The Faith That Does Not Save

Acts 8:9-24

Father, we thank You that it is true that man looketh on the outward appearance and God looks on the heart.  Not only do we sense that from the song but even from our scripture lesson this morning when we see a man who looks so good on the outside but when the truth was known the inside was not right with Thee.  Father, may nobody in this place leave today who's not right with Thee in their hearts.  We commit this time to You.  Bless our study.  We pray in Christ's name.  Amen Turn in your Bible to the ?th chapter of Acts and we're going to consider these verses this morning that deal with Simon the Sorcerer who illustrates faith that does not save.  Faith that does not save.  Last week we began our study of the eighth chapter which is a very important chapter in the book of Acts because it records for us the first great missionary move of the new church.  The church bursts forth out of its solitary Jewishness and its identity with Jerusalem to reach the world.

And we see that in chapter ?.  The church was born as we've seen in our study of Acts over the past few months in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.

It filled Jerusalem with its doctrine and now it begins to move out.  And i is moving out in response to persecution as the church filled Jerusalem wit its doctrine it aroused the hatred of the Jewish leaders who in turn persecuted the church, the persecution resulted in the scattering of believers a wherever they went they bore the gospel.  And so persecution resulted in preaching.  And we saw last time how the persecution was really ramrodded by a man named Saul who later became the apostle Paul.  And the Bible says ?:3 that he made havoc of the church, entering into houses and dragging people out and committing them to prison, both men and women.  And so the persecution was wholesale and widespread.  It really began with the catalyst of the martyrdom of Stephen who was killed for the sermon which he preached in chapter 7, incensing the leaders.  So the church was born.  The church reached Jerusalem and God knew it was time to move out so God used persecution as the method.  For the church being persecuted, fled in scattering itself about it wound up in Judea and Samaria and there bore the message of Jesus Christ to the people.  Now we saw also last time that wherever the message is preached there are always two results.  There's truth faith and there's phony faith.  There are the wheat and the tares, the faithful ‑ the phony, the rocky ground ‑ the good soil, the abiding branches ‑ the branches that are cut off, those who believe to the saving of the soul ‑ and those who draw back unto perdition.  Both of those are always there whenever you have the preaching of the gospel.  True believers and believers who make a mental assent but whose faith does not save.  This, then, becomes the key to chapter ?.  For in chapter ?  you have the fact of the two types illustrated.

Simon becomes an illustration of faith that does not.  save, beginning in verse 2?, the Ethiopian eunuch becomes an illustration of faith that does save.

And so we see, Philip then, the main character as he confronts both Simon and the Ethiopian.  One illustrating the faith that doesn't save and the other the faith that does.  And this is to be understood at the very beginning of the ministry of the church that there will be both in this church, Grace Community Church, right here.  There are people who are true and there are people who are false.  Would to God, that we could detect them.  Sometimes we can.  Sometimes that becomes manifested, but we know enough about Satan to know that he always sows the tares among the wheat.  And this is so from the very beginning.

Philip, then, begins by confronting Simon who is the first tare that we know of sown by Satan in the church.  The first false believer so named.

And then later on Philip meets the Ethiopian eunuch who works under the authority of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, and who illustrates to us the faith that does save.  But keep in mind that the point of the chapter in a broad sense is to show us that there will always be both at the preaching of the gospel.

Now Simon looked so good externally.  Now Philip was one of the Christians that was scattered and one of them who was preaching.  And he was one of those chosen by the early church to be leaders, in chapter ?, he was a prophet, he was also an evangelist.  And in the course of his minis he had brought about a great revival under the energy of the Holy Spirit in Samaria.  And in that time in Samaria he confronted this man Simon and so we meet that confrontation.  And Philip was actually convinced that Simon was for real.  And I'm so glad for that in one sense, it's sad that we can't discern but in another sense I'm glad that Philip didn't know anymore than I'm able to know, that Philip baptized a man who wasn't a believer, I've don the very same thing.  Not knowingly but unknowingly.  I always think of the one I have mentioned to some of our folk, I baptized a man who turned out later to not have been a believer but only had apparently put on a front about it, it all looked so good to me and later on and now he is a producer of pornographic films.  And so this happens but I thank God that He's the final judge and I don't have to stand in judgment.  I can only do the best I can even as Philip did.  And Simon looked good, look at verse l3.  You know, I've always said, look at this one, I've always said there's three things that prove your salvation is real visibly, only God knows but there are three things that I always look for and that scripture lays out.  Number one, to believe:  number‑two, to obey; number‑three, to continue.  Now I've said that many times in different contexts and maybe not together like that but that's basic.  You always want to say when somebody ‑ is somebody a Christian or are they not, you want to say, number‑one do they believe, number‑two do they obey, "For he that cometh to Me must not only believe", that's true, but Jesus said, "If you love Me you will keep My commandments"

And the third thing is to continue, to continue.  The book of Hebrews repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly establishes a true Christian as a one who continues.  And so we always want to look for those three things.

Well, we come to verse l3 and look, "And Simon himself", what?  "Belie that's number one, "and when he was baptized", that's obedience.  Baptism was a question of obedience wasn't it?  He obeyed.  Thirdly, "He", what's the next word?  "Continued"  Boy, does he look good.  But like the song said that Peggy sung, How about your heart, Simon?  You look good on the outside, God looks on the inside.  Boy, Simon looked good.  He believed, he obeyed in Baptism and he continued.  It's no wonder that Philip was convinced.  There wasn't anything missing at that point, apparently.  But Simon was sharp.  He was a phony, he was the devils man, he was a demonic magician placed by Satan to infiltrate the church and only God really knew.

And that's the way it always is.  It is so hard, to know ‑ that's why the work of the church is difficult.  The work of the church isn't difficult because of what Satan's doing in the world it's difficult because of what Satan's doing in the church.  That's what makes it hard.  In Matthew l3 the is a parable that we must understand because it's basic to this whole point Verse 24, Matthew l3; "Another parable put He forth unto them saying", this is Jesus, "the kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man who sowed good seed in his field".  A guy goes out and sows some seed.  "And while men slept his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat".  darnelles, a tare appears to be very much like wheat and very difficult to distinguish from the wheat and if you try to uproot the tares you're liable to pull up the wheat.  And so the enemy sowed the tares and he went his way.  "When the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.

So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field?  from where then hath it tares?"  Where did that stuff come from?  "He said unto them, An enemy hath done this.

The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?"

Should we go and start ripping up all the tares?  "But he said, Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares ye root up the wheat with them."  We can't really run around accusing everybody  of being a tare, we just don't know that we might get some of the wheat upset.  He says, "Let both grow together until the harvest and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather together first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them but gather the wheat into barns."  When the harvest comes you gather it all up then you can separate it.  And He explains this parable later on in the same chapter so that they understand what He's saying, verse 3?; "Then Jesus sent the multitude away", He always left the multitude confused, He gave the parable and then He gave the explanation to the disciples.  But that was a point, see.  He was hiding these things from the wise and prude and revealing them to babes.  "So He went into the house and His disciples came unto Him saying, Explain unto us the parable of the tares of the field.  He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man The field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked one."  Satan moves in and sows tare in the church.  "The enemy that sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age and the reapers are the angels.  As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire so shall it be in the end of the age.  The Son of man shall send forth His angels and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity and shall cast the .

into the furnace of fire, there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Now, you see, there the Bible says very explicitly, and this is a parable of the church age, that in the church age, Matthew l3 contains parables of the church age, in the church age there will be this problem of distinguishing the true from the false and both will grow up together.  It's like the mustard seed that turns into a giant big bush and Christianity is a conglomerate of things some real some unreal, some true some false and that's Satan's ploy to confuse the world and it works.  And you've got so much stuff masquerading under the guise of Christianity that it s no wonder that the man in the world, the average man, can't figure out what Christianity is.

Simon had all this possibility going for him and from all outward appearances, from Philip s view and my view and everybody else's view, he would have appeared to be right on.  But he was doomed, you see, he lost out on salvation with all this proximity, he was like Judas was only Judas is even a more outstanding monstrosity of the illustration that Simon is, of one who was near the truth and missed it.  Now why did Simon mess up?  Why did he blot this opportunity?  Why did it happen?  Well, he had a bad theology.

Now I want you to get something and get it very clearly.  True salvation, people, is not only based on faith it is based on faith based on truth.  It is based on a faith in true theology.  Now when I say theology I mean doctrine out of scripture.  Faith based on faulty doctrine is faulty faith.  It isn't' enough to say ‑ Well, so and so believes in God, so and so believes in Jesus What God and what Jesus and what do they believe about Them?  That's the point.  Simon believed, Simon was baptized, Simon continued but Simon's who thing was based on faulty doctrine, four wrong views that I discovered in t text.  He had a wrong view of self, he had a wrong view of salvation, he had a wrong view of the Spirit, he had a wrong view of sin.  And when you've got a wrong view of all those basic things, his anthropology was messed up, his soteriology was messed up, his pneumatology was messed up, his hamartiology and that messed up his whole theology.  The cardinal doctrines of theology he had all messed up and to say that he believed was meaningless.  Because his faith was not founded on truth.

Let's look at these things.  First of all he had a wrong view of himself.  His anthropology was lousy.  That's the doctrine of man.  Now this is a common thing that keeps men from true salvation, they've got the wrong view of man.  They think man is something good.  You hear this all the time, don't you?  Man is good he just needs to fan the spark of his goodness.  I think we've been hearing it long enough to know it isn't so.  This is a common thing, you know, and people think they're good and especially religious people.  Why they think, ‑ God couldn't pass me by.

If He really knows me, I mean, heaven's got to be for folks like me, I'm good.  I give to the United Fund, the Community Chest even give to a telethon now and then.  My kids are cub scouts, my wife takes care of the people at the hospital.  I even once in awhile give money to the church I go to, I believe in God, I believe in Jesus.  The assumption is that God is applauding all of that.  The fact is God is sickened by it.  Driving last night out to Citrus College to speak to some young people in a conference and Matt and Marcy, Matt's my oldest and Marcy's next, were with me.  They often go to meetings with me not because they want to hear me preach but because I always take them to get an ice cream afterwards.  But anyway, it's good fellowship.

But anyway we were going out there and Matt says, out of the mouth of babes, he says, Dad, he says being good's hard.  I said, I know it is, Matt, especially in your case and he said, yeah it's hard.  And he said, Try as hard as you want, he said, you just can't really do it all the time.  He said, You know why do people want to try to hard to be so good when it's just so easy to ask Jesus in and not worry about it?  And I did a double take, you know.

And I thought, you've been listening to somebody.  He said, You know, I think it's so easy to ask Jesus into your heart and then you don't have to worry about trying to be good all the time.  And Marcy pipes up in the back seat about four decibels louder than anybody else, she always talks like that, she says, Well, my teacher said that you could go to church and you could read your Bible and do your lesson and even give your offering and go to hell if you didn't ask Jesus into your heart.  Is that right, Dad?

I said, That's right.  But you know, there are people in this world who think they're good.  The Bible says, ‑ All their righteousness is what?

Filthy rags.  You see, that's what's wrong to begin with with Simon's theology.  He's got a lousy view of himself.  Verse ?, look at it:  "But there was a certain man called Simon who previously in the same city", that is in Samaria, "used sorcery and bewitched the people of Samaria giving out that himself was some great one".  Now that is faulty anthropology.  He was not some great one.  You see, he came to God not because he needed God but because he thought that he could gain some more glory for himself by getting in on this new thing.  Simon is introduced to us here as a very proud man.

Pride is a very, very severe problem in keeping people from God.  Pride is basic to the faith that does not save.  And notice a little of the detail or the verse, Simon is called off on Simon magnus because Simon the sorcerer, sorcerer means ‑ sorcerer, I should say, in the Greek is magos, so he's often called Simon magos.  The word for sorcery is a word is maguon and it really is a word that means magic, simply maguon even sounds the same but it's original meaning is to be skilled in magian lore.  Do you remember that the men who came to the birth of Jesus Christ were called the Magi, that's the same word.  The magian lore is the priests religion of Medo‑Persia connected with Zoroastrianism, it was kind of a combination of astronomy, astrology, horoscope, it was a science ‑ superstition kind of duo.  So these people who were astrologers and soothsayers, sorcerers dealt in incantations, charms, divinations, spells, astrology, horoscopes and so forth.  This kind of thing really goes way back to the time of Zoroastrianism, it even goes back to the tower of Babel which was apparently related to the zodiac and all of this was basic to Simon's operation.  He was one who called demonic supernatural powers into action to perform wonders.  Simon had used his sorcery to capture the minds of these people.  The word bewitched means astonish them or dupe them or brought them under his control.  He had actually captured these people.  Now mark this down, these sorceries actually happened.  He actually did supernatural things and it's still being done today.  These things were really being pulled off and because of them people's minds were being captured to the control of Simon.  And he announced to everybody that he was some great one, some great power of God.

In fact, apparently he had a God complex.  For later on Justin Martyr says in his Apology Number I, that there was found the remains of a stone at the foot of a supposed statue in Rome and on this stone it said, Simone sancto Deo which means Simon the Holy God.  So he really had an ego problem.  And unless you think he's too far out any may who doesn't worship God makes God out of himself.  And Simon had that problem and unlike most people wasn't ashamed to announce it.  And so he had taken, really, yielded control of his life to demonic magic and he was being used to hold the people captive and now Satan is going to move him into the church to infiltrate the church.  He has already gained the confidence of the people, he's kept them in bondage, he's counterfeited the power of God and now Satan's going to slide him right into the church.  He had a wrong view of self, egotistical and it was going to become the thing that Satan could use to perpetrate false doctrine in the church.  Look at verse 10, "To whom they all gave heed", it's interesting everybody believed him from the least to the greatest, this covers the spectrum.  Everybody thought Simon was for real and here's what they said of him, '*"his man is the great power of God".  Now Simon seems to have taught along with his practice of magic a kind of pseudo‑science or pseudo‑philosophy of which we find other traces in gnosticism and some old sources would indicate to us that Simon may have been the founder of gnosticism as a sect or at least one of the founders.  Now gnosticism sees God up here and man down here.  Now how are we going to connect the two?  Gnosticism says that there are series of divine emanation like steps coming down to man, these are kind of manifestations of God called mediators or emanations, the word the Gnostics often used was the word, quo?

powers'.  In other words, God self‑discloses Himself in a series of emanation some of which become incarnate in human flesh and thus reveal God to men.

That's what the Gnostics say Jesus was simply one of these series of emanations.  Now if it isn't too clear to you don't worry about it, they don't exist anyway so you can't really define them.  But that's Gnosticism.  There was a series, then, of descending emanations kind of a decreasing God into men's form and the Samaritan's said Simon was number‑one.  "This man", verse is the great power", or the great emanation or the great mediation from God.

So this guy was up there he was sort of God incarnate, in human form.  And so he had counterfeited God.  It's interesting that you'll find that the demonic activity is not always black magic, blatant Satanism, it is very often white magic, it is often Satanism under the cloak of God, Christ and the Holy Spirit.  And here Simon was connecting everything to God.  The Samaritans were God fearing people.  Did you know that?  The Samaritans worshipped God in Mount Gerizim.  The Samaritans had Messianic hopes.

The woman at the well said, Is this not the Christ?  The Samaritans believe in the true God and they actually believed in the confusion of this man's teaching that he was that chief emanation from God.  Demonic activity is very subtle it's not always blatantly Satanic.  It sometimes masquerades as the truth of the scripture.  And so he had captured these people giving out that he was some great one.  And let's be honest with this thing, he might have believed it.  It is not unusual to find in his particular age, an age of certain incredulity, that there were a lot of these soothsayers and magicians roaming around and they actually, many of them, believed that they were for real.  They were not conscious frauds.  They knew they could do these powers.  There are people like that today, they're not fooling anybody, they actually believe they are powers of God.  Satan has captured them to believe it, Simon probably believed it.  And so he thought he was really something.  And as long as a man thinks he something he's nothing.

As long as he thinks he's something he cannot come to the right view of himself which is the view that I am nothing, I am the less of the least of all things, what is man that thou art mindful of him or the Son of man that thou visiteth him.  Man must see himself lost without God as separated from God as weak, inept and helpless before he can ever entertain the concept of faith that does save, you see.  And Simon couldn't.  Pride is a real hindrance.  Now you say, ‑ Well, I would never go as far as Simon's pride.

Anything that lives without God is proud, it needs God not, you see.  It needs not God.  And pride grows in everybody's garden.  Did you know that?

It's a weed and it grows very  easily.  And it's interesting that it seems to always grow where there's nothing for it to feed on.  It lodges in the heart kind of like a robber, you know, it's concealed in some kind of dark recess and it waits for it's moment and then it seizes it.  Or sometimes it just struts down the main street at high noon but pride is there.  We can take it better when it hides, that's for sure.  And you know it's kind of an easy sin to indulge in because it doesn't entail the loss of character the loss of health or the loss of wealth which is very often the punishment for other sins and it can be indulged in with apparent immunity and it's no always easily detected and it often wears the guise of virtue and holiness.

In Herod it wore the mask of conscience and it beheaded John the Baptist.

In the Jews it wore the mask of tender regard for God and they killed God's Son.  In the Pharisees it wore the mask of purity of life and so sailing magnificently by the sinful women lest his robe should be defiled by the touch of hers it looks down and says I'm holier than thou.  And pride is deadly.  It cost Nebuchadnezzar his reason.  It cost Hezakiah his kingdom.

It cost almost Peter his life.  It cost man Eden.  It doomed Sodom.  It sprang up in angels bosoms and cost them heaven.  It cost Haman his life.

It gave Hezziah leprosy and so it goes.  Pride damns men.  In Job 23 verse, pardon me, Job 35 verses l2 and l3 the Bible says, "The pride of evil men surly God will not hear vanity".  In Psalm 10:4, "The wicked through the pride of his countenance will not seek after God.  God is not at all in his thoughts."  And God was not in Simon's thoughts, Simonves in Simon's thoughts.  Psalm l2:3 says:  "The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaketh proud things".  Proverbs ?:l?  and l7 says, "These .

does the Lord hate", and then it goes on to say, "these are an abomination to Him", and the first one it lists is a proud look.  Psalm 101:5; "A proud heart will I not tolerate says God".  Proverbs ?:l3; "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride and arrogance and the evil way do I hate, the Lord said".  Proverbs l6:5, "Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord".  Proverbs l?:l?,"Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall".  Proverbs 2l:4 says, "A high look and a proud heart are sin".  And a man who comes to God must be broken of pride.  In Galatian ?, listen to verse 3, "For if a man thinketh himself to be something when he is nothing he deceives himself".  What is a man?