me just say, should Israel fall,

51:23 the darkness will come for everyone else. It's not going to stop with the Jewish people. There's a, there's a whole lot of people out there say, oh, it's just be, if, if the Jews just didn't have a homeland, we'd be fine. History actually tells us the opposite, which is the Jews without a homeland were picked on in every society. History indicates otherwise everything is made or broken here. I don't know. It's kinda like those war movies. You ever watch the, you ever watch those war movies and they're like, you have to hold the line here.

52:09 'cause if the line breaks here, it's over for everyone else. That's the case in Israel. If the line doesn't hold, the rest of us will experience a world that we, we can't even fathom a world of confusion and darkness and, uh, all, in fact, I'll just say all those things that we just read in, in Galatians five, those are all elements of the world. And when they all interact and they're put into a pot and stirred together, it just creates a society that's not fantastic. Anyways, Luke ends this section with Philip arriving in Caesarea.

52:57 Paul will go through Caesarea in Acts chapter nine, and Peter will come in Acts chapter 10. I'm telling you this because Luke is designing the, the text of this book, of the book of Acts for a particular in narrative. Now, I told you guys from the beginning that I recognize Luke is the author. Luke is the writer of the book of Acts, but it might, in my estimation might be a better way to call him, is to call him a scribe, because to me, the Ruach or the spirit of the Lord is the author of the text. Yes, Luke, Luke has all of these intentions and designs, but the, the spirit of the Lord is,

53:43 is directing Luke in a particular way. So I don't view Luke, I know I'm, I'm like, this is semantics. I don't view Luke as the author, though. He is what we would call the author. I view the author as the spirit of the Lord. So all of that being said, what does this mean to us? I'm just gonna ask you three questions or four. First of all, going back to the beginning of the passage, are we able, are you and I able each one of us able to walk someone

54:28 who is proficient in the scriptures through the scriptures, and explain the good news of Yeshua, the Messiah, and the kingdom of God? Because that's one type of outreach or evangelism, however you wanna call it, is to be able to go to someone who is already interested in the scriptures. I want to, this is a very clear point to me, it's very different than what Paul does later in the book of Acts. These are people I am talking about here in the, in the first half of the Book of Acts. Are people interested in the God of Israel and they want to follow him, and they're, they're, they're studying the word and they're doing all of these things. They just don't know Yeshua yet.

55:16 So that's one kind of outreach. Another kind of outreach is someone who just is living their life. They have no idea. They don't wanna study the scriptures. They wanna study Hollywood or they wanna study whatever the thing is of the day. And then you have to explain to them the good news of Yeshua in, in that manner. You see? Do you understand? Those are two different things. So can you, can we walk someone who is interested in the scriptures and already studying, and I would argue in this case already proficient in the scriptures. Can we walk them through and help them see Yeshua starting with whatever passage they're on? Now, that's a difficult one. Yes. Some of us can say, yeah, let me,

56:02 let me just start you here, but I would challenge you. You find where they are and you say, do you understand what you're reading? And then walk them through the scriptures. That req, what does that require us to be quite proficient, proficient enough to be able to see Yeshua in whatever scripture is being read. In this case, it's in the tenah, in in the Old Testament. Can we do that? That's my first question. My second question is this, do we allow our faith to produce action in our lives? Just like this, uh, this eunuch, our faith

56:49 needs to have some action. Lord, here's some water. Let's go down and then I'm gonna be joyful and, and you're gonna see my, my action from this point onward. Do we have faith that produces actions? Finally, looking at this map, you saw where Philip went. He went all over what, what I would call the state of Israel. He went all over the state of Israel. He left what was a good work to go do, what the Lord told him to do, and he was moving around. It could be frustrating to, to do that often or just to, to not be in one place to, well, I don't know.

57:37 It could be frustrating for some of us. Some of us like to move all the time. So anyways, is it about the destination or is it about the journey? Because I would contend it's about both. If we forget where we're going, the destination, then it's hard for us to appreciate where we are. However, if all we do is focus on where we're going, we forget about where we are. And everyone we're with, I don't know if you've ever heard the saying, some people are, are, uh, too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good.

58:24 Just Think about that for a second. Some of us, we look forward to the day. And I'm not telling you it's a bad thing to look forward to the day. Look forward to the day when Yeshua comes. Do that. Let that be the engine that drives what you do today. Because without that hope, the day to come, your engine is gonna stop working today. But if all you do is see what is to come and place your hope in what is to come, and you forget about everything today, then you're forgetting that the Lord wants to use you in ministering to everyone else where you are.

59:10 So Aus sha Shamai, our Father in heaven, Lord, we come to you. Lord, I ask that you would minister to each and every one of us today, Lord, that you would draw us near to you, that you would, uh, teach us how to be proficient, that you would allow our faith to produce action and Lord, that you would cause us to place our hope in you. And also remember to serve you today. Lord, we bless you and praise you in Yeshua's. Name a man. Oh, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace

59:58 if in the name of our Messiah, Yeshua. Amen.