R1525 Obedient Courage

God has an encouraging word for you and me today through the Bible-based preaching of Dr. Don Wilton and a message on obedient courage. We're on the way to Acts chapter 8 in just a moment, but Dr. Wilton wants me to remind you we're here to pray with you anytime at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673.

We would love to connect with you. And now, Dr. Don Wilton. This is a story about an encounter between two people. One of the people had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The other one did not. And then an encounter took place.

So let me just read it to you. Verse 26 of the book of Acts and chapter 8. Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.

This is a desert place. So Philip rose up and he went. And there he found an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This Ethiopian, he was in charge of all of her treasure. So he was not an insignificant man. He was a man with great responsibility. And he had come to Jerusalem to worship and he was returning seated in his chariot and was reading the prophet Isaiah.

Could you just all look at me just a second? Everybody went to Jerusalem to worship. Church was the kind of thing that you did.

You ever been around someone who, just wonderful people? Churches, that's what we do. We go to church. I've met many people that say, you know, that's the way I was born and raised.

By the way, from the age of six, I fell into that category. That's what we did. You know, it's the right thing to do. Go to church. This man went, he went to the temple. This was what you did.

Now look what happened here. So he was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading this word. Remember, we are instructed by his word. He was reading specifically the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet. And so Philip asked him, do you understand what you're reading? And he said, how can I unless someone guides me?

So he invited Philip to come up and to sit with him. Now the passage of Scripture that he was reading was this one. Like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter like a lamb before its shearer's silence, so he opens not his mouth.

In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation for his life is taken away from the earth? By the way, you can read that yourself. It's in Isaiah 53 and verse 7 and 8, Isaiah 53 and verse 7 and 8. So this man, the Ethiopian eunuch in his chariot, he was just sitting there riding along, coming back from Jerusalem. He'd been in worship. He did the right thing, and he opened the Scriptures, and he was reading Isaiah 53. Philip jumps into his chariot, says to him, do you know, do you understand all that? He said, well, how can I? No, I don't. I don't understand this. Somebody doesn't tell me, how am I supposed to understand these things? Verse 34, so the eunuch said to Philip, about whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this? About himself or about someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture, he told him the good news about the Lord Jesus.

And as they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, see, here is water. What prevents me from being baptized? By the way, have you been baptized? You need to be. I'll help you. We'll help you.

That's why we're here. In fact, we're going to have a baptismal service right at the end of this time of worship. What prevents me from being baptized? So he commanded the chariot to stop. They both went down into the water, and Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. Then they came back up out of the water. That's biblical baptism. Baptism by immersion.

That's what Jesus did. He went down under the water. The water closed over him like death closes over us, over Jesus. Jesus was put in the grave, and he died completely, but he didn't stay under the water, because God raised him up to walk in newness of life. He brought him back from the grave. He conquered death. He defeated death. So when you give your heart to Jesus, baptism is exactly that.

It's a picture. That's why we've got to do what Jesus told us to do. When you get into the water, you go under the water, I or another person will take you, put you under the water, the water closed, symbolizing, identifying with the death, burial, and then the resurrection raised up. We saw that at the beginning of our worship today with Rosa. What a beautiful picture. What an incredible picture.

It's the most amazing celebration. This is exactly what happened here. So when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away. The eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing, and of course they intersected later on. I want to just speak to you a little bit about obedient courage, and here's the reason why I want to speak to us, because many of us have seen Jesus. We've seen Him at work, many of us. We've seen Him. I've seen Jesus. I want you to know that I have seen Him. I've seen the Lord Jesus.

I see Him in you. I want you to listen to something that happened to me. I'm just going to share a personal story because it happened right here in this city. And if you haven't heard this story, I'm just going to remind some of you. It's a wonderful story. This was the Monday after my first Sunday with you.

So we're talking a long time ago. I was brand new. I didn't even know where Walmart was in our city.

Had no clue. And my office here at the church was just boxes all over the place. Brand new, my wife and I and our three younger children had just answered God's call, moved here from the great city of New Orleans, Louisiana, and you were all just hearing my Louisiana accent for the first time. And I walked into my office on Monday morning, and the next minute, one of the most dearest, precious men I've ever met walked into my office. His name is Bill Adams, and he is sitting right there.

Well, Bill Adams walked into my office negotiating all the boxes, just came to say hello, welcome, and he walked over, took me by the hand. He said, Dr. Wilton, in his wonderful southern accent, so glad you're here. And by the way, pastor, would you pray with us for a certain gentleman? I said, well, you asking me to pray, a man of my caliber?

Who is it? He said, well, his name is Papa Sam. I said, really? Well, tell me about this man. He said, well, if you open up the blind, the curtain of your office, and you look across down on St. John's, you'll see a little breakfast place down there called Papa Sam's.

I said, yeah, yeah, I see that over there. He said, well, the man who owns that, he's affectionately known as Papa Sam. And he said, you know, he's someone well known, but he doesn't know Jesus. He has no relationship with Jesus. We've been praying for him for years and for years and for years that he would give his heart to Jesus. Now, I want to just tell you something, folks. I wish that I could tell you that this was natural me, but God taught me a lesson on the first day that I was privileged to be loved by you. I can't explain it to you, but I turned and I said to him, Brother Bill, really?

You've been praying for him for how? He said, oh, years and years and years. I said, well, come on, let's go. Boy, we went marching out of my office all the way down the elevator, across the parking lot, up and down like this, down onto St. John. There was no Barnett Parks or nothing else was there.

It was just bush and dense jungle and everything else back in those days. And I just went down there and just walked into this place. As we got to the door, Bill turned to me and he said, now, notwithstanding Sam is a fine man, he don't like preachers. I said, well, thank you very much. Thanks for telling me that, you know. This is like inviting me to have a personal conversation with a Rottweiler, you know.

I mean, this is getting worse and worse. Well, we walked in there and you'll remember, Bill, he was standing right there at the doorway and as my memory serves me, he was a big man and he had on these kind of overall type things. And he had his fingers in the straps and Bill said, Sam, this is our new pastor. I can only tell you God had something to do with this because I looked at this man, never met him before, didn't know him.

I'd never been into that place. And I said to him, Mr. Rhodes, could we meet somewhere privately? He looked, splattered, looked down at me. He said, sure, over here. I didn't do this.

I can't explain it to you. It's like I just walked straight past him, went into his office. I sat in his chair and invited him to sit down. When he sat down, I turned to him. I didn't know what to say.

What do you say? And I turned to him and I said to him, Sam, would you like to give your heart to Jesus? And he looked at me.

He began to seemingly look like he was tearing up and he said, I sure do, preacher. I didn't know what to do. I reached into my jacket pocket. I was looking for notes. What was my next point?

Where do I go? Which is the next verse? How am I going to say this properly? I looked over at Bill Adams. I said, well, amen, Bill. And Bill said to me, well, amen back to you. And I said, well, amen to you and amen back. And we went amen backing and forth. And finally, I didn't know what to say. And we were all standing there. So then I said to him, well, Sam, why don't we just get down on our knees?

You don't ask a big man like that. I mean, he got down on his knees with us like this. And I said to him, Sam, why don't you just tell Jesus all about it? Folks, you never ask a man who hasn't spent a lot of time praying just to have a public prayer.

Or so I thought. And he began to pray the most discombobulated, mixed up, not in order, didn't have any kind of, it just began to flow from this man's heart. And in between what he was saying were what I would call not entirely the most savory use of language that you would use.

Not overtly bad, but just conversational, not the best kind of language. And the first time it came out of his mouth, I was like this. Have you ever seen a peeping preacher?

And the first time I heard blankety blank come out, I went like this. He would say something and then I would cover, because I was the pastor, amen, amen, amen, like God would forgive him right there on the spot. And you know what? That's exactly what God was doing. I tell you, when that precious man got up from his feet, the tears were flowing and God was in the house and it was something I couldn't even begin to imagine. And that Wednesday night, we had a prayer service in the dining hall of First Baptist Church in Spartanburg and the place was filled with people. And I was the brand new pastor. This was my first Wednesday and I had to impress everybody at the church and all I did was at the end was to close it and I got up on that rickety little pulpit area down there in the dining hall and I leant up against it and I thought, now I've got to say something to impress these people.

And I said it. I said, just before we close tonight, I wonder if there's anyone here who would have a word of testimony to share with us. And all of a sudden in the back road, Sam Rhodes stood up and started to come down the aisle and I went into a state of panic. I wanted to say to him, excuse me, you go back to your seat right now, this minute. Nobody in a Baptist church comes forward unless we're singing Just As I Am. I don't even hear the instrumentalists.

Steve Skinner is silent there. You go back right now. Don't come, don't come, don't come. He came all the way up to the platform and he leant against that pulpit and I knew he was going to do it. And he leant on that pulpit and many of you were there and he said, I just want to tell you, I can't thank you enough for praying for me. I can't thank you enough for this preacher and Bill Adams coming to my place because I gave my heart to Jesus and I want you to know I have never felt so blankety-blank good in all my life. I came around and I said, Bill Adams did it. Bill Adams did it. Well, it wasn't too long after that that this beloved man lay on his deathbed and just before he died, he said to Bill Adams, Bill, I want you to make sure you go back to that pastor and just say thank you because this last stretch of my life since I gave my heart to Jesus has been the most wonderful of my entire life. He said, I want you to know something and I gave my heart to Jesus.

I'm about to go to heaven. And he did. That's what happened here. Look at what happened here, folks. First of all, we can affirm that God does direct.

God does. Please forgive the interruption. We'll be back with the rest of today's message from Dr. Wilton in just a moment. But Dr. Don, again, wants me to remind you we are here to have a conversation with you.

It's not just a presentation, but a conversation. And here as we wrap up on the last day of this unique 2020 year, we want you to know that we are available to pray with you at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673. We'd love to be a part of what Dr. Don calls your 2 a.m. friends. We also would be thrilled to help connect you with a local church, something within two or three zip codes of right where you are because we believe there is great power and effectiveness in being involved in local church. And right now, I know that may just mean virtually, but we'd love to help you plug in. Again, more details are on our website at www.tewonline.org.

Or giving us a call at 866-899-9673. Now back to today's message with Dr. Don Wilton. God points. God directs.

He's the Commander in Chief. Angel of the Lord came to this man and said, I want you to walk the parking lot. Go and make a visit.

I want you to walk over the street. I want you to sit down with that person that works with you. God does direct. He always does that because it's the work of the Holy Spirit. God by His Spirit goes ahead of us. You know that. I know that. I believe it. That's why you're listening right now. That's why you're here. God is directing.

This is His work. And people do obey. I'm looking at one incident, but I've often thought to myself, even though I couldn't have explained it like this, I think first of all Bill Adams obeyed God. I'm not sure if you'd gone to Bill that he would have fully unpacked and understood why he came to my office on the first day I was here to come and tell me to pray for a man. But God was directing and He was obeying. I mean it was just as simple as that.

And then when he told me, I just had this urgency that I needed to go and just meet the man. There was a spirit movement in my heart. The lights weren't falling out. The windows weren't shaking.

I just knew it wasn't about me standing there. Well, let's just, there were a lot of things that would be wonderful. It would be just as wonderful for me to say, well, Bill, thank you. Let me join with you in praying for him. Wonderful, let's do that.

We should always do that. But for me, I had to translate my obedience into the courage to go and actually do something that really I don't think I really wanted to do. Things do line up. When God is involved and people obey Him, all things are working together for the good of those that love God and to those who are called, those who are obedient to Him. And when you look at this passage, it's almost surreal. He has this Ethiopian and Jerusalem and the temple and He's on a chariot and He's on a dusty road and here's Philip and God brings all of these little circumstances and He brings them together for His divine purpose.

Have you found yourself many times, which we all have in saying, you know, I'm just, I would never have thought it, but I'm just so glad that I went. This is not just let's go to the temple in Jerusalem because it's the right thing to do or the proper thing to do. It is God engaged in your life because He loves you. This is according to His purpose. Questions do matter. They do matter. It just absolutely intrigues me when Philip gets there and he sees this man and then he asks the question and what a simple question. Do you understand what you're reading? What a great question. Questions do matter. The Bible does inspire.

You know, here he is in verse 32 and verse 33 reading from Psalm 53 and God's Word stands because this is God's inerrant, infallible Word. It is truth without error. This is truth in a world in which people are desperately seeking truth. They're trying to hunt it down.

They're looking everywhere to try and find out the relevancy. Why do I exist? What's my purpose? What am I doing here? Where am I going?

There's got to be more than life. I need truth in my heart and the Word of God inspires me because God's Word is absolute truth and God tells me who He is and how I can become reconciled to Him even though I am a sinner separated from Him. This is good news. This is good news, very good news, but almost every bit of good news, that great gift perhaps that you received at Christmas until it's opened, it's not as good as it could be. I pray you would take just a moment and open your hearts to our closing thoughts from our pastor and chief encourager, Dr. Don Wilton. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Why don't you pray this prayer with me right now? Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner and I know that Jesus died for me on the cross. Today I repent of my sin and by faith I receive you into my heart. In Jesus' name. My friend, I welcome you today into the family of God.

This is exciting news. Welcome to the family of God. I'm confident some of you prayed with Dr. Wilton moments ago and gave your life to Christ.

Maybe for the first time, maybe rededicating your life. Either way, Dr. Don has resources he wants you to have. Won't you call us right now at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673. Let us provide these resources to you.

And speaking of resources, on our website, T-E-W online.org, there are a tremendous amount of great resources, resources like this. As you reflect upon your life this season, think about your friends and family members outside of Christ or those who are drifting away from God. Could this be you? This Christmas, Dr. Wilton wants to encourage you to make a commitment to meet Jesus every day so you can learn more about him and be able to live a life of trust and not fear. With your gift of $30 and support to the encouraging word this month, you will receive the spirit of God within you. A beautiful 52-week leather-bound devotional written by 52 trusted pastors and leaders, including Dr. Wilton. You will find blessings upon blessings as you read uplifting scripture verses, daily devotions, and prayers. Plus, you will receive psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, instrumental music CD by gifted pianist and Louisiana college president, Dr. Rick Brewer. Call us today at 866-899-WORD to request the new devotional and music CD.

They will make great Christmas gifts of encouragement, too. Thank you for your continued partnership. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you from all of us here at The Encouraging Word. As we begin the year tomorrow, I hope you're getting your copy of that wonderful resource, the spirit of God within you. Call right now at 866-899-WORD or visit us online at TEWOnline.org. Let's be a part of studying God's word together with that Bible study online at TEWOnline.org.