Acts Chapter 8 Verse 1

• This word for consenting can also be Let me ask you…Saul picked up no stones at Stephen’s death, yet he was there, holding the coats of those that did…and he applauded their attack and slaughter of Stephen.  My question for you is this…is Saul guilty of Stephen’s death?  It’s an interesting question and while we could discuss this perhaps cyclically (round and round), he was there, he was consenting, he was pleased with it, he was applauding and he was holding their coats…even (in that way) taking part in it…he certainly didn’t stop it…didn’t even want to stop it…
• According to the laws we all live under, Paul is guilty of joint enterprise in which he is a secondary participant in a murder and thus charged with the same offense as the murderers themselves. But also I want to show you God’s perspective.  Paul didn’t actually do it…but he was there…he applauded it…turn with me just quickly here to Romans Chapter 1.  Read with me verses 28 – 32. 
• That word for approve there in verse 32 is the same word we read in Acts Chapter 8…those that applaud those who practice them. Here’s the thing, and I am giving you this to seek the Lord on because I don’t run lives, I teach the Word of God…you go see a movie filled with immorality, you applaud by purchasing that ticket.  You watch that sitcom, in which every bit of humor is either making fun of someone, some sort of immoral innuendo or folks escaping responsibility through lies, you’re not doing those things…those things that they are doing, but you’re taking pleasure in watching them do it…
• You listen to the stories of the weekend past at work from that co-worker that lives well apart from the Lord…you chuckle at someone being talked about behind their back…you brush off the fact that you say nothing when someone is treated unprofessionally or with cruelty… Those things darken your spirit, why?  Because it’s not of God.  And one day you find yourself hard, critical, mean, more self-conscious than you know what do with yourself…and wonder why you’re going through a time of spiritual oppression…I’ve seen this in my own life. 
• I am a Christian. My joint enterprise ought to be with God through the grace and gift of His Son, in accordance to and conformance with His word.  Anything outside of that and I begin to walk in condemnation…look at Romans 2:1…not that I am condemned…I’m saved by the blood and work of Jesus not my blood and work…but that I literally WALK in condemnation and that darkness is exceedingly dark!  God says, come out…be different, be set apart…draw near to Me…and I will draw near to you.  Saul is guilty and he is ignited after this…

Acts Chapter 8 Verses 1b – 2

• What happened with Stephen set-off and gave rise to the first persecution of the early church. The cat was out of the bag (comes from substituting a cat for a piglet in the marketplace) in Jerusalem and enmity was established between the Christians and the leading Jews but check this out…the persecution did the opposite of stamping out the witness of the early church.  All it did was spread it all over the place!  And it’s like that!  When the Spirit of God is moving and leading and guiding and people are trusting the Lord and loving Him even more than life then its Tom and Jerry, man!
• That crazy cat! No matter what he did…his schemes, his anger, his tenacity, that mouse always got the better of him!  Right?  And Spike was the best…remember the big bulldog!  That’s like the Father, man!  Crazy devil chasing you all over and you turn the corner and run under the legs of Spike and then Spike catches that cat by his neck!  HA!  This aggression and anger and offense does nothing but fulfill the Word of God in that Jesus said, “You will be my witnesses unto Judea, Samaria and the entire world!”

Acts Chapter 8 Verse 3

• Paul will regret this greatly later because the implication of the scriptures is that he would enter the house and demand they renounce Jesus Christ and if they didn’t, then he would drag them off…He would say later in Acts 26:11, “I forced them to blaspheme, and I was full of rage against them…” He was vicious, he was relentless…but he was not out of the reach of God.  And by grace neither was I, neither were you, neither are you and neither is anyone!

Acts Chapter 4 – 8

• I absolutely love this! Philip, a deacon alongside of Stephen, after seeing what happened to his equal…literally himself in what happened to Stephen because Philip and Stephen were the same in calling and character, he packed up and went home!  NO!  He advanced in his faith!  What kind of thing makes a man do this or like this!?  The answer is NOTHING other than the truth and power of God Most High!
• All bakers are to be killed…in fact the most notorious baker is publically executed…and you’re a baker. What are you going to do?  Become an Uber driver!  Train to be a bank teller!  Anything else!  But a deacon…a servant of the King of kings…filled with love, power and a sound mind and a witness to things unexplainable in the natural and the presence of Love Himself somehow more real than the presence of the man standing next to you…something like what I just described is the ONLY factor-thing that could create in Philip a greater heart to serve!
• And so he goes to Samaria and notice what’s said. That place is filled with joy, filled with healing, filled with wonders and miracles and sight and hearing but before all of that…, (and same with you)…it says there in verse 6…the people before they saw, heard, were healed, were filled with joy…before all that, step one, they heeded the things spoken by Philip…and it will be the same still today!  The more you heed the more you hear…the more you heed the more you see…the more you heed the more you heal…the more you heed the more your joy!  Like the 50 count Doritos at my house, HA! (illustration).

Acts Chapter 8 Verses 9 – 12

• I love that! So there’s this man that astonishes them with tricks (mageuo) but check this out…once the Lord enters your life, tricks don’t work anymore!  You’re not fooled so easily anymore by the glamour of the world, why?  Because you’ve met real glamour!  True power!  Something real and man once you get the real thing, the fake stuff just tastes bad.  Have you ever had fake cheese?  HA!  It’s terrible!!  Have you ever had chocolate from Ireland?  Man that stuff is so good it makes you turn your nose straight up to American chocolate!  And those are ridiculously DUMB comparisons to the eternally powerful truth of God compared to the finite emotion-driven self-centered draw of the world!
• And notice this, don’t miss this…because this is going to be a theme throughout this chapter, throughout the Book of Acts and throughout the Bible. And it’s important.  Notice verse 12…they believed and THEN they were baptized.  You are not baptized for salvation because salvation is the work of God alone...He alone saves you…you are baptized because of salvation…because you believe.

Acts Chapter 8 Verses 13 – 14

• Whoa! This is a very informational chapter!  They sent Peter…which would mean, proof positive, that Peter was not the leader by himself which utterly, clearly, definitively disputes and refutes the authority of the office of pope as the Catholics claim Peter was the first pope.

Acts Chapter 8 Verses 15 – 16

• Remember what Jesus said to the Apostles? Stay here and wait…you’re going to be witnesses to Me in Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the world but tarry here in Jerusalem until you are endued with power.  And then, on the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon them!  Already saved…that happened in John Chapter 20, but yet lacking the epi, the upon, the baptism of the Holy Spirit but then in Acts Chapter 1…boom, the Day of Pentecost was fulfilled....
• And so they come to Samaria…they perceive faith, they see belief and salvation, but they see no power…and its much the same today…folks walking in condemnation…not damnation of the soul but rather the forsaking of the things of God…in favor, applauding the things of the world…would to God that we’d see this, that we’d hear this…and the Holy Spirit would fall afresh on the church in these last days…that the Holy Spirit Himself would fall on you…and you’d be different, powerful…a witness to Jesus.