When to stop a chariot

Be still for the presence of the Lord, the Holy One is here. Come bow before him now with reverence and fear. In him no sin is found, we stand on holy ground.

Be still for the presence of the Lord, the Holy One is here. Be still for the glory of the Lord is shining all around. He burns with holy fire, with splendor he is crowned.

How awesome is the sight, our radiant King of light. Be still for the glory of the Lord is shining all around. Be still for the power of the Lord is moving in this place.

He comes to cleanse and heal, to minister his grace. No work too hard for him, in faith receive from him. Be still for the power of the Lord is moving in this place.

Be still for the presence of the Lord, the Holy One is here. Come bow before him now with reverence and fear. In him no sin is found, we stand on holy ground.

Be still for the presence of the Lord, the Holy One is here. We do trust that this evening indeed we will sense the presence and the power of God as we meet for this special occasion, the occasion of baptism of seven of our friends who we'll be meeting later on. We're going to sing the praise of God now, an old hymn but it's a very triumphant hymn, number 20.

We're just going to pray now to this God whom we've been praising with our singing. Our God we know that it is right and very fitting that we should come and praise you this evening as indeed it's right that we should praise you throughout every day of our lives for you are the great God. Our Father we know that it was without our aid that you made us.

We didn't contribute anything to our being here but you formed us, you made us, you designed us, you gave our personalities and we thank you for just the sheer wonder and wisdom of all that you have made. And Lord Jesus we praise you that even when we had gone our own way and turned our backs on your Father that you were prepared to come down to this world and live as one of us and to do much more than that even to go as far as the cross and die for us and so we praise you. Thank you that though you were humiliated by that death on the cross it was only so that you could be exalted and given a name that is above every name that everybody will fall down and worship at your feet and so we praise you now for what you have done on our behalf.

And Holy Spirit we praise you for all that you are doing in this world for the way in which you are making the Lord Jesus real to men and women including these seven here this evening. And Holy Spirit it's our prayer that you should come and work here even tonight as we listen to what they have to say and as we listen to the Bible and you speaking to us. May we hear you and may there be that life of God which is brought into our life as we respond to what you have to say to us.

So Father we do pray that this will be a great occasion. We know that there are many people on the face of the earth who at the moment don't have much to sing about and Father we were the same until we discovered you and now our hearts are full and our mouths are full of your praises for all the wonderful things you have done for us and continue to do day by day. And it is our prayer that we and others should go on praising you and singing to you until that time when you come for us and take us to be with yourself and then we know that if we are found trusting in you and if we are taken to be with you then we will certainly sing your praise perfectly for the whole of eternity.

So Father may praise be the keynote here and we do pray that she'll help all those who speak and take part this evening, that she will help them ready to say what they know of you, that it will be a help to us and it will fill them with joy also. For Jesus' sake. Amen.

We're glad you're here. For some of you it will be the first time you've been to a meeting like this and perhaps you're feeling a little bit uncomfortable and you're not quite sure what's going to happen. And you wonder why your friend or the member of your family is going through this slightly ridiculous procedure of being immersed in water and then coming up and you wonder what's behind it.

Our rather beleaguered Prime Minister said in an interview earlier this year when it was suggested to her that she might think about changing, she said, how can I change Margaret Thatcher? I am what I am. Well what these seven are saying to us tonight in the clearest way that they know how and in the way in which their Lord Jesus has told them is, I am not what I was. I am different.

I am changed. You see the Christian is someone whose life reflects what has happened to his Lord, the Lord Jesus. Jesus died.

He was crucified on a cross. But he was raised to life by the power of God on that first Easter Sunday and he himself said, I am the living one. I was dead and behold I am alive forever and ever.

And that is in some ways what has happened to these people here this evening. They are saying the old me has died. The life that I live to please myself, that is no more.

Death to self. And there is a new me now and just as Jesus was raised from the dead, so I have now been sort of raised and the life of Jesus is within me. And many of you have seen that change in the person that you have come along here with this evening.

You have seen the change in their personality and this is the explanation that they now have a new life, the life of Jesus. And by being baptised this evening they are acting out in a very dramatic way just what has happened. They are going into the watery grave in a few minutes and they are being united with Jesus in his death.

This water here we have just run into our tank. We could equally as well have gone to the aquarina or for that matter we could have gone down to the seafront, though I am sure that some of the candidates are glad that we did not. But there is nothing special about this water.

But it is a symbol of the grave into which they have gone because they have died with Jesus. But of course we do not leave them there. We bring them up and they come up to show that they now live with the Lord Jesus and his resurrection power is at work in their life.

So that is just a little explanation of what we are going to witness. I want to commit these four candidates to the Lord as we ask God's blessing to be upon them and then later on the other three candidates. Would you like just to bow your heads in prayer? Anna is going to share the act of baptism with me, so he is going to also minister laying on of hands.

Can you all come together, you four? Just kneel down here, you will be all right. Let us just pray. Brother Ian, would you join me please? Loving Father, we just lay our hands on these dear friends.

We thank you for them and we pray that they might know a mighty infilling of your Spirit right now as we follow through the scriptural ordinance and immerse them in water. We pray for each one of them. We bless you for them and we just ask Lord that you will continue to make this a red letter day in their lives for Jesus' sake.

Amen. The text that has been given for Suzanne Etherington is We were therefore buried with him through baptism that just as Christ was raised from the dead, we too may have a new life. Suzanne, on confession of your faith in our Lord Jesus, we baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.

The text for Rachel Gibbs is May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him. Rachel, on confession of your faith in our Lord Jesus, we baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. The text for Cheryl Goodall is Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Cheryl, on confession of your faith in our Lord Jesus, we baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. The text for Janice Tingley, it is with your heart that you believe and are justified and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. Janice, on confession of your faith in our Lord Jesus, we baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And let's read together from the word of God before we look into his word for our evening message. Let's read from the book of the Acts of the Apostles in the eighth chapter. So I practice at the tab always to read scripture because that's a very holy act and then whoever is preaching does his best to explain what the passage is about, making it relevant for all who are present.

So here in the Acts of the Apostles in the eighth chapter, you read a most extraordinary event from the twenty-sixth verse and onwards. A man is directed to meet up with another man, a Jew directed to meet up with a Gentile, and the whole incident finishes well. Why should I tell you? Wait until I read it and then you'll discover just how exciting it is.

Now an angel, Acts 8, 26, now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, go south to the road, the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. So he started out and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship and on his way home was sitting in the chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet.

So presumably he had drivers or else there would have been a smash, wouldn't there? The Spirit told Philip, go to that chariot and stay near it. Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. Do you understand what you're reading? Philip asked.

How can I? He said. Unless someone explains it to me. So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture. He was led like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before the shearer is silent. So he did not open his mouth.

In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth. The eunuch asked Philip, tell me please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else? Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

As they traveled along the road they came to some water and the eunuch said, look here is water, why shouldn't I be baptized? And he gave orders to stop the chariot. So he couldn't have been driving, could he? Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away and the eunuch did not see him again but went on his way rejoicing.

Have you ever had the temptation that I used to have, mercifully have always resisted and now don't get it anymore? To pull the emergency cord on the train. Used to try and work out as a lad how much of my pocket money I'd have to save before I could pull the thing, pay the fee and then get on my way. But it was such an incredible sum of money in those days, ten pounds and I only got sixpence, that I never quite made it economically.

You're not supposed to pull the cord on a train unless there is an emergency. There are some roads that you travel on, dual carriageway, you're not supposed to stop unless there is a lay-by. I was reading a car magazine when travelling up to London on the train on Friday, and the car magazine was particularly concerned to advocate the benefit of one car over against another because of the quick way it could accelerate within the first nine seconds.

It didn't say anything about stopping the car, the important thing was that it could move. I would have said up to a few days ago that Nigel Lawson was the last person to leave Margaret Thatcher's cabinet, but the movement continues and someone else has joined the club. Nigel Lawson was the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Another man by the name of John Major has now come in. I don't know if he drives a car, I presume he does, whether it's a fast car or not, I don't know. But if he does drive a car, one thing is for sure, he'll make certain that it has brakes.

Now you say, why on earth are you talking like this? Well, I reckon that the equivalent of a BMW 2,000 years ago is what this man, who features in our story, was actually being driven in as he moved from Jerusalem back to the place from which he originated, the country of Ethiopia. And he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Now you've got it.

You appreciate how I went round and round to get you to the point, because I want this message to live in your minds. That's the reason why I said Tim and I, as we have the privilege of preaching here, endeavour to lift the Word of God from 2,000 years ago, or whenever the passage happened to have been written, and apply it to modern times, because the message is relevant for today. And suddenly, as this man is moving in his equivalent to a BMW, they put the brakes on and they stop the chariot.

So I'm asking the question, when to stop a chariot? And from the context of this passage, my answer would be, you stop a chariot when the penny drops. When the penny drops. Well, that's a modern expression, isn't it? I could have put it biblically, when you see the light.

You see, here is this man, and perhaps he's resembling quite a number of people here this evening, who's got a puzzle. He's actually bought a paper while he was in Jerusalem. And if you were to read this in the original language, the story of the man, you would discover that he's puzzling because of something in the paper.

Now, it wasn't the independent crossword, neither was it the mirror, because the National Union of Mine Workers in Ethiopia had banned that paper. I'll work that one out. He was actually reading a document that he'd bought in Jerusalem, which was a religious document.

There were 39 books in the Old Testament, and they were available in scroll form. And he had purchased one of these books, and he was starting to read it, and he couldn't understand what the writer was on about. And so the word in the text makes it very clear that he really was befogged.

It was just like doing a crossword and not being able to get the answer. And suddenly, someone comes alongside and is able to explain what he is reading about. Now, actually, as you look into the Old Testament, you discover that there is projected the life of the Lord Jesus.

This is one of the most amazing things about the Bible that actually indicates its authority. Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, Isaiah the prophet speaks of the Saviour in terms of the suffering servant. He speaks of how this man was very badly treated by his contemporaries and was eventually done to death.

And Isaiah, as he sees what is happening, starts to evaluate the consequences of that death. And he says of this future Messiah that by his death, many people would have their sins forgiven. He would take upon himself the consequences of all the evil that all men and women have done, not only Jews and Gentiles, throughout the whole corridor of time.

And here's this guy you see in the chariot, and he's reading this, and he's puzzled. And he says to the one who joins alongside him, who is this man speaking of? Is he speaking of himself, the author? Or is he predicting someone to come? And the man who's alongside, he's got the answers. Because actually, he himself has come to a realization of who Jesus Christ is.

Now, one of the things that is necessary for a Christian who knows the truth is to share with people who don't know the truth. One of the most frustrating things in the staff room where I used to be a teacher was when somebody whipped right through the Times crossword, and I was still on clue number three, and they wouldn't tell me the answer. Now there is no reason ever for a Christian who knows why the Lord Jesus has come into the world to keep that information to himself.

And so alongside the man who's in the chariot comes Philip, and he explains all about the Lord Jesus Christ. And suddenly the penny drops, and he begins to appreciate that God has indeed moved into time and space and made it possible for all the wrongs, all the wretched things that He had done to be righted, to be forgiven. Now has the penny dropped for you? Because if it has, it's the time to stop the chariot for a moment, to stop your lies and act on what you know.

There are no prizes in this world for those who are full of ignorance. The Lord Jesus has come to bring information and light to dispel darkness and gloom. And this man stands out as someone who, when the penny drops, stops the chariot because there are certain things that he needs to do.

Have you stopped in your life to consider what you ought to do? The chariot stops when the coin drops through the slot machine of his mind, and he comprehends. But secondly, he stops the chariot when love conquers. He says to this man, I can't understand unless somebody tells me.

That's what you discover, isn't it, in the thirty-fourth verse. And then in the thirty-fifth, then Philip began with that very passage of Jesus. And love conquered his heart.

You've often seen, haven't you, the diagram of the heart and the arrow. The arrow goes right through the heart. Happens here at the tab, we don't see it, it goes across the balcony sometimes.

I never know it until actually they're walking down the aisle and I'm prepared to marry them. My wife has to sort of plume in on these things, I don't really have this sort of sensitivity, but love does conquer. And not just in the sense of natural human boy-girl relationships, but as far as the Lord Jesus is concerned.

Now this chancellor of the exchequer, he's had explained to him all that the Lord Jesus has come to do for this world. And when he hears about Jesus, the Savior conquers his heart and he wants to do more. You see, he's what might be called a God-fearer.

I think that he was disappointed. The context indicates that, there's not time to go into it this evening. But actually, he'd been to Jerusalem, not because he was a Jew, but because he believed that the Jews actually have more information about the nature of God than any other race.

And yet, if you were not a Jew, you would always be fairly inadequate. I mean by that, there were only certain parts of the temple that you could penetrate. Now maybe he'd gone from time after time after time to the temple, but he could never become a fully-fledged Jew.

But here's the point. He reads that in the Jewish Scriptures, reference is made to one who will come and who will open the kingdom of God to everyone, both Jew and Gentile. And at that moment, he has a completely different disposition.

No longer is he disappointed. Now he is excited. Now he is concerned to do more for this Saviour to whom he's gradually committing his heart and his life.

You know, there are many people who just want to be told about Jesus. Those TV documentaries on missionaries and some of the sceptic criticism that is being made always ducks the fundamental right that a man has to know something about God and how to be right with God. The memory comes back to a story I read in Reader's Digest of an old vicar, and he was taking the congregation through the rich liturgy of the Anglican Church with its beautiful language of the prayer book.

But as some of you do not this evening, he started to nod off a little bit. You know, and his curate comes alongside and whispers in his ear to try and prompt him, I believe in God. He jumps up with a start, so do I young man, so do I. This Chancellor of the Exchequer, he believed that God was, but he wanted to know more about the Lord.

And as he is told about the Saviour, love conquers his heart. How do I know? Well, because of stopping the chariot, applying the brakes. The chariot stops when the penny drops, when love conquers, when opportunity knocks.

As they travel along the road, verse 38, they came to some water and the eunuch said, look here is water, why shouldn't I be baptised? Oh yes, I know opportunity knocks, used to be a TV programme, I'm not that old that I can't remember that one. But I'm not that young that I can't remember that one. And here is the possibility, you see, of this eunuch who has been introduced by Philip over a journey that must have taken some time, as his chariot driver is speeding along because, well, he's got to maybe execute or apply the poll tax in Ethiopia.

Who knows, there are very important things that actually command the attention of Chancellors of the Exchequer. I mean, it was the Romans who brought the poll tax in, in the first instance, and they applied it in Jerusalem, so maybe he was going to apply it too in Ethiopia. But there are more important things in life, I speak seriously, than poll taxes or even politics.

And this fellow, as he has heard about Jesus and what the Saviour has done for him, he suddenly sees this stretch of water, and Philip, who is a wonderful teacher, has already told him about the washing away of sins and the blood of the Lord Jesus and how it's possible to enact what has happened internally by being immersed in water and giving a graphic display of what has happened in terms of your sins having been washed away, in terms of a new life into which you have been raised. And so the man says, here's water. What hinders me from being baptized? Stop the chariot.

The answer is there's nothing that hinders him. But if you'll allow the pun, there's a lot of Hinduism within some people's concept of Christianity. What does Hindu you? What hinders you from being baptized? I remember once in my vestry talking to some candidate, and I said to this young lady, why is it that you want to be baptized? And she said, and she got it dead right, because I love Jesus.

And if you love somebody, you do what He asks you to do. And Jesus said that if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. So how about some of you who have never been baptized? I've come across some absurd reasons why people have backed off baptism.

Because they want to be immersed in a special river. They want to be done by a certain person. As far as this Ethiopian eunuch is concerned, it doesn't matter who baptizes him.

He's not going to wait. Here is water. What hinders me? And the answer is there's nothing that hinders you, because you've confessed faith in Jesus Christ.

What hinders you? Why don't you start the chariot? The penny has dropped. You know who Jesus is? Love has conquered. You've responded to His death and His mighty resurrection.

You've confessed your sins, and as a result of this, that the Holy Spirit's begun His work within you. Then opportunity knocks. Here's water.

What hinders you from being baptized? It takes guts to be a Christian, but basically it's a simple thing. It's saying, I believe that Jesus on the cross took my sin from me so that I am now righteous as a result of His courageous offering of His life. That's what makes a person a Christian.

And how do you show that you love Jesus? By taking bread and wine on a regular basis. Did you hear that everybody? On a regular basis, because that's what He asked, and if you love Him, you'll do what He asked. And being immersed in water, because that was the second thing He asked, and He only asked two things of His disciples.

So I leave with you this short address, not promising that it's going to be as brief on other occasions. When do you stop the chariot? When the penny drops. When love conquers.

When opportunity knocks. Before Tim introduces the next batch of candidates, and in this quietness, I want to give an opportunity for you to stop the chariot, to get off for a moment, and to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of your life. I simply say, Heavenly Father, I thank you for sending Jesus to die for me.

I confess my sin and ask for your absolution. And then those of you who have already done that, I say to you, but you do need to be baptized. Say in your heart, Lord God, I really do love you.

I want to show the measure of my love for you by being baptized as soon as possible, because the penny's dropped, and love is conquered, and opportunity knocks for me to please you. Amen. Matthew Fuller Love is, I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.

Matthew, upon your confession of faith in our Lord Jesus, we baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Thanks for June Kenny. Through endurance and the encouragement of scripture, we have hope.

June, on the confession of your faith in our Lord Jesus, we baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Thanks for Robert Newman. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.

Rob, on confession of your faith in our Lord Jesus, we baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Feel the touch of your hand upon my life causes me to sing a song that I love you Lord. 600 in the yellow supplement.

Let's stand and sing. Father, we feel that touch and want to respond. Help us to do that as we come to the crescendo in our praise and offer you our new written words from the Anthem, Jerusalem.

O Christ, you are the Son of God who died to take away my sin. Amen.