The Journey to Southern Gaza

The journey of the eunuch of Ethiopia from the south to Jerusalem, recorded in the New Testament, has much the same character (Acts 8). He begins his journey with an unsettled conscience. He had gone to Jerusalem to worship, but he left the city of solemnities still unsettled—that city of the temple and service of God with its priesthood and ordinances.
We see him as an anxious inquirer on his way from Jerusalem to southern Gaza. Nothing in that center of religious provisions and observances had given rest to his soul. He was dissatisfied with the worship he had been rendering there. His conscience was not purged. He had as yet no answer for God; there was no rest in his spirit. Jerusalem had disappointed him, as it had the wise men.
But if, like the queen of Sheba, he was at first uneasy and dissatisfied, he became deeply absorbed with what God was providing for him through His witnesses and representatives. The Word of God was addressing his soul through Philip and the prophet Isaiah, in taking the eunuch out of himself. He was not surprised at the stranger's voice in that desert place. All he cared for, all he thought of was the secret of the Book. He was inspecting that witness of God's grace, as the queen had once inspected Solomon's estate, the witness of glory. And Philip let him into the secret for which he was searching.
His heart is then satisfied and, like the queen of Sheba, filled with what had now been discovered to him. He pursues the second stage of his journey from Gaza to Ethiopia "rejoicing". Philip may leave him, but he can do without him. The woman of Sychar left her waterpot when she found that Jesus was everything to her. With a soul satisfied as with marrow and fatness, the eunuch can go on his way. He and the queen both return to the south, to Sheba and to Ethiopia, with hearts rich in the discoveries they made on their visit to Jerusalem.
These kindred characteristics are easily traced in these narratives. But it was the conscience that set the eunuch on his journey; it was desire that moved the queen. She came in contact with glory in the court and estate of Solomon, the eunuch with grace in the words of the prophet Isaiah. But whether God addresses us with a revelation of His grace or of His glory, whether He addresses the conscience or the heart, it is His high and divine prerogative to satisfy us as He does these two distinguished individuals. He satiates the soul with a manifestation of Himself, let that manifestation take what form it may, or adapt itself to whatever exigency or demand of the soul it please. Such satisfaction we get differently, but very blessedly, and exemplified in these two cases.