Yesterday our apostle friends, Peter and John, left Samaria to go back to Jerusalem, leaving the original scattered disciples to continue to do God’s work outside of Jerusalem. Remember Philip from a few days ago? Well he continues in his obedience to God in Acts 8:26-28:

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah.

Isn’t it neat how the angel of the Lord would just talk to these guys sometimes? Don’t you wish he would do that for you? I know I do.

But this was a critical time in the history of the church, and I think God did some very special stuff right then in order to give His church the boost it needed to get on its way throughout the world.

So God tells Philip to go somewhere, and without knowing why, he does it. I think God does that in our lives sometimes, even though He doesn’t necessarily use a voice that we audibly hear. We can feel an “unction� to do something. Maybe you just got the feeling you should call someone you haven’t spoken with in a long time. Maybe you decided to visit a church on one particular Sunday. Perhaps you decided to help out at a homeless shelter or youth group. So often, if we obey when we get that urge, we find that there was someone there who needed our encouragement, or someone was there who gave us what we needed, or we find something that gives us the encouragement we needed to continue on. I just think God still does that kind of thing, but we typically won’t hear His voice directly.

Once Philip obeys and goes to where God told him to go, he runs into the Ethiopian eunuch. What a coincidence, huh? He runs into a guy who is already reading the scripture, so he’s obviously searching for God himself. Tomorrow we’ll see what comes of this “chance� meeting.