Divine Encounters: The Transformative Power of the Gospel

Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, ‘Arise, go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ This is desert. And so he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the Queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. [00:14:28]

And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go near and overtake this chariot.’ So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ And he said, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. [00:48:32]

And the place in the Scripture which he read was this: ‘He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He opened not His mouth. In His humiliation His justice was taken away. And who will declare His generation, where His life is taken from the earth?’ So the eunuch answered Philip and said, ‘I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?’ [00:79:52]

And then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at the Scripture, preached Jesus to him. And now, as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, ‘See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?’ Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.’ And he answered and said. ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’ [01:17:88]

And so he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azotus, and passing through, he preached in all of the cities until he came to Caesarea. [01:49:52]

And low and behold, there is somebody traveling on this road from Jerusalem to Gaza, and we are introduced now to the one who’s called “the man of Ethiopia, a eunuch who had great authority under Candace the Queen of the Ethiopians.” Now let me just take a moment to talk about the Ethiopian eunuch. To be a eunuch meant to be emasculated surgically in antiquity, and this was not uncommon, as eunuchs were made, usually to stand guard over a king’s harem. [07:56:60]

But also, some of those who were eunuchs rose to elevated positions of authority: household stewards for the royal house and so on, or chamberlains, treasurers in the community. And in this case we’re told that the Ethiopian eunuch was a man of great authority under Candace the Queen of Ethiopia. Now a little word about Candace, because it’s Mother’s Day; otherwise I’d go right past it. [08:37:52]

But in Ethiopia, in antiquity, the kings of Ethiopia did not take care of the royal business of the nation because it was the belief in Ethiopia that the kings were descendents of the gods, and being divinely human creatures, they were too holy than to be charged with taking care of the business of the empire. So the business of the empire was put in the hands of the queen mother, and every queen mother for many, many generations was given the title or the name Candace. [09:45:68]

And we are told that he was seated in this chariot reading, and we are also told that he was reading out loud. Now that may sound unusual to you, but if you go back to the days when you learned how to read in Kindergarten or in first grade, I don’t know how it was with you, but in our first grade room there was a little semi-circle at the front of the room, and when reading hour came, we all went up there, we got our readers, and we had to take turns reading aloud, sounding out the words as we went. [12:50:04]

And as Philip is running alongside of the chariot, he shouts over to the Ethiopian eunuch, because he can hear what he was reading, and he said, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” And the eunuch looks over at this man that’s running alongside of him asking if he understands the text of Isaiah, and he says. “Well frankly, no I don’t. How can I possibly understand it unless somebody can explain it to me?” [14:57:64]

And here’s a question I’d like to ask you: Why didn’t he just turn to the book of Matthew or Mark or Luke or John or Acts or Romans or First and Second Corinthians, or the prison epistles Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians or the book of Revelation? Well you know the answer. They hadn’t been written yet. Not one word of the New Testament was yet in print. [19:11:32]

But when the Gospel goes to Ethiopia through the evangelist Philip, it goes through the preaching of the Word of God, because we’re told that faith comes by hearing and hearing from the Word of God, and Philip preached Jesus, not from the New Testament, but like Jesus Himself preached to the people on the road to Emmaus, from the Old Testament, Philip preached Christ. [20:10:96]