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Last week we saw the believers leave Jersualem after the death of Stephen. The verses we read last week said that a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem on the day that Stephen died and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria. So this week we pick up where we left off. The believers have moved out of Jerusalem and have begun sharing the gospel in other parts of the country and even into Samaria. We pick up reading with verse 4 of chapter 8.
4 So those who were scattered went on their way preaching the word. 5 Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them. 6 The crowds were all paying attention to what Philip said, as they listened and saw the signs he was performing. 7 For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed, and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. 8 So there was great joy in that city.
Acts 8:4-
Like I said before, the believers who were scattered left Jerusalem, but they didn’t leave the gospel behind. Verse 4 tells us that they went on their way preaching the word. So wherever they went, wherever they were driven by this persecution that sprang up at the death of Stephen, they brought the gospel with them.
Acts 8:9-
Verse 5 tells us that Philip went into a city in Samaria and preached the gospel there. This is the same Philip who was mentioned a couple of chapters ago when we talked about the complaints of the Greek-speaking widows being overlooked in the daily distributions. Philip was among the seven men who were chosen to oversee this ministry. When the persecution started up he was driven out of Jerusalem and made his way into Samaria and started preaching. But he wasn’t just preaching. The Bible tells us that the crowds were listening and paying attention to him in large part because of the signs he was performing. Philip had been blessed with the power of the Holy Spirit, just like the apostles, and just like Stephen, and he was casting out evil spirits and healing people who were lame and paralyzed. And these healings served two purposes. First they drew people in so that they could hear the gospel message, but second they served as proof that the message that Philip was sharing was true.
But Philip wasn’t the only person in that city in Samaria performing feats of wonder. Let’s continue reading with verse 9.
9 A man named Simon had previously practiced sorcery in that city and amazed the Samaritan people, while claiming to be somebody great. 10 They all paid attention to him, from the least of them to the greatest, and they said, “This man is called the Great Power of God.” 11 They were attentive to him because he had amazed them with his sorceries for a long time. 12 But when they believed Philip, as he proclaimed the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized. 13 Even Simon himself believed. And after he was baptized, he followed Philip everywhere and was amazed as he observed the signs and great miracles that were being performed.
So there was at least one other person in town that was doing some pretty amazing things. And actually this wasn’t uncommon in that day. In fact it’s not that uncommon in our day either. Walk around in any large city and you’ll probably find street performers somewhere. And one of the types of performances that always seems to draw a crowd of the magician. They use sleight of hand to make you think they are pulling a coin from your ear or pulling your card out of thin air. But whatever it is they do to amaze their onlookers, it’s a trick. They palm the coin, or they use their knowledge of human psychology to get you to pick the card that they already have hidden somewhere. But it’s not real.
The difference here was that what Philip was doing was done in the power of the Holy Spirit and it WAS real. People were actually being healed. Demons were actually being cast out. The Samaritan people had listened to Simon because he had amazed them with his tricks and his sleight of hand. But even Simon realized, this wasn’t the same thing. So when Philip shows up and starts performing actual miraculous signs, the people listen to his message. And not only did they listen, they believed the message in huge numbers, and were baptized. And the bible tells us that Simon himself believed and was baptized and then he followed Philip around being amazed by the miracles he performed. But here the question arises, what did Simon actually believe? Did he believe the gospel message? Did he believe that Jesus Christ came to earth, lived a perfect life, died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins, and then rose again on the third day defeating death? Or, did Simon simply believe that Philip had actual magic powers? Well let’s keep reading with verse 14.
14 When the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. 15 After they went down there, they prayed for them so the Samaritans might receive the Holy Spirit because he had not yet come down on any of them. 16 (They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) 17 Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
18 When Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, 19 saying, “Give me this power also so that anyone I lay hands on may receive the Holy Spirit.”
20 But Peter told him, “May your silver be destroyed with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! 21 You have no part or share in this matter, because your heart is not right before God. 22 Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, your heart’s intent may be forgiven. 23 For I see you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by wickedness.”
24 “Pray to the Lord for me,” Simon replied, “so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”
25 So, after they had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they traveled back to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans.
So word of the conversion of the Samaritans reaches Jerusalem and the apostles decide to send Peter and John to Samaria. Now if you know anything about the relationship between the Jewish and Samaritan peoples you might think that this is a mission to shut down the new church springing up there. Jews and Samaritans did not get along. We’ve all heard the story of the Good Samaritan (if not, come see me after the service and I’ll give you the details). That story really resonated with the Jewish people of Jesus’ time because everyone would have understood how out of character it was for a Samaritan to help a Jewish person. And the opposite was true also. Jews wouldn’t help Samaritans. But why is that? Why did they hate each other so much? Well it goes back into the history of the Israelite nation. Way back in the Old Testament the kingdom of Israel had split into two different kingdoms, the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah, which would come to be known as Judea. The northern kingdom of Israel had fallen away from the worship of God and they were eventually conquered and taken into captivity. Those people that were left behind had intermarried with the other local peoples and these were the ancestors of the Samaritans. They were ethnically related to the Jewish people of Judea, but they claimed that they had the correct worship of God. They had even built a rival temple on Mount Gerazim, which had been destroyed sometime before this passage we’re reading today by one of the Judean kings. So you can see how they would be at odds.
So Peter and John go to Samaria, but they aren’t opposed to Philip preaching to the Samaritans. No, as a matter of fact, they arrive and they pray for them so that they might receive the Holy Spirit which hadn’t come upon any of the Samaritans yet. And verse 17 tells us that Peter and John lay hands on the new believers and they received the Holy Spirit. And that brings us back to Simon and what he actually believed. Notice, that our passage doesn’t say anything about Simon receiving the Holy Spirit. It says that he saw the Spirit being given through the laying on of the apostles hands. What he sees is a way to gain this “magic power” that he’s witnessed. So he offers them money. Now this wouldn’t have seemed out of the ordinary to Simon. Remember I said these sorcerers like him weren’t uncommon during this time. They were similar to the street performers we see today. And it was common among them to pay each other to learn new tricks of the trade. That’s what Simon was trying to do here. He saw a new way to make money so he was trying to buy the knowledge of it. Simon believed that Philip and the apostles had some trick, or maybe even some actual power, that he could use to separate more people from their money and he wanted in on the secret. He didn’t actually want the power to impart the Holy Spirit on someone, he wanted the power to manipulate the Holy Spirit to do whatever he wanted. Or maybe he did actually want the power to impart the Holy Spirit, but you can be sure he would have charged a fee for this “service.”
Peter, however, rebukes Simon. Peter knows whats going on here and he tells Simon, “May your silver be destroyed with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money!” And you know, too many people today still have this same type of attitude. They think that they can buy their way into heaven, or work their way into heaven. Some people think that because they go to church every so often they are good to go. Or some people think that just because they are a “good” person that they will be ushered into heaven when they die. But that’s not how it works. You can’t give enough money, you can’t do enough good deeds, you can’t be “good” enough to get into heaven on your own. God cannot abide the presence of sin, any sin whatsoever. So any sin that you have ever committed separates you from God. It doesn’t matter if that sin is murdering someone or if it’s telling a little white lie. To us as human beings those two things are vastly different. To God they are both missing the mark of absolute obedience to Him. They are both sin, and they both separate us from Him. So in order to be “good enough” to get into heaven, we would have to be perfect. We would have to live our entire lives without ever committing a single sin. Anybody here able to say you’ve done that? No. We all fall short of perfection. We all sin. And God knew that. So He made a way that we could bridge that gap of separation from him. He sent Jesus to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. And by faith in Him we can be reconciled to God. But that’s the only way. Jesus himself said it in
6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Simon tried to find another way. Actually, Simon probably wasn’t really worried about heaven at all, he was probably just trying to find a way to make a quick buck. So, Peter tells him to repent and to pray for forgiveness. And Simon asks Peter to pray for him “so that nothing you have said may happen to me.” But notice, we still don’t see repentance from Simon. He doesn’t pray. He doesn’t ask for forgiveness. He simply asks that Peter pray that nothing happen to him. This is something else we continue to see today. People think that pastors and priests have some special connection with God. They think that we can pray for things and because of our position that God will be more likely to listen to us and grant the requests. As a chaplain I’m often treated kind of like Simon in our story here. People come to me thinking that I have some kind of magical powers to say a prayer and their marriage problems will be instantly fixed, or the legal problems that they’ve gotten themselves into will somehow just go away. But again, that’s not the way it works. Yes, we should be praying for others. We should be lifting them up in prayer and asking God to intercede for them in marriage, or in whatever problems are going on in their lives. But look back at that verse in . Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Except through me. Not through the priest, or the pastor, or the guy at work that goes to church every Sunday when you don’t. Through Jesus. That’s not just talking about getting into heaven when we die. That’s talking about approaching the throne of grace with our prayers and our petitions. We go to God in prayer through our faith in Jesus Christ. We don’t have to ask someone else to pray for us. We can pray for ourselves. Now like I said, there’s nothing wrong with praying for others, in fact we see many examples of intercessory prayer in the Bible, but the point is that you don’t have to have some special position or title to pray to God. Because Christ died on the cross to bridge that gap of separation we can all approach God with our prayers.
So as we close, we’ve come to the end of Simon’s story. He is rebuked by Peter and he disappears from the narrative here. But what we do see is this final verse.
25 So, after they had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they traveled back to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans.
Preaching the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans. Remember that mission we talked about when we began this series. Jesus said his believers would be witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” We’re definitely into the second part of that mission now. The gospel is spreading in Samaria. Many are coming to know Christ and to place their faith in Him. The apostles are heading back to Jerusalem, but they are continuing to preach the gospel in the villages of Samaria as they go. Next week, we’ll see another instance of this gospel spread. But for now, would you join me in prayer?