As nearly every preacher with a brain has observed, the response to false doctrine too often is itself false doctrine.  Just because Johann Tetzel promised works-based salvation through the sale of indulgences does not mean that you should conclude that salvation is by faith alone, without any human interaction.  Instead, the Scriptures commonly call us to more nuanced convictions that hold two paradoxical truths in tension.

Consider, for instance, opposition among brethren to the Calvinist doctrine of eternal security, also known as perseverance of the saints, the P in TULIP.  Countless sermons have been preached (by me, among many others) examining the passages that show that falling away is indeed possible.  Hebrews 6:4-8, holla!

So far, so true.  However, in focusing on the passages that highlight the holes in Calvinism, we have not paid equal attention to the passages that Calvinists like to use, which are no less true than Hebrews 6.  They interfere with the clarity of the message we want to promote, so rather than explaining them, we explain them away.  Yes, we are saved by grace through faith BUT WE STILL HAVE TO BE BAPTIZED.  Yes, no one can snatch us out of the hand of Jesus BUT WE CAN STILL FALL AWAY.

It certainly is true that we must be baptized for the forgiveness of our sins and that we must live faithfully thereafter.  However, a distorted emphasis on those truths at the expense of others leads us to a distorted view of our own salvation and our relationship with God.

This view maximizes the importance of right action and minimizes grace and the mercy of God.  No longer is He a God who longs to have compassion on us, who lavishes on us the riches of His grace.  Instead, He becomes a God who is a spiritual miser. 

He yields His grace reluctantly, always asking, “Can’t you do better?”  He watches our spiritual journey with gimlet eyes, and as soon as we set a toe over the line (“Even now it may be that the line you have crossed!”), wham!   Down comes the executioner’s axe!  Severed from Christ, fallen from grace, toast.

The spiritual and emotional consequences of this distortion are profound.  I know brethren who are wonderful A-list Christians yet nonetheless spend their lives staggering under the weight of fear and guilt.  “What if I haven’t done enough?” they ask. 

They sense, correctly, that they haven’t done enough.  No one has or ever will.  The problem is that they’re looking for justification in the wrong place.  Our sufficiency is not in ourselves.  It is in Christ.  We are not reliable, but He is, and because He is, we can contemplate the future with confidence and hope.

Rather than being so concerned about defeating false doctrine, we instead should open our mind to the full truth of the word.  Yes, it contains warnings, and those should concern us.  However, it also contains promises, and from those we should take great comfort.

Give the King Your judgments, God,
And Your goodness to the Son;
May He judge with righteousness,
Bringing peace to everyone.
Helping those who are oppressed,
May He give the needy rest!

While the sun and moon endure,
May their fear of You not cease;
Like the rains that bless the field,
May His rule abound with peace.
May His enemies bow down,
Doing homage to His crown.

When the needy cry for help,
In compassion He will save;
They are precious in His sight;
He will keep them from the grave.
Let them name Him as they pray
And show thankfulness all day.

May the harvest crown the hills;
May the city flourish too;
Ever may His name increase;
Let men honor it anew;
For the wonders of Your ways,
Let the earth be filled with praise!

Suggested tune:  DIX
(“For the Beauty of the Earth”)

In recent days, I’ve been involved in a lot of discussions with other Christians about whether sarcasm, especially in a tense confrontation with enemies of the church, is ever appropriate for God’s people.  A host of familiar passages would suggest that it is not.  In Luke 6:28, Jesus tells us to bless those who curse us.  In 2 Timothy 2:24-25, Paul insists that the Lord’s bondservant must be kind and gentle.  In 1 Peter 3:15, Peter counsels us to make our defense with gentleness.

And yet, all three of these men used sarcasm in confrontations with enemies of the gospel.  In John 10:32, Jesus sarcastically asks the Jews which of His good works has caused them to stone Him.  Similarly, in Acts 4:9, Peter asks the Sanhedrin (“Really, guys?”) if he is on trial for a benefit done to a sick man. 

In Acts 8:3-5, Paul calls Ananias the high priest a whitewashed wall (a hypocrite, as in Matthew 23:27) for claiming to try him according to the Law yet ordering him to be struck unlawfully.  I also believe that Paul’s “apology” in v.5 is not truly an apology but rather a sarcastic allusion to the fact that Ananias was not appointed high priest according to the Law either (#notmyhighpriest).  In doing so, he would have been playing to the Pharisees, who also did not believe that Ananias was rightfully appointed, and to whom he would appeal directly in a few moments.

There are plenty of other examples throughout the New Testament and still more in the Old Testament, many of which come from the lips of God.  However, these three suffice to show that the godly employed sarcasm in defense of the gospel.  Indeed, sarcasm is a much better attested practice than (for instance) partaking of the Lord’s Supper on the first day of the week!

However, there must be some way for us to distinguish between the general rule of gentleness and these exceptions in practice.  Otherwise, the exceptions will swallow the rule!  In fact, the use of godly sarcasm appears to be limited to a narrow set of circumstances:  first, it is in defense of truth; second, it is used in response to bad faith by adversaries; and third, it highlights the bad faith.

For example, the Jews in John 10 are clearly not acting in good faith.  The many miracles that Jesus has worked have provided abundant evidence that He is from God.  However, rather than considering Jesus’ challenging statement about Himself in the light of this evidence, the Jews react with closed-minded fury.  Jesus’ sarcasm in v. 32 emphasizes the chasm between their self-righteous rage and the unrighteousness of their conduct.

The truth will always have its opponents.  Those who disagree with us in good faith, even when they disagree strongly, are entitled to a courteous and kind reception from us.  Such good treatment, in conjunction with a vigorous defense of truth, will win the honest adversary over to the cause of Christ.

However, others are committed to opposing the truth no matter what.  They will not scruple at the use of any low, underhanded, hypocritical tactic if they believe it will bring God and his people into disrepute.  In such cases, we are justified in using sarcasm to shine a light on their bad faith.  The hypocrite will not enjoy the experience, but neither does anyone else whose evil deeds are exposed to light.

The Bible is full of stories of amazing occurrences, but sometimes, the narratives about very ordinary men and women are what attract our eyes.  For me, one such is the tale of Ananias the Damascene disciple in Acts 9:10-17.  Everything we know about this man comes from the book of Acts.  Indeed, it all comes from the various accounts of the conversion of Saul.  We’re introduced to him in this story, and after it concludes, we never see him again.

Nonetheless, the Scriptures do reveal some things about him.  He lived in Damascus (duh).  He was a devout, Law-keeping Jewish follower of Jesus.  He had a good reputation.  Apparently, he even possessed the miraculous spiritual gift of healing, so he had encountered an apostle at some point.

Jesus has a plan for Ananias, and He tells him about it.  He needs to seek out a man named Saul of Tarsus and lay hands on him so that he can regain his sight.

This plan does not thrill the soul of Ananias.  He has heard of Saul of Tarsus, as probably every Christian alive had.  Saul was Church Enemy Number One, responsible for the scattering of the Jerusalem church and the imprisonment or death of many innocent believers.  What’s more, Ananias knows that Saul has come to Damascus to dish out more of the same.

The Lord’s response to Ananias’ concerns is noteworthy.  He doesn’t pause to calm the fears of His understandably concerned disciple.  He says, simply, “Go.  This one’s Mine.”  Obedient to the word of the Lord, Ananias goes.  Saul obeys the gospel, and the world will never be the same again.

I am encouraged by Ananias.  I am heartened that he too had qualms about obeying God when it came to evangelism.  I often have had, and continue to have, those same qualms with much less reason! 

In fact, it may well be that Ananias’ conversation with Jesus is included in Acts 9 because we do find it so easy to identify with him.  Afraid of personal work?  Well, here’s your guy!

However, we should not focus so much on Ananias’ reluctance that we overlook Christ’s reply.  God is mindful of our frame, and there is much in His word that reveals His compassion for us.  Despite His compassion, He remains King.  When He says, “Go,” He means, “Go!”  It may well be that He has a plan for us too, and that as with Ananias, there is someone only we can help.

Ananias obeyed God, and when he did, he found that he had nothing to be afraid of.  99.9 percent of the time, when we speak up for the Lord, we will find the same thing.  I don’t have any idea how many people I’ve invited to study the Bible with me, and not all of them were willing, but I can’t think of one who even replied with an unkind word.  Fear of the unknown, especially when it comes to evangelism, is natural and understandable, but when God calls us to do His work, fear needs to take a back seat.

In this congregation, we are committed to imitating the simple faith and the simple practices of the church of the first century.  There are some things that distinguish our time from theirs.  For instance, none of us have miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit.  However, the essentials of our faith remain unchanged.  The same gospel that saved them still saves us, and it operates on the human heart in the same way.

There are many passages in the New Testament that illustrate this timeless truth.  Today, however, we’ll be examining a text from this week’s Bible reading.  It is Acts 8:26-39, and it tells the story of the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch. 

There is a miracle in this narrative, but interestingly, it happens after the eunuch obeys the gospel and has nothing to do with his decision to do so.  Everything that Philip did to bring the eunuch to the Lord is something that we can do too.  This morning, then, let’s see how we can learn to be more effective personal workers as we consider how the eunuch was guided to Christ.

There are three main elements in this story that lead to the eunuch’s salvation.  The first of these is AN OBEDIENT DISCIPLE.  We see the obedience of Philip described in Acts 8:26-29.  The Holy Spirit tells him to go hiking out into the desert.  He does.  The Spirit tells him to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger.  He does that too.

We might read this story and think that personal work would be a whole lot easier if we too got instructions from the Holy Spirit.  Of course, the thing is that we have received instructions about evangelism from the Spirit!  Just as Philip had to obey if he wanted to save the eunuch’s soul, we have to obey our instructions if we want to save the souls of those around us.

The first of these, according to 1 Peter 3:15, is that we have to be ready at any time to give a defense of the hope that is within us.  In some ways, this is easier for us than ever before.  As long as we’ve got our phone with us, we’ve got a Bible with us too. 

The question is whether we can use the word of God to teach others how to please God.  If we go out to eat after services, and somebody recognizes that we came out of church and asks us to explain the Bible to us, would we be able to do that?  Could we show them book, chapter, and verse that explains who Jesus is, what His death means, and how people can be saved from their sins through Him?  Brethren, if we can’t do that right now, we aren’t ready, and we need to study, study, study until we are ready.

Second, we have to be opportunistic.  As Colossians 4:3 shows, we have to pray for opportunities and have the love for others and zeal for the Lord to walk through those doors when they open.  Everywhere Paul went, he found opportunities to teach because he was looking for them.  If we have a heart like his, we will find opportunities too.

Our second main element in the salvation of the eunuch is AN EAGER SEEKER.  Let’s keep reading, in Acts 8:30-35.  Both in this section and in the context preceding it, the eunuch comes across as a stand-up guy.  He has several characteristics that add up to him being open to the gospel.

The first of these, and something that always will be present in those who come to the Lord, is zeal for God.  When the text tells us that the eunuch came from Ethiopia to Jerusalem to worship, we read right through that, but it’s actually really impressive. 

Anybody know how far it is from the capital of the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia to Jerusalem?  I didn’t either, so I looked it up on Google Maps, and it’s a little over 2000 miles, about the same distance as from Nashville to LA.  This is long before the days of planes, trains, and automobiles, too, so we’re looking at something like a month of hard, dangerous travel, one way.  The eunuch did all this to worship at Jerusalem, even though they wouldn’t even let him in the temple because he was a eunuch!  As if that weren’t enough, we see him spending his time on the journey back by reading from Isaiah.

Equal to his zeal, though, was his humility.  Despite his zeal, he doesn’t act like he’s got it all figured out.  Instead, he knows what he doesn’t know, he’s willing to ask Philip for help, and he doesn’t dismiss the truth about Jesus because of his preconceptions.

Now, this might seem like a fairy-tale prospect, but let me tell you—the vast majority of the people I’ve brought to the Lord have been like this.  They cared enough to learn, and they were humble enough to learn.  If either one of these attributes is absent, we aren’t going to get anywhere. 

The final element of our conversion story is IMMERSION IN WATER.  Let’s finish up our reading for the morning with Acts 8:36-39.  The first thing that strikes me about this story is that as Luke tells it, the one who introduces the subject of baptism is the eunuch.  Somehow, somebody who didn’t understand that Isaiah 53 was about Jesus now knows that he has to be immersed in water.  How’d he figure that out?

Once we ask the question, the answer is obvious.  In the course of preaching Jesus to him, Philip also tells him about baptism.  From this, we must conclude that it’s impossible to preach Jesus without preaching baptism, and that somebody who doesn’t preach baptism isn’t preaching Jesus.

Second, this passage is vital to our understanding of the nature of Bible baptism.  The eunuch is traveling through the desert.  It’s safe to assume that he had water with him.  If not, he’s not going to make it back to Ethiopia!  Nonetheless, in order to be baptized, he waits until he sees a body of water by the side of the road, goes down into the water with Philip, and comes back out of the water.  Despite the misuse of the word “baptism” today, that doesn’t fit with sprinkling or pouring.  It only fits with immersion, burial with Christ under the water.

Now, I’m sure that many of you have heard, as I have, that you can prove that Bible baptism is immersion by looking at the Greek word for “to baptize”, which is baptizō, and means “to immerse”.  That’s true, but I don’t like using that argument, just as I don’t care for proving any point by arguing from the Greek.

Let me explain why.  None of us are ever going to study with a non-Christian who is fluent in koiné Greek.  As a result, they have no way to determine whether we’re telling them the truth or not.  Even if they believe us, their faith will be in us and in our Greek dictionary instead of in the Bible. 

However, we can take them to Acts 8 and show them the eunuch going down into the water and coming up out of the water, and they can understand that for themselves.  When we teach them that way, we’re not only teaching them the truth.  We’re teaching them how to find the truth in the word of God.