Chapter 12

We are not told on what particulars Philip dwelt; but, doubtless, starting from the prophetic description of the Man of Sorrows, "_despised and rejected of men_," he would show how that description held true of the earthly life of Jesus. And then he would go on to show the meaning and bearing of these sufferings. They arose from no fault on the part of Jesus; but, "_He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities_." And yet that was not the end. The life which had thus ended in shame had begun again in glory: the cross had led on to the crown. And as thus he unfolded the first great principles of the Christian faith, Philip would press home on the eunuch's awakened conscience that they had a vital meaning for him. "_Repent_," can we not imagine him pleading as Peter had pleaded before, "_and be baptised . . . in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost_" (Acts ii. 38). The eunuch's heart was touched, and he asked that he might be baptized. Satisfied that he was in earnest, Philip agreed to his request. And when they came to a certain water, "_they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him_." Thus "the Ethiopian changed his skin," and "_went on his way rejoicing_" to his distant home, to declare in his turn to his countrymen the tidings of great joy.

There are many points of view from which we might regard this beautiful incident, but it is with it in its bearing on the person and character of Philip that we are alone at present concerned. And in considering it further in this light, it may be well to confine ourselves to noticing in what way it gained for Philip his distinctive title of "_the Evangelist_," and consequently what it has to teach us still regarding all evangelistic and missionary work.

I.

The Evangelist.

With regard to the evangelist himself, one truth stands out clearly from the whole narrative, his work is _given_ to him to do. He is first and foremost a missionary, one sent.

It is a pity, perhaps, that in our ordinary speech, we have come to limit the name "missionary" so much to the man who carries the gospel abroad. No doubt he is a missionary in the highest sense of the word; but still the fundamental idea in every minister or evangelist's position is the idea of one sent--sent for a particular purpose, with a particular message to proclaim wherever God may place him. He has no power, no authority of his own. All that he has comes from Him whose servant he is, and whose truth he has to announce.

You remember--to appeal at once to the highest example--how ever-present this thought of His mission was to the mind of our Lord and Master. His meat, so He told His disciples, was to do the will of Him that sent Him (John iv. 34). The word which He spake was not His own, but the Father's who sent Him (John xiv. 24). And so when the time came for His sending forth His disciples to carry on His work, it was as "Apostles," those sent, that the work was entrusted to them; and in the same spirit He prayed for them in His great intercessory prayer: "_As Thou didst send Me into the world, even so sent I them into the world_" (John xvii. 18).

If we keep this view of the evangelist as the missionary, ever before us, there is one fact regarding his position we can never lose sight of. He has no new truth of his own to declare, no new theories of his own to frame. The message which he has to deliver is not his own, but God's; and it must be his constant endeavour to learn that message for himself, and then, as God's servant, to announce it to others. Men may receive his message. If they do not, he dare not substitute any other.

II.

His Message.

In what does the evangelist's message consist? "_Philip_," we are told, "_preached unto him_ JESUS." And what that included we have already seen. It was the story of the life, and the death, and the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, a new story then, an old story now, but still "the old, old story" for us.

The duty of the Christian teacher must be first of all to proclaim Christ and His salvation, to announce the glad tidings of mercy and of love to sinful men.

This is not, of course, to say that every address or sermon is to be occupied with the objective facts of Christ's life and death. Such teaching would soon become monotonous and wearisome, and fail in the very purpose it set before it. Nor have men only to be awakened to the truth, they must be built up in it. And the practical question for us all is to learn how to apply and carry out in our daily lives, the truths we have received, how to make our conduct correspond to our creed. That opens up an endless field for the evangelist's work: that introduces us to lectures on Home Missions and Foreign Missions, to the story of noble lives; to all, in fact, that is likely to deepen and to quicken our moral nature. But still this remains as the fundamental object of the whole evangel, to preach Jesus, to bring those to Him who know Him not, to strengthen and to comfort those who do.

When, then, men call upon the Christian teacher to leave the objective facts of the gospel alone, and to occupy himself with the philosophic and social questions of the day, they are calling upon him to surrender his special function and duty. He must indeed endeavour so to present the truth so as to meet the peculiar wants of his own time. The form in which the gospel was presented in one age may not be the best form of presenting it in another. At one time it may be necessary to emphasise one aspect of the truth, at another, another. But underneath all its changing forms and aspects, _the_ truth remains unchanged; and it is that which must be taught.

And after all, has not the simple gospel message ever proved itself the one message that can touch the hearts and meet the wants of men? What was it, for example, in the preaching of Savonarola that so mightily moved Florence, the elegant, refined, wicked, pagan Florence of the fifteenth century? He himself tells us that it was the preaching of Scripture truth. When he discoursed in a philosophical manner, the ignorant and the learned were alike inattentive: but "the word" mightily delighted the minds of men, and showed its divine power in the reformation of their lives. Or, to take another instance from nearer home. Archdeacon Wilson describes somewhere the experience of the promoters of a certain evening-class, which they had instituted for the benefit of some of the more ignorant and degraded inhabitants of Bristol. All that they could think of they did for the benefit of the men who gathered to it. They read to them; they sang to them: they taught them to read and write. Yet, in course of time, interest flagged. Every expedient failed, and they were on the point of abandoning the work in despair, when it occurred to them to apply to the men themselves. "What would you like us to tell you about next?" they asked. "Could you tell us something about Jesus Christ?" answered one of the men. That was the one thing needful, the one abiding satisfaction for their deepest needs.

And so ever. It may be strange, but it is true, that it is "_the Man of Sorrows_" who has won the love of men; it is the Saviour who has been lifted up on high out of the earth, who has drawn all men to Himself. Christ: Christ crucified: Christ risen: that is the message which every Christian evangelist has to declare.

III.

His Message of Glad Tidings.

And is not that good news? "_Beginning from that same scripture, Philip preached the GLAD TIDINGS of Jesus_."

Philip made the eunuch's previous knowledge the starting-point of all that he had to say, and, as he went on, showed how there was in his message the answer to all his doubts and the solution of all his difficulties.

And the gospel has still the same meaning for us. It has a message for the man struggling with the battle of life, in the example of One who has fought that fight before, who knows its every trial and sorrow, and who has come gloriously through them all. It has a message for the sinner, brooding anxiously over his guilty past, conscious only of his own defilement and unworthiness in the sight of an all-holy God, as it assures him of mercy and free forgiveness, of sin blotted out in the blood of Christ. It has a message for the trembling believer, compassed about with temptations and doubts, as it tells of One who can still be "_touched with the feeling of our infirmities_," and who, because "_He Himself hath suffered being tempted_," is "_able to succour them that are tempted_." And it has a message for the mourner sorrowing over the loss of near and dear ones, for it points to Him who is "_the Resurrection and the Life_" of His people, and gives promise of the "_Father's house_" with its many mansions, where He is preparing a place for His children.

And yet great and glorious though that message is, where there are not a hearing ear, an understanding heart, and a willing mind, even a St Philip or a St Paul may preach in vain. But where, on the other hand, these are present, then God may use even the humblest and feeblest of His servants to speak some word, to utter some warning, which may be worth to us more than all we have in the world besides. God grant that it may be so with us, and that by the power of the Holy Ghost the word preached may be welcomed, "not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which also worketh in you that believe" (1 Thess. ii. 13).

ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA

BY REV. GEORGE MILLIGAN, M.A., D.D.

One of the most striking features of the early Christian Church was what we have come to know as Christian Communism, or as the historian describes it in Acts iv, 32: "_And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and soul: and not one of them said that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common_." It is a bright and a pleasing picture that is thus presented. Nor is it difficult to understand how such a spirit should arise amongst men whose hearts were full to overflowing with the new Christian graces of brotherhood and peace. For we must not imagine that there was anything compulsory about this communism. It was entirely voluntary, and was due to the eager desire on the part of the wealthier members of the Church to do all that they could for their poorer brethren. In this particular alone, we can at once see how widely it differed from what is generally known as communism or socialism in the present day. The spirit of much at any rate of our present-day socialism--so the distinction has been cleverly drawn--is, "What is thine, is mine": but the spirit of those early believers was rather, "What is mine, is thine."

At the same time, we can readily understand that in a large and mixed community like the early Church, all members would not think exactly alike, and that while many, we may believe most, would cheerfully obey this unwritten law of love, and share and share alike, others would give in to it--if they did give in, for, let me again emphasise, there was no compulsion upon any--more grudgingly and hesitatingly.

Of these two classes the writer of the Book of Acts presents us with individual examples--of the former class, in the case of Joseph, or Barnabas, a wealthy Cypriot, who "_having a field, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet_" (Acts iv. 37)--of the latter, in the case of Ananias with Sapphira his wife, whose melancholy story is now before us.

That story is very familiar, and is often regarded simply as an instance of the sinfulness of lying. And that undoubtedly it is; but it warns us also against other equally dangerous and insidious errors, as a little consideration will, I think, show. For what were Ananias's motives in acting as he did? If we can discover them, we shall have the key to the whole story.

And here, it seems to me, they must, in the first instance at any rate, have been of a sufficiently _generous_ character. Ananias had seen what was going on around him, and he had determined that he must not be behindhand in this ministry of love. But--and now we get a little deeper into his character--_ambition_ to stand well with his fellow-members evidently mingled with the pure spirit of charity: though we do not need to suppose that there was as yet any conscious intention to deceive. Acting, then, on these somewhat mixed motives of charity and ambition, Ananias determined to sell a possession, some farm or other which he had, and hand over the money to the apostles. He probably meant at first to hand over the whole price, but with the money in his hand, the demon of avarice entered into his heart. And he "_kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, did it not remain thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thy power? How is it that thou hast conceived this thing in thy heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God_" (Acts v. 2-4).

The sin of Ananias, then, lay in this, that he gave a certain sum _as if it were the whole_. There was no necessity for his giving either the whole or the part. Had he hung back, when others were selling their possessions, he would have been pronounced _ungenerous_ in comparison with them. Had he brought a part, making no mistake about it that it was only a part, when they were giving all, then he would have been not _so generous_. But when he brought a part as if it were the whole, he added to his former selfishness and avarice _deceit and hypocrisy_. If he did not in so many words tell a lie, he did what was equally heinous, he _acted_ a lie.

It is only when we thus clearly realise the enormity of Ananias's sin, that we can understand the reason of the dreadful doom that followed. "_And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down, and gave up the ghost_" (ver. 5). The judgment came not from men, but from God. As it was in God's sight--the sight of the living and heart-searching God--that the sin had been committed: so it was by the direct "visitation of God" that it was now punished.

Nor was the awful lesson yet over. Three hours had scarcely elapsed since the young men had carried forth her husband, and buried him, when Sapphira, "_not knowing what was done, came in_." "_And Peter answered unto her_"--answered her look of amazement as she regarded the awe-struck faces of those present--"_Tell me, whether ye sold the land for so much_?" "_Yea, for so much_," she replied, adhering to the unholy compact into which, with Ananias, she had entered, and adding deceit in speech to his deceit in act. "_But Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and they shall carry thee out_" (verses 8, 9).

It was the first intimation the unhappy woman had received of Ananias's death: and to the shame of her own consciousness of guilt, must have been added the feeling that she had a certain responsibility in what had befallen him. A word of remonstrance on her part might, at the beginning, have prevented the crime: it was too late now. "_And she fell down immediately at his feet, and gave up the ghost: and the young men came in and found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her by her husband_" (ver. 10). And as the sacred historian again impressively adds, showing how deep was the effect produced: "_And great fear came upon the whole church, and upon all that heard these things_" (ver. 11).

Such is the story. Who does not feel its sadness? All before had been so peaceful and happy. The early believers had presented such a beautiful spectacle of brotherly unity and love. And now, all too soon, the enemy had been at work, sowing tares among the wheat. In the very particular in which the Church most deserved praise--the enthusiasm of its members' charity--sin had appeared. And thus early had the young Church of Christ learned that truth, which it has been the work of nineteen centuries to emphasise, that her true danger comes not so much from without as from within, and that then only is she disgraced, when she disgraces herself.

For what may we learn from this tragic incident?

I.

We learn the sanctity, the holiness, which Christ looks for in His Church.

The Church of Christ is holy: it consists of those who have separated themselves from the world and its defilements, and who have set themselves apart--body, soul, and spirit--for Christ's service. That, I say, is the Church's ideal. But we know, alas! only too well, how far short the Church on earth falls of that--how much worldliness, and vanity, and ambition--yes, and even grosser sins--mingle with our holy things.

But we must keep God's ideal ever before us, that ideal which assures us that God, by His Spirit, actually dwells in His Church, dwells in the heart of each individual believer. Only when we remember that, can we see how great was Ananias's sin. "_He lied to the Holy Ghost: he lied not unto men, but unto God_." As by God's Spirit his heart had been enlightened and opened to the knowledge of the truth: so now against that Spirit he had deliberately sinned.

Such a sin could not pass unpunished. Had that been allowed, the false impression would have got abroad that God was easy and tolerant of sin. Rather it was necessary "that men should be taught once for all, by sudden death treading swiftly on the heels of detected sin, that the gospel, which discovers God's boundless mercy, has not wiped out the sterner attributes of the Judge."[1]

II.

We learn the reality of the power of Satan.

On this point, Peter's question is very suggestive--"_Why has Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost_?"

There is a constant tendency in those days, which are so impatient of all that is supersensible and wonderful, to try and get rid of the personality of the devil, and to tone down the question of man's salvation to a struggle between two opposing principles within the heart, instead of regarding it, as the Bible teaches us to regard it, as an actual contest for the soul of man between real persons--the Spirit of God from above, the Spirit of evil from beneath. The heart of man is as it were a little city or fortress on the borderland between two nations at war with each other, and which is liable to be captured by whichever at that point proves itself the strongest. But at the same time with this great difference, that every man has the power of deciding into whose hands he is to fall. His will is free: and he is personally accountable for whom he may choose as master.

For, notice how, in the case before us, St Peter, while tracing the fall of Ananias to the agency of Satan, yet prefixes his question with a _why_: "_Why hath Satan jilted thine heart_?" There had been a time when resistance was still possible. Ananias might have rejected the suggestion of the tempter: he was not bound to yield: but he had yielded. And very suggestive of why he had fallen so low, is that other word "_filled_." It brings before us the quiet, gradual manner in which evil takes possession of the heart of man. We have seen already that it was so in the case of Ananias. _Ambition_ to stand well in the sight of others was his first step: to ambition was afterwards added _avarice_: and then ambition and avarice combined led to _deceit and hypocrisy_. Or, as bringing out the same truth of the gradual progression of sin, notice how Ananias apparently first _thought_ over the sin in his own heart: then _spoke_ of it to his wife, and agreed with her that it could be done: and then how together they _carried it out_. Thought, speech, action: how often are these the successive links by which a man is led on from one degree of sin to another? The lesson is surely to resist at the very outset: so much depends upon the first step. We must not give place to even the first thought of evil: nor listen to the tempter's whisper, whisper he ever so softly. How many, as they look back upon a downward career, can trace its beginning to some idle or vain thought, or to some hasty or careless word!

III.

We learn that a divided service is not possible.

"_No man_!" said our Lord Himself, "_can serve two masters: ye cannot serve God and mammon_." Not that we are not tempted sometimes to try it. What commoner sin is there amongst professing Christians than the attempt to make the best of both worlds--to lay hold of this world with the one hand, while we give it up with the other--to seem other than we are?

But surely with this old story from the Book of Acts to warn us, we must see how vain all such divided efforts are. We may deceive ourselves or others for a while; but the deception cannot last, and in some hour of searching or of trial our true characters will be laid bare. Let us see to it, then, that we may take this awful example home as a very real and practical warning to ourselves--that we not only "_hate and abhor lying_," but put away from us whatsoever "_maketh a lie_"! and that the prayer continually on our lips and in our hearts is, "From the crafts and assaults of the devil . . . from pride, vain-glory, and hypocrisy, good Lord, deliver us."

[1]Dr Oswald Dykes.

DEMAS

BY REV. PRINCIPAL DAVID ROWLANDS, B.A.

Many a man who figures in history, is only known in connection with some stupendous fault--some mistake, some folly, or some sin--that has given him an unenviable immortality. Mention his name, and the huge blot by which his memory is besmirched starts up before the mind in all its hideousness. Take Cain, for example. He occupies the foremost rank as regards fame; his name is one of the first that children learn to lisp; and yet what do we know about him? Very little indeed; our knowledge, in fact, is limited to a single act--an act which is the most horrible of human crimes. His name is suggestive only of violence, murder, the shedding of innocent blood--the foulest deeds that man can possibly commit. Or take Judas Iscariot. We know more particulars about him--we know that he was one of the original apostles, that he managed their common fund, that he posed as a strict economist, and above all, that he was a consummate hypocrite. Yet when we mention his name, we call up the remembrance of only one vile deed, one treacherous act--an act that has made his name a curse and a byword throughout the ages. The same remark is applicable to Demas. His name is familiar enough, but the story of his life is almost unknown. Paul refers to him more than once as a fellow-labourer, which shows that for a time at least he was an exemplary Christian. But he failed in the hour of trial--failed through being dominated by an inordinate love of the world--and his memory survives, therefore, as a representative of that worldly-mindedness which leads to apostasy.