Acts 8:5-8 Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ to them.… There was joy on account of — I. TEMPORAL MERCIES. The circumstances attending the benefits, as well as the benefits themselves, would render this joy peculiarly great. For many hopeless maladies were cured instantaneously and completely, neither subjecting the patient to any painful operation, nor leaving any portion of the distemper unremoved. And their joy would be still more enhanced by perceiving the hand of God in all this, and that it was illustrative of the mercy and power on which they might rest their confidence in Him for future and higher blessings. For they welcomed the redeeming message thus recommended and attested, and embraced the faith and hope of the gospel. Now, when any blessing is put into your lot, your hearts will doubtless be affected with joy. And the joy will be in proportion to the native sensibility of your minds and to the blessing received. But the great subject of anxiety should be that your joy shall be worthy of the faculties with which God has endowed you, and of those sentiments and anticipations which He has taught you to entertain. What is the nature of your joy after temporal benefit? Is it a mere animal excitement, like the gratification of the brutes when they are getting their hunger and thirst appeased, or when they are liberated from pain or confinement? Or is it the feeling of those worldlings who are happy only when their lower appetites are ministered to? In order for the joy to be Christian, those blessings by which the emotion has been excited must be considered as to their origin and as to the higher purposes which they are designed to subserve, both in your present and your future condition. 1. You are joyful for temporal benefits, but remember that these are not the fruits of your own exertion, or of the benevolence of your fellow-men, or of fate or accident. They are the gifts of God. The kind interpositions here recorded were miraculous; but if you have taken your principles and impressions from the Holy Scriptures, you will not need a miracle to lift your contemplation to Him by whom a mercy has been manifested. Every comfort you will regard as descending from heaven. And how sweet and satisfying is that joy which you draw from this reference of every blessing to God! Were you to be informed that any happy event which had befallen you originated in the contrivance of an individual, who combined with general worth a strong and disinterested attachment to you, would not this discovery add much to your pleasure by giving birth to sympathies which could not otherwise have existed? And if this individual should turn out to be the father whom you had done much to displease, would not this increase the enjoyment to a still higher degree? And must not this be realised in a style which no reciprocity of kindness between man and man can ever exemplify, and in a degree which no display of mere human generosity can ever create, when you are able to receive all the good things of life as proceeding from the hand of your Father in heaven? And in proportion as you see the finger of God in whatever contributes to your preservation and your comfort will your joy be regulated, not by the greatness of the prosperity which gives occasion for it, but by the Divine bounty which it indicates whether it be great or small. 2. But besides this, you should be joyful in the experience of temporal good, because it restores or increases your means of personal improvement and of social usefulness. There can be little doubt that many of the rejoicing Samaritans felt in this way. From their having been subject to various infirmities, they must have been not only debarred from useful exertion, but have even been a burden both to themselves and to their friends. But when freed from such bodily calamities, the faith they embraced in consequence of this Divine interposition would lead them to employ their recovered powers in advancing their own good and the good of their neighbours, and to rejoice that the ability was restored, while the inclination was also given, to glorify God in practical acknowledgments of His healing mercy. And, as under the impulse of this holy ambition every, thing which retards your progress will be a subject of regret, so whatever tends to promote it will make you glad in proportion to its power of adding to the warmth of your piety and the extent of your virtue. Nor can you fail to be conscious of the same emotions in reference to the welfare of others. (1) You were long confined, perhaps, to a bed of sickness, which has interrupted your course of active duty. Now that, through Divine mercy, you are permitted to exchange the chamber of disease for the scene of wonted industry, you indulge in the gladness of soul which such a transition is fitted to inspire. But are you glad merely that you are again permitted to partake of the amusements, or mingle in the business, of the world? No; your gladness, if it be Christian, will rather arise from this — that you can now follow out the important purposes for which your Lord has qualified you. (2) Perhaps you had a dear friend in whom you trusted for advice and encouragement; and as it had pleased God to afflict him, so it has pleased God to give him back to your prayers and your affections. But you must have poorly appreciated his value if you did not hail his return, not merely on the ground of friendship, but because you were to be again blessed with his counsels and admonitions and example. (3) Or perhaps you have been rescued from worldly embarrassments which had checked you in the cultivation of your talents, and almost destroyed your power of promoting the good of your fellow-men. And in the relief from these embarrassments this will hold an influential and distinguished place, that you have recovered that by which you can make greater progress in the things that are excellent, and be instrumental in furthering the grand interests of humanity and religion in the world. II. SPIRITUAL MERCIES. Philip preached Christ to the Samaritans, and they embraced Him as an all-sufficient Redeemer, and by baptism vowed to undertake all the duties of their Christian profession. Now, if we have welcomed the gospel as they did, we must be similarly affected with joy. The gospel is of such an interesting description, and is so calculated to work upon the principles and susceptibilities of our nature, that whenever it meets with. belief and obedience it cannot fail to produce joy. So much is this the case that Christianity is distinctively "good tidings of great joy." 1. Let us only think of the information which Christianity conveys, that we may see how necessarily it excites gladness. (1) Do we rejoice to learn that some temporary evil that we greatly feared has been averted? Well, then, we learn from the gospel that the greatest of all calamities is provided against so effectually that there is "no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus."(2) Do we rejoice to be assured that some earthly friend to whom we had given just offence is willing to reinstate us in his favour? Well, then, the gospel assures us that God Himself, whose favour is life, whose displeasure is death, but against whom we had sinned, has made such arrangements that our iniquities may be blotted out, and our peace with Him regained and secured. (3) Do we rejoice to be told that a distemper which threatened to be mortal may be arrested? Well, then, the gospel tells us that death, which we so much dreaded, is deprived of its sting — stripped of its terrors — and that it need not be feared any more. (4) Do we rejoice when, through the unmerited kindness of some relative, we have the reversion of a fortune or an estate which we must soon leave to others? Well, then, the gospel informs us that God has reserved for us "an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away." 2. But it behoves us to have this feeling of interest in the blessings of the gospel created and established according to the Scriptural method. Some people are comforted and gladdened by the discoveries of the gospel without any good warrant. They imagine that merely because a Saviour is provided, and a wink of redemption accomplished, they may banish all their fears and be "joyful in the Lord." Whereas, according to the gospel scheme, this fact is of no avail to any sinner till it is received by him, and submitted to by him, "as a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation." Now, this attainment is made by faith in Christ, and the moment that Christ becomes our Saviour joy exists there, and ought to be cherished there, as sanctioned by Him from whom the pardon and salvation which produce it have been derived — as itself a privilege which He confers, equally valuable and divine. We are not to rejoice because we believe, as if our joy were to arise from anything within ourselves, but because the Saviour, in whom we trust, is all-sufficient for us. Thus it was with the Samaritan converts. They had great joy. But it was an immediate sequence of their "believing the things that Philip preached concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ." There may be a strong faith, and there may be a weak faith. The clearer and more multiplied our evidence is of the truths of the gospel, and of the sufficiency of Jesus Christ in whatsoever that evidence may consist, the more vivid and vigorous will be our faith; and the more vivid and vigorous our faith, the more lively, substantial, unmingled will be that joy which faith, in its every degree, is fitted to produce. And, therefore, that we may abound in joy, let it be our care and our study to abound in faith. 3. But remember that the same authority which commands you to believe and to rejoice, also presents to you delineations and enforcements of a character which you must possess, otherwise all your "religion is vain." The faith which you repose in Christ, and which gives joy to your heart, is a faith which receives Him, that He may redeem you from the power and pollution of sin, and consecrate you to the service of God; and were it possible for you to believe in Him to the exclusion of that part of His saving character, your joy would be presumptuous and delusive. So that spiritual joy and spiritual renovation are inseparably united. And as you believe and rejoice, so you must give all diligence to abound in godliness. The Samaritans acted in this manner. We do not read of their after conduct; but so far as the narrative goes they did all of which their time and opportunities admitted. They were baptized — and this implied incalculably more than it does among us. By undergoing the rite, they braved all the terrors of persecution, and pledged themselves to maintain that purity of demeanour which the washing with water signified. A holy life, in reference to our spiritual joy, is of vast importance in two ways. (1) It is the test by which we are to ascertain that our joy is not false and delusive. There is a joy which proceeds from frames, and feelings, and fancies. To guard against a deception so fatal, it is necessary that we "examine ourselves whether we be in the faith," wanting which the gospel speaks nothing that is good to us, and whether we are entitled to be glad in the Lord as our Lord, our Saviour, and our portion. (2) While practical godliness thus satisfies us that we are not rejoicing without warrant, the more we possess of that character, the stronger evidence do we obtain of our interest in the blessings of redemption, and the stronger reason have we for encouraging ourselves in that joy with which the blessings of redemption are so well fitted to fill the spirit. (A. Thomson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them.WEB: Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and proclaimed to them the Christ. |
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